Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Sunday, Jun 22, 2025

Remembering Alber Elbaz, the Beloved Fashion Designer Who Revived Lanvin

A favorite of celebrities like Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman, he rejuvenated Lanvin and had recently started his own brand. He died of Covid-19.

The fashion industry is mourning the loss of Alber Elbaz, a highly esteemed figure, a Moroccan-born Israeli fashion designer who rejuvenated Lanvin and had recently started a new venture, AZ Factory, who succeeded Yves Saint Laurent as designer of the label’s Rive Gauche line but is perhaps best known for elevating Lanvin into a more prominent house during his 14-year tenure as creative director.




From 2001 to 2015, the Israeli-Moroccan-born couturier experimented with dresses made from a single seam and which effortlessly toed the line between classic and modern. His rigorous attention to detail and masterful tailoring was the stuff of legend, and belied his ebullient demeanor and simple raison d’être of making the wearers of his clothes feel special.

Despite Elbaz’s beloved reputation and numerous accolades, including the CFDA’s 2005 International Award and being named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2007, he often clashed with Lanvin owner Madame Wang over the brand’s lack of an “It Bag” within a fickle fashion market often fueled by accessories. His abrupt departure from the French label was acrimonious, well-documented, and controversial—he embarked on a five-year hiatus marked by global travel before launching his own brand, AZ Factory, in January, on his own terms.



Backed by Swiss luxury company Richemont, AZ Factory strives to make reasonably priced clothes that solve women’s problems and eschew fashion-industry trappings of season and size. Johann Rupert, the founder of Richemont, released the following statement about Elbaz’s death: “I’ve lost not only a colleague but a beloved friend. Alber had a richly deserved reputation as one of the industry’s brightest and most beloved figures. I was always taken by his intelligence, sensitivity, generosity, and unbridled creativity. He was a man of exceptional warmth and talent, and his singular vision, sense of beauty, and empathy leave an indelible impression.”

Elbaz’s passing comes as the fashion industry is still reeling from the recent death of Kenzo Takada, also of Covid-19. For a little-known fact about Elbaz that may leave you with a smile, we recommend visiting Maison Bonnet, the Parisian workshop where he ordered much of his statement eyewear.

Beloved not only by his celebrity clients like Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman but also by his peers, Mr. Elbaz was that rare character in fashion: a truly empathetic and generous designer, both in the clothes he made and in the way he conducted himself within the business. The graceful lines of his dresses mimicked the graceful lines of his life.




“Alber always thought of fashion as an embrace of life at its best,” said Anna Wintour, the global chief content officer for Condé Nast and editor of Vogue. “And when we wore his clothes, or were in his wonderful, joyful presence, we felt that, too.”

Designers like Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino and Stella McCartney all paid tribute to what Mr. Piccioli called one of fashion’s “biggest treasures.”

Mr. Elbaz had launched AZ Factory after a five-year hiatus following his abrupt firing from Lanvin, where he was fashion director from 2001 to 2015. During his time there, he turned Lanvin, the oldest surviving but dusty French fashion house, into a more modern and prominent brand whose creations were worn by the likes of Beyoncé, Lupita Nyong’o, Pharrell Williams, Michelle Obama and Harry Styles.

Mr. Elbaz was known for his self-deprecating humor and his insecurities. He had a fraught, public relationship with his weight and said that being skinny was a fantasy that influenced his work. He transformed that fantasy into lightness, he said, by turning his creations into comfortable and sometimes subtly eccentric clothes.



Ms. Portman once called him the “ultimate fashion philosopher-mentor.”

“He says things to me like: ‘Wear flats. You’re short. It’s much cooler not to pretend,’” Ms. Portman told Time magazine in 2007, when it named Mr. Elbaz one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

In recent years he had become something of a one-man advocate for reform of the fashion system and the pressures increasingly placed on designers.

As he said in 2015, as he received the Fashion Group International award, “We designers, we started as couturiers,” asking: ‘What do women want? What do women need? What can I do for a woman to make her life better and easier? How can I make a woman more beautiful?’”

Then, he said, “we became creative directors, so we have to create, but mostly direct.”

“And now,” he continued, “we have to become image-makers, creating a buzz, making sure that it looks good in the pictures. The screen has to scream, baby. That’s the rule. Loudness is the new cool, and not only in fashion, you know. I prefer whispering.”

The world of intricate dresses, cat walks and red carpets was one that he embraced publicly but remained wary of.

“You have to go back to nothing in order to maintain the dream,” Mr. Elbaz told The New Yorker in 2009. “The moment the dream becomes reality and you start to mingle too much with all these people—” He left the comment unfinished.

Still, luxury clothes came with a price that he readily justified. He once compared a fashion collection to a vaccine — an easy product to duplicate, but not something cheap to create.



Albert Elbaz was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on June 12, 1961, and grew up in Israel. His mother, Alegria, was a painter, and his father, Meyer, a colorist in a hair salon. Though he dreamed of becoming a doctor as a child — he always called himself a terrible hypochondriac — fashion proved a better route to helping people.

After studying design at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art in Tel Aviv in the mid-1980s and a brief stint in the Israeli army, he moved to New York, where he removed the T from his first name so that it would not be mispronounced, and because “Alber Elbaz,” he thought, made for a more balanced brand name.

His survivors include a brother and two sisters as well as his partner, Alex Koo.

In New York, Mr. Elbaz became the assistant designer of Geoffrey Beene. He then moved to Paris in 1996 to become the head of prêt-à-porter design at Guy Laroche. Two years later, Yves Saint Laurent chose Mr. Elbaz to take over as his heir, designing the women’s Rive Gauche ready-to-wear collections for YSL.

