Azzedine Alaia - The All-Things Azzedine Alaia Thread

[JJohnson]

I love his clothing...I remember seeing his rack when I was at Barney's for the very first time! OMG I feel in love! I loved his rack, Balenciaga, and Narcisco Rodriduez! Overall I LOVE BARNEYS LOL

 

[DosViolines]

Little Big Man (NYT)

source: nytimes.com

February 26, 2006
Little Big Man

Roxanne Lowit
Azzedine Alaïa in Paris in 1986 with, from left, Iman, Katoucha and Grace Jones.

By JOAN JULIET BUCK
In 1981, France elected a Socialist president and went into shock as the national identity changed from a tight maze of white faces in navy-blue suits to a crazed torrent of diversity. For the bicentennial parade in 1989, the artist Jean-Paul Goude filled the Champs-Élysées with floats from Senegal, Guinea, Maghreb and the Soviet Union, and it was Jessye Norman who sang the "Marseillaise" draped in the French flag.


In 1981, Azzedine Alaïa had just moved beyond making dresses for private customers when a fashion editor named Nicole Crassat featured him and his clothes in Elle. Alaïa is a short and coyly ageless Tunisian given to secrets, grudges and giggles. His private customers then included wives, mistresses and the 1930's film star Arletty. His clothes, as seen in Elle, were black or red, knit or leather, unadorned beyond the occasional frieze of silver grommets.


Sex was everywhere. European stylists had discovered metal rings, studs and dog collars in Greenwich Village sex shops at the height of the 70's obsession with S-M; Crassat had featured the black rubber skirts of hookers in Elle. Alaïa skillfully used exaggeration and compression to shape the silhouette of a sober, stern and highly sexual nun. The sex nun as fashion totem coincided with the spread of AIDS.


It took nerve to dress like an Alaïa woman, and patience to undress. The basic outfit involved a tight knee-length skirt and an hourglass wool sweater, both impenetrably black. The sweater did all the work: large, rounded pads at the shoulders made the waist look tiny; press studs fastened the severe neckline tight at the nape; the sleeves began in a batwing shape but narrowed so much at the forearms that you could barely pull them on. No air came between sweater and torso: a pair of press studs held it closed at the crotch. Lovingly held by the tight black armor and the relentless company of the little press studs, you walked into any room furiously on display and — secretly — never alone. Robert Palmer's 1986 video "Addicted to Love" expressed it best. Four women, their hair scraped back and their lips red, braless in black Alaïa minidresses, idly rocked their breasts and their guitars, gorgeous, indifferent, distracted, in tune only with themselves.


Alaïa's clothes are no longer quite so black. His hidden store in the Marais displays garments he may have designed 15 years ago or last month. You had better not ask. Alaïa disdains the cycles of fashion. In 25 years, he has shown very few collections, and is rarely in magazines because editors want only this season. Alaïa the man can best be seen in various guises in the book "So Far So Goude," published by Assouline last November. Along with the Jamaican Grace Jones, the Algerian Farida and the Korean Karen, Alaïa is a favorite model of Jean-Paul Goude.

 

[amor]

i love this: it took nerve to dress like an alaia woman,and patience to undress.

 

[sea of stitches]

There is a section at Dover Street Market for him as well.

 

[DosViolines]

It's a bit of an old interview, but I thought hey, maybe they'll be interested

source: findarticles.com

Azzedine Alaia - Interview
Interview, Jan-April, 2001 by Veronica Webb


AFTER LAYING LOW FOR A SPELL, THE RULE-BREAKING CULT DESIGNER IS BACK IN A BIG, BIG WAY


I first met Azzedine Alaia in 1984, when I was hired by him as a model. Best-known for his skin-tight sculptural silhouettes, he is among the most influential designers of the last twenty years. He earned this reputation by being one of the last of the purists. He's also earned a reputation for being his own worst enemy, which stems at least in part from his reluctance to adhere to any show schedule or shipping obligation. He delivers a collection when he is ready, not when a schedule says he has to. This is a man who would rather destroy his own business than compromise his standards. And he has come dangerously close to letting it all go more than once, since he insists on personally constructing each prototype himself--from paper pattern to finished garment, including sewing--rather than relying on the help of design assistants. But because of this legendary insistence on perfection (and despite his refusal to follow traditional fashion schedules), he's remained a darling of retailers, editors, pop stars, and models.


