Sarah Mower shares a personal tribute to the very brilliant mind of the late designer.
A Personal Tribute to the Late, Great Alber Elbaz
The crushing shock of the death of Alber Elbaz from Covid-19, the loss to his family, to all those who have worked for him, to the women he loved, and to those whose lives he brought so much joy to through his clothes is incalculable. Of all the designers in today’s world, Alber was the one whose entire creative modus operandi was based on the warmth of his emotional intelligence and empathy, his ability to see through the nonsenses of fashion and to liberate women from them; to see us as friends. Whether you knew him or not, his thoughtful, witty, insightful character—his honest, spontaneous, metaphor-strewn way of lighting up every conversation—made every listener feel they were in a two-way personal relationship with him. “We’re not here to transform women, we’re here to hug them,” he recently said.
That uplifting, comforting, inimitably inspiring remark came over a Zoom conversation with Alber in January, the last time I spoke to him with my colleague Nicole Phelps, global director of Vogue Runway. He was previewing his much-anticipated comeback with the launch of AZ Factory. His new label promised a whole new way of hacking the problems of the fashion system to offer women a modern “solutions-based” collection—making his leaving all the more terribly heartbreaking.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Sarah Mower
