Alaïa
Azzedine Alaïa was born in Tunis in 1935 and studied sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts before moving to Paris in the late 1950s. His training as a sculptor shaped his entire approach to making clothes: he worked by draping and sculpting directly on the model, cutting all his own patterns by hand, approaching the body as a three-dimensional form rather than a flat surface to be covered. He spent five days at Christian Dior before being dismissed due to incorrect immigration papers, then two seasons at Guy Laroche, before opening his own atelier on Rue de Bellechasse in the late 1970s, where he dressed a private clientele that included Greta Garbo and the Rothschild family. In 1979 he met Thierry Mugler, who invited him to design tuxedos for his autumn/winter collection and credited him publicly in the press kit. Mugler subsequently brought fashion journalists to Alaïa's atelier and persuaded him to stage his first New York show at Bergdorf Goodman in 1982. His mastery of stretch fabrics and knitwear allowed him to achieve a precision of fit that defined his work throughout his career. He refused to follow the conventional fashion calendar, presenting collections when he judged them ready rather than to a seasonal schedule. Naomi Campbell, who he met on her first day as a model in Paris, was his muse and closest model collaborator, and the two shared a father-daughter relationship that lasted until his death. His clients included Tina Turner, Grace Jones and Madonna. He died in Paris in November 2017. The Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, established in his Paris home and workshop, holds an archive of over 20,000 pieces collected by Alaïa across his lifetime, from Madeleine Vionnet and Balenciaga to Christian Dior and John Galliano. In 2025 the foundation collaborated with La Galerie Dior on a dual exhibition placing his Dior collection of 600 pieces in dialogue with his own work. Naomi Campbell, who presented his successor Pieter Mulier with the CFDA International Designer of the Year award, wrote that he had honoured rather than replaced Alaïa.