Alaia's staying power is something that's become especially evident in the last few months--this fall he treated his fans to a new and much-anticipated collection (sales are reportedly brisk), as well as an exhibition of his work, presented by the Brant Foundation in New York's SoHo. A variety of things have contributed to this renaissance. For one, the current revival of '80s fashion means that Alaia, who helped define the sexy, aggressive-yet-feminine look of the decade, is a central reference point. Another factor is the recent announcement that Alaia and the Prada Group have reached a partnership agreement which seems to perfectly reflect what these two companies are all about: "to realize a program of common work" and to continue "the tradition of prestige and quality in the house of Alaia." The Prada Group, which owns Prada, Miu Miu, and Church's Shoes and has partnerships with Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, and Fendi, also plans to establish a Paris-based archive of Alaia's past and future works.



VERONICA WEBB: I've been trying to get you on the phone for hours--where have you been?


AZZEDINE ALAIA: [laughs] I've been running all day.


VW: What's going on?


AA: Discussions, things, that's all. I couldn't even work on the clothes.


VW: Big business, eh?


AA: Exactly.


VW: It's one in the morning for you [in Paris], which I know is typically when you really get down to creating. I'm sure you must be working on something.


AA: Always.


VW: What are you doing for your next collection?


AA: Not much so far.


VW: So it's only a dream at this point?


AA: You're funny tonight--like a cop with a ton of questions... Are you taking notes or what?


VW: I'm recording you and I'm taking notes.


AA: OK, because I didn't hear you for a moment there. I was like, Where did she go? Is she making a lemon tart?


VW: No. not tonight. It's made already--I'm all yours. So tell me about your partnership with the Prada Group. I don't normally think of you as the kind of designer who would be anything other than totally independent.


AA: That's true, but it's different with Patrizio Bertelli [CEO of the Prada Group]. He's interesting for me because he understands how I need to work. And having his muscle behind us will make working easier.


VW: But sometimes even though a cash infusion can make things easier, it can also bring pressure.


AA: We all need pressure, though. If you don't have it, you don't move, you don't go the extra mile. Do you know what I mean?


VW: Yes, true. But the only real progress I've ever known you to care about was in terms of your technique as a designer.


AA: Yes, yes, yes.


VW:... Are you taking notes?


AA: No. Why would I take notes? I'm not the one writing. What, I'm going to write the article? This girl is out of her mind.


VW: [laughs] OK, but back to my question. Do you think designers need to have partners these days?


AA: Yes, it's necessary because now more than ever you need the muscle. It's good to have a partner. It's true for both [Jean Paul] Gaultier and me--we both came to a point where we had done all we could on our own. What the Prada Group offered me was totally interesting, you know. They haven't asked me to change how I work or to meet specific quotas or anything. They were interested in the way I work and think about things. Situations like that are rare.


VW: As a model I had the opportunity to see a lot of different designers at work, including you, and you work in a very special way. I never saw someone spend as much time on the actual creation of the clothes as you.


AA: That's the point, you know. I'm alone. We're one of the big names, and yet, we are a small house, as far as the number of employees go. But in terms of the work, it all has to get done.


VW: Yes. But you're strict with your vision.


AA: I ask a lot from myself. When I love, I do everything I can.


VW: In your case, it's almost obsessive.


AA: You're right.


VW: You work slowly, by hand. How does that affect your business?


AA: My business is doing all right. I don't do regular shows, so I am able to work more slowly.


VW: Let's say someone is reading this interview, someone who is just starting off in design--what advice would you give them based on your earliest experience?


AA: That's tough. It's not the same anymore, times are different, you know. The '80s were another story. Things change very, very quickly now.


VW: Do you think it's because of companies like H&M, Club Monaco, even the Gap?


AA: Yes. The mentality has changed, you know. There are things that aren't expensive and yet are good. You can get style for cheap now. Even you and I have turned to sneakers. I never used to wear them, but they're no longer the same. They've become beautiful, like shoes.


VW: When it comes to designer labels, luxury is a big subject nowadays.


AA: Yes, yes. Totally.


VW: How were you taught to think of luxury when you were training?


