The Covid Catalog Gone Too Soon Albert Elbaz
The Covid Catalog celebrates Albert Elbaz, of Moroccan
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, was a colorist in a hair salon. Mr. Elbaz was a beloved fashion designer.
He 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 humour 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.
A favourite of celebrities like Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman, he rejuvenated Lanvin and had recently started his own brand. Albert Elbaz loved fashion and helped bridge the gap between classicism and modernism in design. He liked making clothes that solved 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.
