Fashion World Mourns Death of Azzedine Ala?a

PARIS — The fashion community poured out tributes on Saturday to Azzedine Ala?a, one of the most iconic couturiers of the modern era whose body-con designs defined Eighties fashion, following his death here at age 77.

The cause of death was heart failure.

The diminutive Tunisian-born designer was known for his structured, exacting tailoring and his refusal to bow to industry timetables and marketing pressures, preferring to work at his own pace.

He gained international fame in the Eighties because of the success of his evening dresses, snug knits and sculpted leathers, and he was nicknamed “The King of Cling” because his clothes fit like a second skin.

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Ala?a counted Carla Sozzani, founder of the concept store 10 Corso Como, and supermodel Naomi Campbell – who called him Papa – among his inner circle. Stars such as Tina Turner, Madonna, Michelle Obama, Grace Jones, Raquel Welch, Victoria Beckham, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus were among his customers.

Sozzani told WWD that Ala?a died peacefully and without suffering. The pair were out and about as recently as Nov. 7, when they attended the opening of an exhibition of Le?la Menchari’s window designs for Hermès at the Grand Palais. Ala?a had known Menchari, a fellow Tunisian, since arriving in Paris in the Fifties.

The designer was deeply respected by his peers, with Rei Kawakubo, Alber Elbaz, Donatella Versace, Rick Owens, Anthony Vaccarello, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Stefano Pilati among those who paid him tribute.

“What I admired most about Azzedine was that he worked with his heart and soul. My deep respect and affection,” Kawakubo said.

“Everything has been said about his work, but I know of nobody as generous and as kind,” added her husband and business partner Adrian Joffe. “He was a beautiful human being. I will so miss getting drunk on vodka with him, his twinkle in his eye and his wicked sense of humor. As Joan Didion said, when a single person is missing for you, the whole world seems empty. Azzedine is missing for all of us who loved him and the world does feel very, very empty.”

The designer’s “I-did-it-my-way” ethos stood out starkly at a time when brands are experimenting with consumer-facing fashion shows, coed formats and trans-seasonal collections – anything to perk up lackluster sales of ready-to-wear in an age of Insta-everything.

“It’s not creation anymore. This becomes a purely industrial approach,” Ala?a told WWD in an interview last year. “But anyway, the rhythm of collections is so stupid. It’s unsustainable. There are too many collections.”

Ala?a, whose brand is owned by Compagnie Financière Richemont, famously liked to present his creations according to his own agenda outside of the show calendar – highly intimate affairs that were held in his Rue de Moussy headquarters in Paris’ Marais district.

“It’s a question of time. There are very few of us in the studio. I have only two assistants, there is nobody else and I do a lot of things myself, especially all the fittings. I don’t just give the drawings and leave,” he explained. “The truth is, I work more than all the others. That’s the difference. I don’t do eight collections, but I’m implicated in everything from the beginning to the end. I even control the deliveries, I look at the stores, what’s working, what’s not.”

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Campbell opened his last couture show in July with, sitting side-by-side front row, Farida Khelfa and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who recalled “the shows here with all the girls, and days and days spent here, sometimes for fittings, sometimes just hanging out.”

Also front row was photographer Jean-Paul Goude who, in one of his signature collage images, immortalized a pint-sized Ala?a leaping into Khelfa’s arms. “I will never take you in my arms like that again and it’s extremely sad,” Khelfa wrote Saturday on Instagram alongside a copy of the image.

“He was the designer’s designer,” said a rueful Elbaz. “He was a master of the work he was doing. He was a true engineer of clothes.”

Elbaz also praised Ala?a’s generosity, for he was always hosting an array of fashion and art-world types in his kitchen, and then repairing upstairs after midnight to work on patterns and prototypes.

“If we talk about empowering women today, he did it, and he did it his way,” Elbaz told WWD. “When women wear Ala?a, you see the woman and then you see Azzedine.”

Asked what he learned from the designer, Elbaz said, “The importance of not having a formula and doing it your way and trusting your intuition and not be part of a system. We saw the freedom in his clothes, the love and the control.”

“Today we lost an indisputable genius,” said Versace. “Both my brother Gianni and myself loved him very much and admired him not only for his unique creativity, but most importantly for the person he was and his huge heart. He left an indelible mark in fashion and [my daughter] Allegra and I will miss him a lot.”

Owens said: “Mr. Ala?a represented an aesthetic purity and integrity that we see so rarely. We are so fortunate that he shared his creative vision with us.”