That dream, however, was short-lived, as Gucci Group bought the brand in 1999 and Mr. Elbaz was soon fired in favor of Tom Ford. It was a crushing blow and started Mr. Elbaz on his journey questioning fashion.

In 2001, he met Shaw-Lan Wang, a Taiwan-based, Chinese-born former media mogul who was part of a consortium that had purchased Lanvin, and persuaded her to “awake the sleeping beauty,” as he put it. Their partnership led to an aesthetic flowering as Mr. Elbaz experimented with dresses made from a single seam and clothes that managed to be both generous and elegant, straddling the line between classicism and modernism.

“Alber would always tell me, ‘I am just a dressmaker’,” said Ms. Wintour of Vogue. “He was, if by that we mean someone who had the enviable ability to make something women would love to wear — and an incredible instinct for how they would want to feel when they were wearing it.”

Mr. Elbaz received the International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2005 and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2007. In 2016, the French government named him an Officier of the Légion d’Honneur.

Aside from a hit sneaker, however, Mr. Elbaz never quite managed to create the It bag that could power a brand forward in a world driven by accessories, and after repeated clashes with Madame Wang over the future of Lanvin, he was fired, to the shock of the industry.

For the next five years Mr. Elbaz wandered the world, taking meetings in Silicon Valley and Switzerland, dipping in and out of collaborations with brands like Tod’s and Le Sportsac, and trying to decide what to do next.



His answer was a new brand, AZ Factory — which was backed by Richemont, the Swiss luxury company — based on the idea of making clothes to solve women’s problems, at a more accessible price, sold directly to them, without heed of season, size or dictat, using technology at the service of beauty.

“I asked myself, ‘If I was a woman, what would I want?’” Mr. Elbaz told The New York Times in January. “Something that is first comfortable. Something fun. Something that lets me eat a big piece of cake.”

That allowed him to create the most simple things he had ever made, he said — although he had also compared the formation of his new brand to giving birth.

“My hormones are burning,” Mr. Elbaz added. “I’m so itchy. I cry and laugh within seconds.” Still, he said, he was thrilled to be back.



Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
We have new information and breaking details to share about what is shaping up to be a historic air campaign tonight
Six Massive Bombs Dropped on Fordow; Trump: 'A Historic Moment for the U.S., Israel, and the World'
Fordow: Deeply Buried Iranian Enrichment Site in U.S.–Israel Crosshairs
United States Conducts Precision Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites
US strikes Iran nuclear sites, Trump says
Pakistan to nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize.
Israel Confirms Assassination of Quds Force Commander in Tehran
16 Billion Login Credentials Leaked in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Breach
Senate hearing on who was 'really running' Biden White House kicks off
G7 Leaders Fail to Reach Consensus on Key Global Issues
Mass exodus in Tehran as millions try to flee following Trump’s evacuation order
Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect
Vietnam Emerges as Luxury Yacht Destination for Ultra‑Rich
China's Iranian Oil Imports Face Disruption Amid Escalating Middle East Tensions
Trump Demands Iran's Unconditional Surrender Amid Escalating Conflict
Israeli Airstrike Targets Iranian State TV in Central Tehran
President Trump is leaving the G7 summit early and has ordered the National Security Council to the Situation Room
Netanyahu Signals Potential Regime Change in Iran
Analysts Warn Iran May Resort to Unconventional Warfare
Iranian Regime Faces Existential Threat Amid Conflict
Energy Infrastructure Becomes War Zone in Middle East
Iran Conducts Ballistic Missile Launches Amid Heightened Tensions with Israel
Iran Signals Openness to Nuclear Negotiations Amid Ongoing Regional Tensions
Shock Within Iran’s Leadership: Khamenei’s Failed Plan to Launch 1,000 Missiles Against Israel
Trump's Anti-War Stance Tested Amid Israel-Iran Conflict
UK Deploys Jets to Middle East Amid Rising Tensions
Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi Urges Overthrow of Khamenei Regime
Wreck of $17 Billion San José Galleon Identified Off Colombia After 300 Years
Iran Launches Extensive Missile Attack on Israel Following Israeli Strikes on Nuclear Sites
Israel Issues Ultimatum to Iran Over Potential Retaliation and Nuclear Facilities
Black Box Recovered from Air India Crash Site
Coinbase CEO Warns Bitcoin Could Supplant US Dollar Amid Mounting National Debt
Trump to Iran: Make a Deal — Sign or Die
Operation "Like a Lion": Israel Strikes Iran in Unprecedented Offensive
Israel Launches 'Operation Rising Lion' Targeting Iranian Nuclear and Military Sites
Israeli Forces Intercept Gaza-Bound Aid Vessel Carrying Greta Thunberg
IMF Warns of Severe Global Trade War Impacts on Emerging Markets
Syria to Reconnect to Global Economy After 14 Years of Isolation
Israel Confirms Arming Gaza Clan to Counter Hamas Influence
Global News Roundup: From Ukraine's strategic military strikes and Russia's demands and Tensions Escalate in Ukraine, to serious legal issues faced by Britons in Bali and Trump's media criticism, the latest developments highlight a turbulent landscape
U.S. Reduces Military Presence in Syria
Trump Demands Iran End All Uranium Enrichment in Nuclear Talks
Iran Warns Europe Against Politicizing UN Nuclear Report
Paris Saint-Germain's Greatest Triumph Is Football’s Lowest Point
OPEC+ Agrees to Increase Oil Output for Third Consecutive Month
Turkey Detains Istanbul Officials Amid Anti-Corruption Crackdown
Meta and Anduril Collaborate on AI-Driven Military Augmented Reality Systems
EU Central Bank Pushes to Replace US Dollar with Euro as World’s Main Currency
European and Arab Ministers Convene in Madrid to Address Gaza Conflict
U.S. Health Secretary Ends Select COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
×