Fashion designer
Born: February 26, 1935;
Died: November 17, 2017
AZZEDINE Alaia, who has died aged 82, was a fashion designer whose clinging dresses were hugely influential and popular in the 1980s - famously, they featured in Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love video. He was also loved by famous women including Madonna, Lady Gaga and the former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Secretive and known as a fashion rebel, Alaia was based in Paris for decades but did not take part in the French capital's seasonal catwalk frenzy or flashy ad campaigns. Instead, he showed privately on his own schedule, although he was the first to feature Naomi Campbell for catwalk shows.
Sometimes dubbed the "king of cling" for the form-fitting designs he first made popular during the 1980s and updated over the decades, his house's website described him as "the little man in eternal Chinese pyjamas" who "built a legend, that of a rebel designer who worked against the system and its trends".
He was born in Tunis, where his father was a farmer, although his parents separated when he was young and he was largely brought up by his maternal grandparents.
Initially, his ambition was to be sculptor but instead at 17 he won a placement in the atelier of Christian Dior in Paris before working for Guy LaRoche. He then worked privately for a number of wealthy women in Paris in the 1970s.
His break into more mainstream fashion came when the New York department store Bergdorf Goodman asked him to show a collection there and before long his distinctive clothes were attracting attention. Most famously, the models behind Robert Palmer in the Addicted to Love video wore Alaia, but Tina Turner was also a supporter.
The 1990s was less successful for Alaia, with the recession taking its toll, but he re-emerged in 2001 with a retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York in 2001; two years later he gave his first show in ten years. Paris' Palais Galliera also put on a show in 2013.
The French Haute Couture Federation announced Alaia's death without providing details.
Tributes were led by former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay, who recently became director of the United Nations cultural agency Unesco. He described Alaia as a genius who weaved connections among fashion, architecture and fine arts, sculpting creations to magnify women's bodies.
Alaia is survived by his partner, the painter Christoph von Weyhe.
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