“A true master who brilliantly combined technique, couture know-how, tradition and modernity,” is how Gaultier recalled him. “The curves of the world’s most beautiful women were sublimated by Azzedine Ala?a.”

“Azzedine Ala?a made me want to do this job: his celebration of women’s bodies and the assurance he gave them have always inspired me,” noted Vaccarello. “I was fortunate enough to meet him recently with Naomi. I was touched by his kindness. I feel sad today, but privileged to have known him.”

Though he defied the industry’s rules, Ala?a earned the respect of its most prominent leaders.

“He succeeded in building, while always maintaining his creative freedom and a smiling independence, a house of great prestige and a highly recognizable aesthetic identity,” said Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH Mo?t Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

“In the fashion world, he was a great, a major couturier,” said Fran?ois-Henri Pinault, chairman and ceo of Kering.

“Everything was at the top with him: couture, art, the standards he aimed at, his dedication to his work, his mastering of techniques, and all the women he dressed. He was an artisan in the noble sense of the term, and a man fiercely attached to his freedom. He was a friend,” he added.

Ralph Toledano, president of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, French fashion’s governing body, said Ala?a was like family. “Going to his place was like going to a second home,” said the executive. “He was exceptionally kind, modest, decent and generous.”

Toledano said Ala?a was also proud of the continued success of his brand since its purchase by Richemont in 2007. The conglomerate invested in staffing, and a three-story flagship in an 18^th-century mansion in Paris that opened in 2013.

“He set his own path, he was courageous, and he did it his way. He never compromised. That’s unique,” he said. “He had everyone at his feet. He played by his rules, but when you saw him, he spoke to you like a brother, like a friend. He was totally humble. He personally dressed the models backstage at his shows.”

Toledano said that although Ala?a was irreplaceable, his brand has a powerful heritage that should ensure its survival. “I think he was the only living designer that invented a style,” he noted.

Sidney Toledano, the outgoing chairman and ceo of Christian Dior Couture – who is unrelated to Ralph Toledano – said he and his Tunisian wife Katia considered Ala?a a close friend and recently dined with him.

“He was in great shape,” he recalled, while noting that Ala?a maintained punishing hours. “He was not a stressed man, but he worked a lot.”

The Dior executive praised Ala?a for his purist approach, which shunned marketing in favor of a focus on product. “He believed in clothes, he believed in creation. He had his own style. He never wavered from this line, with a conviction that commanded respect,” he said. “He had an incredible knowledge of fashion history. He was a big collector. In fact, I think he had a lot of Dior and Balenciaga dresses.”

Indeed, Ala?a acquired bag loads of Balenciaga dresses following the house’s closure in 1968. He subsequently created a foundation to house his collection, which also includes outfits by contemporary designers including Kawakubo, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto and Junya Watanabe.

“He will be remembered as one of the great designers of this century. I always had this dream that he would one day design a Bar jacket to be included in a Dior runway show. He knew it better than anyone. He came to all the Dior shows,” Toledano said.

Chiuri, creative director for women’s wear at Dior, said: “An incomparable master of cut, his work exalted the female body. I was very touched by his support when he attended my first show at Dior, and he leaves behind him an extraordinary legacy that will inspire generations to come.”

Pilati considered Ala?a a model to follow.

“As a designer, you start at early age to want to emulate the masters of fashion that inspire you, and dream one day you will be one of them. Among few, there was always Azzedine,” he said. “Mr. Ala?a was so unique, incomparable, inimitable, and with a power, a vision, a skill, a talent and a style like no other’s.”

Pilati said the designer taught him to appreciate “the importance of letting yourself drown in your research, your scope, your design, your obsessions, your passion.”

As for his uncompromising ethos, Pilati said it was neither a marketing tool nor simple nonconformism “because he was lead by the passion and the love for his work, once fully accomplished in his heart, in his eyes. And in passion as in love, there are no rules: There is all your only and lonely true self.”

Lebanese designer Rabih Kayrouz said Ala?a was one of the last existing couturiers who inspired him. “He designed beautiful clothing until the very last minute,” he said. “His passion, his determination, his vision inspired me enormously.”

Instagram was full of tributes from industry figures including Giambattista Valli, Mariacarla Boscono, Francesco Scognamiglio, Peter Som, Cameron Silver, Fausto Puglisi, Audrey Marnay and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who posted a sketch representing a diminutive Ala?a as “the little boy from Tunis.”

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