Alaïa

Azzedine Alaïa (1935-2017) was born in Tunisia, the son of wheat farmers, and lied about his age to enter the École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis at fifteen to study sculpture — a training that would echo through his entire career. He arrived in Paris in 1957, worked briefly at Christian Dior (fired after five days), and then made his living through the 1960s and 70s as a couturier whose private clientele included Greta Garbo, Louise de Vilmorin, and the Comtesse de Blégiers. His own house officially opened in 1979. The vocabulary was singular: stretch jersey treated like clay, leather laced and zippered into second-skin tailoring, knit dresses built to hold and worship the body. Naomi Campbell, Veronica Webb, Stephanie Seymour, and Grace Jones became the muses; the press anointed him 'King of Cling'. Alaïa famously refused to follow the fashion calendar — he showed when he had something to say, sometimes once a year, sometimes not at all. After his death in 2017, the Richemont-owned house was steered by his longtime atelier team until Pieter Mulier was named creative director in 2021. Mulier — a long-time Raf Simons collaborator — has built a contemporary continuation of Alaïa's voice without imitating it, returning the house to the front of fashion week conversation by 2024. The Fondation Azzedine Alaïa in the Marais preserves the original couture archive and runs as a quiet museum of his work.