Designer Azzedine Alaïa’s legacy will live on. According to WWD, the French fashion house will continue to show during Fashion Week, presenting both its next ready-to-wear and accessories collections in January and March, respectively. There's no word yet on whether or not Alaïa’s studio director, Caroline Fabre Bazin, will design the collections.
The fashion industry was shocked when the legendary designer unexpectedly passed away last month. Shortly afterwards, WWD revealed that London's Design Museum will be honoring the late couturier's career, creative process, and legacy with a forthcoming exhibit titled “Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier,” set to open in May 2018. The retrospective, which will run through October 2018, has reportedly been in development for the past year and will go on as planned despite Alaïa's untimely passing on November 18 (he was reportedly working closely with the museum on curating the exhibit).
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Beyond the continued presence at Fashion Week and the sure-to-sell-out retrospective, Alaïa is opening its first London store, and the Azzedine Alaïa Association, the designer’s art foundation and organization he started with his life partner Christophe von Weyhe and friend Carla Sozzani, will be renamed the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, which will stage exhibitions exploring fashion and culture, as well as offer a library for researchers.
For sure, these are all initiatives that are carrying on the designer’s legacy in the best way. Because as Alaïa's longtime friend and model Naomi Campbell put it during her tribute to him: “He was the most generous, kind, compassionate, and humble man I have ever known, with a mischievous sense of humor in the glint of his eye, and he filled my life — and the lives of the women on this stage, and all of you in the room who met him — with light and joy. I moved into his home at 16 and he opened my eyes to the world: to artists, art and design, architecture, French and Tunisian culture. How blessed was I to have Papa show me these different worlds? Azzedine was a protector, a teacher, a seeker, and defender of all that is good and positive in this world. I am proud to be honoring, along with his daughters, a giant of fashion and a true master of humanity.”