Fashion Designer Alber Elbaz Dies At 59 From COVID-19

Israeli fashion designer Alber Elbaz has died at the age of 59. The designer, known for his work at France’s Lanvin fashion house, died from COVID-19 on Saturday at a Paris hospital.

“It was a shock and enormous sadness that I heard of Alber’s sudden passing,” Richemont chairman Johann Rupert said in statement. “Alber had a richly deserved reputation as one of the industry’s brightest and most beloved figures.”

He continued, “I was always taken by his intelligence, sensitivity, generosity and unbridled creativity. He was a man of exceptional warmth and talent and his singular vision, sense of beauty and empathy leave an indelible impression.”

Elbaz was born in Morocco in 1961, but he grew up in Israel. He later moved to New York in the 1980s. His first big break in the fashion world was in 1996 when he lead the Guy Laroche fashion house in Paris. Two years later, he was named the creative director at Yves Saint Laurent. From 2001-2015 he worked with the Lanvin house.

Before his death, Elbaz was working to create his own label, AZfashion, in a collaboration with Richemont.

“For 14 years, the visionary genius of Alber Elbaz led Lavin at the top of the international fashion,” Roselyn Bachelot-Narquin, France’s Culture Minister, said in a statement. She also praised Elbaz’s “intelligence, humor and great creativity that changed the fashion world.”