Alber Elbaz, the fashion designer whose ‘powerfully pretty’ style rejuvenated the fortunes of Lanvin, has died. The cause was COVID-19.
Joining Lanvin in 2001 as artistic director, Elbaz transformed the house, one of oldest in Paris, into an international brand, shifting focus from menswear to womenswear. Over the following fourteen years until his departure in 2015, Elbaz championed simple elegance balanced with an exuberant use of colour.
‘I wanted to inject some happy moments in the fashion world because we are the industry that creates dreams for men and women around the world, but I saw that many of you are not happy, too.’
The secret he said was to mix innovation and the fantastical, but always with the understanding that fashion should be as enjoyable to wear as it might be to look at. ‘I like the dream, like fantasy dresses. Women can dream at nine in the morning and at 10 o’clock at night, it doesn’t matter. I think it is also important for me to make it pragmatic and practical and wearable. I always say, ‘If you can’t eat it, it’s not food, and if you can’t wear it, it’s not fashion, it is something else.’
Earlier this year he launched his own label, the size-inclusive AZ Factory, with lines that include ‘engineered knitwear that shapes your silhouette’. Elbaz said ‘I am overweight, so I am very, very aware of what to show and what not to show, and I am sure there is a huge link with being an overweight designer and the work I do. My fantasy is to be skinny, you see? I bring that fantasy into the lightness – I take off the corset and bring comfort and all these things I don’t have.’
Elbaz was born in Casablanca, but the family moved to Israel when the boy was ten. After a stint in the the Israel Defense Force and a course at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan, his mother gave Elbaz $800 to go to New York to pursue a fashion career. His first job, in 1985, was at a bridal outfitters before Geoffrey Beene made him his assistant. Moving to Paris in 1996 Elbaz then worked for the French house of Guy Laroche until 1998 when he was appointed creative director of Yves Saint Laurent. After Gucci bought the company and fired him two years later, Elbaz joined Lanvin, his accessible style garnering a 60 percent rise in revenue from 2005 to 2007. In 2016 France awarded him the Légion d’Honneur.
While his work was beloved of celebrities, including Meryl Streep, Sofia Coppola and Natalie Portman (with whom he collaborated, designing the costumes for the latter’s 2016 directorial debut A Tale of Love and Darkness), Elbaz himself eschewed the party lifestyle, describing his role as being more akin to a ‘concierge’s in a good hotel in Manhattan’ who facilitated glamour but otherwise lived an ordinary life.