AA: There was ready-to-wear. And there was couture--that was the luxury. It was another world then. It was different. Now you can have good fabric and the cut is important [which is what elevates the design to "luxury"]. And there can be really fine fabric that isn't interesting. It all depends on what you do with it.


VW: As a designer, what does a piece have to have for you to feel proud of it?


AA: Good fabric. We use really good fabric. But just because something's quality doesn't mean it's better. There are good quality fabrics that are old [in terms of design].


VW: You've always had an interest in contemporary art--you commissioned Julian Schnabel to design your shops in Paris [on Rue de Moussy] and in New York [which closed in 1991]. Are you interested in any young painters or sculptors at the moment?


AA: Me? All the kids coming onto the scene are interesting. When you're in fashion, you always have to be aware of everything. There are some I like. And even those I don't, I still find interesting.


VW: Your great advertising coup of the early '90s was that you had all the models wearing your clothes all the time.


AA: Yes, when I make clothes, the girls wear them. Even when I don't do a show, the clothes are out there.


VW: Right now it's being said more and more that people are inspired by your work.


AA: Yes.


VW: And I see the influence of the '87 and '88 collections everywhere, in details, on the chest, on the butt.


AA: Yes. Now everyone is interested in the butt.


VW: They always have been. You didn't invent the butt.


AA: Of course not. The butt has always existed.


VW: But you made it better.


AA: I worked with nature.


Veronica Webb is Interview's Editor at Large.


COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

 

[softgrey]

wow-veronica webb...
that's a blast from the past...

 

[bearbrick]

Alaia is alive and kicking

Azzedine Alaia is very much alive and kicking indeed and in the marais at that.B) ... and he is also in the hospitality business now ....modelled on carla sozzani's 3 rooms at 10 corso como....i must admit that no one looks better in Alaia than the goddess herself Grace Jones ...!!


i should have bought more of his stuff which were aplenty in the early 80s when they were sold at Browns , London...just to collect mind you.. ....

 

[GivenchyPrincess]

I saw a beautiful pair of Alaia shoes, last week.

When I am next in Paris, I will definately try and check out the Marais store.

 

[metal-on-metal]

It really is Alaia's moment again. All we've heard for the last three seasons is Alaia and Balenciaga, Alaia and Balenciaga...two great creative geniuses. It's nice to see them get their due again.

 

[thuyanat]

i adored the white dress Carrie wore on SATC!

 

[KhaoticKharma]

Quick question- is it a-LIE-uh, a-LAY-uh or either way you want?

 

[brian]

It really is Alaia's moment again. All we've heard for the last three seasons is Alaia and Balenciaga, Alaia and Balenciaga...two great creative geniuses. It's nice to see them get their due again.

... ....

 

[fuchimama]

From 1991:


10 Years Ago, Alaïa Launched His Revolution : Landmark for King of Curves
By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, September 3, 1991

