Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa looks back on his glittering career
As the Azzedine Alaïa retrospective draws crowds in Paris, Elisabeta Tudor talks to the Tunisian designer about his glittering career
It's impressive how much devotion one designer can inspire. Supermodel Linda Evangelista, in the late 1980s, said that to work for Azzedine Alaïa, "we do whatever we can to change our dates, or cancel other shows, because we all love Azzedine".
The Tunis-born, Paris-based womenswear designer is undoubtedly the supermodels' favourite since the early '80s. Even at the opening of his latest retrospective, an eponymous exhibition at the newly opened Palais Galliera in Paris, Naomi Campbell would follow his every step.
He approaches his clothes like a sculptor or an architect or a writer
Few people know that Campbell was discovered by Alaia, and used to adopt his last name as a joke, pretending to be his daughter.
So how did Alaïa, so-called "king of cling", manage to maintain success throughout the decades, without any obvious commercial strategy?
"You have to live surrounded by the things and people you love," he explains over lunch at his Paris atelier. "This is the only way to keep your memories alive, and to forge yourself a strong identity."
The Alaia DNA is strong indeed. His collections are subtly sophisticated - and timeless. "He approaches his clothes like a sculptor or an architect or a writer, and he often says, 'I make clothes; women make fashion'," says Galliera Museum director Olivier Saillard, who curated the retrospective.
