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Friday 29th of March 2024

Nairobi, Kenya

Fashion Icon: Dame Vivienne Westwood Passed Away at The Age of 81.

Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has sadly died today, aged 81, according to a statement released on the designer’s Twitter account. The designer passed away surrounded by her family in Clapham, South London.

In a statement posted at 9:04pm this evening [29 December] the designer’s house said: “29th December 2022. Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London. The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”

29th December 2022.

Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London.

The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better. pic.twitter.com/YQwVixYUrV

— Vivienne Westwood (@FollowWestwood) December 29, 2022
Vivienne Westwood rose to fame in the 1970s, bringing in punk to the mainstream and opening up her store Let It Rock with her then partner Malcolm McLaren.

Over the years her designs have been worn by celebrities including Dita Von Teese, Sarah Jessica Parker and Princess Eugenie.

Westwood was also known for her activism work, often bringing attention to causes including climate change.

In 2006 she was made a dame for her services to fashion.

Vivienne’s husband and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler has said: “I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.

“We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with.”

Other tributes have also begun to pour in from celebrities and politicians including Mayor of London Sadiq Khan who tweeted: “Vivienne Westwood was a creative icon who helped cement the UK at the very forefront of modern fashion. My thoughts are with her family and friends.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season one winner The Vivienne tweeted: “Vivienne Westwood is the woman that showed me I could do anything, I could wear what I wanted, she was an ICON and I lived my life through hers in some sorts of way. There will never be another, but we’ll continue your fight.”

TV presenter Johnathan Ross has also tweeted his condolences saying: “RIP the great Vivienne Westwood. Unique. Brilliant. Uncompromising. Thanks Viv x.”

Content courtesy of Cosmopolitan Magazine & NFH

Renowned French fashion designer Pierre Cardin dies at age 98

Legendary French fashion designer Pierre Cardin died Tuesday at the age of 98 at a hospital in Neuilly in western Paris, his family told AFP.

Born on July 7, 1922, in Venice, Italy but emigrated to France as a small child, Pierre Cardin was known for savvy business moves and his space-age designs that made him highly successful

Iconic French designer Pierre Cardin, who was hailed for his avant-garde styles in the 1960s and 70s, has died at the age of 98, according to the French Academy of Fine Arts. The academy did not give a cause of death or say where or when he died.

Cutting his teeth working at top couture houses such as Christian Dior, Cardin went on to launch his own brand and pioneered the use of licensing in fashion, plastering his label’s name on products of all kinds. His savvy business sense brought him a mix of admiration but also scorn from fashion purists at the time.

In the 1960s and ’70s, he upended traditional fashion with his futuristic, avant-garde looks. He became known for his visionary creations, shaking up fashion with bubble dresses and geometrical designs. Cardin was also one of the first to bring high fashion to the masses by selling collections in department stores beginning in the late 1950s.

While he no longer presented runway collections in his later years, Cardin remained active in the industry, attending parties and events and taking young designers under his wing.

He had previously been a mentor to prominent designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier.

According to Reuters, “In a career spanning more than 60 years, Cardin drew scorn and admiration from fellow fashion designers for his brash business sense. He maintained that he built his business empire without ever asking a bank for a loan. Cardin was the first designer to sell clothes collections in department stores in the late 1950s, and the first to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food – now a major profit driver for many fashion houses.”

According to Britannica.com, Cardin’s father was a wealthy French wine merchant who wanted him to study architecture but he was interested in dress designing. After World War II, he joined the Parisian fashion house of Paquin, where he helped design costumes for Jean Cocteau’s film Beauty and the Beast. He also worked at the couture house of Christian Dior.

In 1950, he opened a shop of his own and gradually gained a solid reputation as a men’s suit maker. In 1959, he created one of the first ready-to-wear collections for women, and in 1960 introduced the first designer ready-to-wear collection for men.

“I had a sense for marketing my name,” Cardin had told Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in 2007. “Does money spoil one’s
ideas? I don’t dream of money after all, but while I’m dreaming, I’m making money. It’s never been about the money.”

He was most noted for his stark, short tunics and his use of vinyl, helmets, and goggles in the 1960s, which helped launch the so-called space-age look. Cardin later became famous for licensing his name for use on a variety of products (such as sunglasses). The practice of licensing subsequently became common for fashion designers.

 

Gowns and bodysuits in fluorescent spandex were fitted with plastic hoops that stood away from the body at the waist, elbows, wrists, and knees. Bubble dresses and capes enveloped their wearers in oversized spheres of fabric. Toques were shaped like flying saucers, bucket hats sheathed the model’s entire head with cutout windshields at the eyes, reported AP.

For his latest venture in February this year he teamed up with a designer seven decades his junior. Pierre Courtial, 27, unveiled a collection at Cardin’s studio on Paris’s chic Rue Saint-Honore, with pieces that echoed some of the veteran designer’s geometrical aesthetics.

Cardin said he still rated originality above anything else.”I’ve always tried to be different, to be myself,” Cardin had told Reuters. “Whether people like it or not, that’s not what matters.”

Content courtesy of France 24, Indian Express & Nairobi fashion hub 

French Fashion Icon Hubert De Givenchy Dies at the Age of 91

Hubert de Givenchy, the aristocratic French fashion designer whose understated style represented a golden age of elegance, has died aged 91.
Givenchy dressed Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy and is famous for the “little black dress”. He died at the Renaissance chateau near Paris that he shared with his partner and fellow designer Philippe Venet.

At 6ft 6in tall, Givenchy, whose full name was Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy, was a giant of the fashion world in every sense.He created on- and off-screen wardrobes for Hepburn for films including Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Funny Face. His enduring muse, Hepburn inspired Givenchy’s first perfume, l’Interdit, and is credited with the designer’s subsequent success and popularity in the US.
Givenchy, who learned his trade from another fashion master, Cristóbal Balenciaga, produced restrained designs of what admirers called an “extreme elegance” that became his trademark. His creations were eagerly awaited and sought out by the titled and wealthy in the 1950s and 60s, including Princess Grace of Monaco and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.

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