If there were any justice in this (fashion) world, Azzedine Alaïa would be a worldwide household name, instead of a cult hero. It is 10 years since the small, shy, Tunisian-born designer launched the body-conscious stretch looks that have defined the way an entire generation dresses and become the fashion revolution of the last decade. .
"Ten years? Yes, it is ten years!" said Alaïa at his Paris studio in the Marais, where he will open a boutique (decorated with panels by the New York painter Julian Schnabel) this month. While other designers celebrate landmark years as rites of passage, Alaïa will not be marking these first 10 years. Nor does he even admit the overwhelming influence on fashion of his ideas. .
"Who can really say who invents something first in fashion?" he says. "I had used the stretch materials for years to shape the inside of garments I made for private clients. Then I just started using them on their own. And look at the corset effects I have done in my new collection. They go back to the 18th century, even if no one had done them in knit before." .
The corsets in question include a lightly-boned version of the "body" - the one-piece foundation that was another of Alaïa's gifts to the fashion world. Other outfits in his new collection are made with a network of openwork seaming tracing the shape of the body without constricting it and revealing flesh in a subtle way. The thrust of the top halves is designed not just for sex appeal (although that never seems far from Alaïa's fashion vision), but also to balance the new mid-calf lengths. The designer who was the master of the skimpy skirt, showed, in a big collection, almost entirely skinny skirts falling to mid-calf. .
"IT is time to change," he says. "But you have to show them with high heels, or the long length looks drab." The alternative was a shorter skirt, flared at the front, cut on the bias, with a wrap at the back - a masterpiece of fashion origami that shows the designer's technical skill with the scissors. .
Alaïa, who originally studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Tunisia, and worked briefly with Thierry Mugler, launched his clingy line in 1981 - at the moment when fashion was entering the oversized, androgynous era. His body-conscious clothes seemed a deliberate challenge - throwing down a sexist gauntlet in a feminist world. The first collection included riveted gauntlets in the glove-soft leather that has become one of the hallmarks of his designs. Big leather riding coats and curvy wool jackets - shown this season with the skinny skirts, 1940s hairstyles and high-heeled ankle boots - are the commercial heart of Alaïa's line. .
Ah commerce! It is hard to believe that Alaïa himself has ever made a commercial decision. While the mass-market has fed off his clinging styles for at least seven years, he works in the back room, head down, perfecting the patterns that he cuts entirely himself. His lack of interest in self-promotion is legendary. He does not speak English. He does not like airplanes. Another designer might have used his power as King of the Curves to take on quick-buck licensees for undies, swimsuits or exercise clothes - or even raised backing for a chain of boutiques. Alaïa prefers to work to his own standards and an idiosyncratic time scale. .
As it is, Bergdorf Goodman (which stopped carrying the line in 1985 after a contretemps with the designer) will put Alaïa back in the store this fall. .
The autumn collection was shown months after all other designers, who present in March, on a steamy Saturday night at the end of July, when the entire fashion world had left for vacation. Only the unswerving loyalty of the world's top models - Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Elle MacPherson - kept them in town. Alaïa was the first to put them on the runway, thus starting yet another fashion trend of making models into superstars. He created a fluffy-bunny white outfit in which Naomi Campbell paraded mouthing the words of her newly launched pop record. .
The recurring themes of the collection were the shapely tops and long skinny skirts, leopard prints and fabrics with a tactile feel, from fake fur, to a new boiled-up knit and sloppy Joe tunic sweaters in fruits-of-the-forest colors: hawthorn orange, bilberry and cranberry. .
"There is a sensuality about fabric," says Alaïa. "I think all materials should be inviting when they touch the skin. When I watch children stroking their mother's clothes, I feel that I have succeeded." .
ALAIA'S secret - and the reason why his clothes have such a faithful following - is his research into materials and above all the way he cuts them. .
"Although I was working with stretch from the beginning, I never made tubes," he says. "Jersey was always cut and pieced together. And these knits are not printed; the jacquard knit is worked to make the pattern fall like this." .
He is holding a body suit with a butterfly motif, inspired by Arletty, who is one of his heroines. The suit sashayed down the runway spreading colorful wings across each buttock. Copyists would just splash on a print to give the same effect - but not, of course, the same fit. .
The irony of Azzedine Alaïa's work is that whereas his look has been molded to the mass market by using Lycra, his own versions are painstakingly crafted with traditional dressmaking skills. Alaïa started his career as a dressmaker whose name was passed by word of mouth among chic Parisian women. And he still has as clients or customers women who look to him to iron out or reshape the little bulges. .
So while many women have rejected the body-hugging look as only for the young with beautiful bodies, the unsung fashion hero who started it all aims to dress every woman so that her body looks a cut above the rest.

 

[happyguy]

All Hail The King Of Cling!!

 

[fuchimama]

a-LIE-uh

 

[Jacque Marcel]

My first introduction to Alaia was when Naomi wearing a red dress with a heart on it that was suppose to deflect radiation or something. Also, did Herve Leger work for Alaia or did he just copy his stuff?

 

[DosViolines]

Azzedine Alaïa dress


source

Scanned by susie_bubble from Vogue (Paris), April 2006

 

[susie_bubble]

I am REALLY into Alaia at the moment - I don't have the body to wear his stuff but I think it looks amazing on lots of women! He really does connect with female form but not in that obvious sl*tty way. His clothes are really quite empowering.

 

[Whitelinen]

Please post pictures of your favourites

 

[taz]

his approach is totaly different than other arab designers ...I mean there are no beads, crystal ...& the bling-bling stuff.....it more mature approach to me...
it is all about structure & understanding the body....I respect this man