Fashion designer Alber Elbaz dies from Covid-19<

A glass and metal case signed Jean Nouvel. A thousand square meters bathed in light, on the third floor of the Cartier Foundation, crossed by the incessant comings and goings of computer developers, hand-grafted laptop computers, and designers, sewing needle in their mouths. We are in the headquarters of couturier Alber Elbaz: AZ Factory, the first 100% digital luxury fashion house, exclusively focused on e-commerce. The Richemont group, world number 2 in luxury, is participating in the financing of the project. An ideal partner and accomplice for the “startuper” Elbaz. Online luxury sales increased by 50% in 2020 and, on the Web, the giant Richemont's strategic alliances with leaders in the accessories and fashion trade are promising: Yoox, Net-a-porter, Farftech and the titanic Chinese Alibaba which, in 2020, was close to a billion customers!

No more lavish shops, long live the virtual tools dedicated to the “Alber & Friends” and private conversations with her VICs (“very important clients”). In the "fashiontech" AZ Factory, the rhythm of the sewing machines mixes with the clicks of the Apple keyboards while, in the central aisle which serves the sewing workshop and the offices with the latest technological equipment, Hana, beautiful like a manga heroine, red skirt edged with lace, wears an oversized “everything is recorded” T-shirt – “everything is recorded”. Allusion to the “spyness” of the digital world. That is clear. Further on, a stylist, his needle cushion on his wrist, scrutinizes on his computer screen the coded programs of "molecular fabrics" - high-tension viscose and Lycra materials - certified recycled and without chemical products, created especially for Alber Elbaz. At AZ, “gen Z” – understand the generation born with social networks – speaks all languages. English cut from French and mixed with Spanish and the language of sewing skills, augmented with expressions from the era of artificial intelligence. Adaptive algorithms, visual recognition, inferences, digital showrooms and avatars form the creative jargon of the “start-up” Elbaz.

At almost 60 years old, when others at the same age are stepping down, the peroxide-blonde designer, who compares the upheaval of the Internet in fashion to the invention of the wheel, is setting up his box and shaking the Web. He claims appeasement, a company on a human scale, and does not want to copy or crush others. A “democratic” fashion for all ages, all bodies. At “exclusive prices”, from 210 euros. Elbaz first thinks of women. Before, he admits, he forgot them in favor of the parade or the photogenicity of a silhouette: “To be dressed like an accomplished woman, you had to wear stilettos, run on planes and have straight hair. Beautiful and comfortable clothes, this is the definition of modernity in 2021! He dreams of exchanges and feelings. “We live in a world that is too full of 'likes', without enough 'loves'. His “That is Hugging You” line and his Anatoknit jersey dresses, with clever tensions, enclose the hips, mark the waist and release the bust. “I support the belly but I free the heart! A resurrection for the prodigy of duchess satin drapes, after a traumatic departure, in October 2015, from Lanvin, the oldest French fashion label still in operation. Alber Elbaz had known how to hoist her to the firmament, during her fourteen years of flamboyance and ovations. We had ended up confusing them. Alber and Lanvin, Lanvin and Elbaz became one. Some end of contracts are harder than others. By his own admission, he became “a Charlie Chaplin crying in the rain to hide his tears”, seized by humiliation: “Going out like that… What a wound! This house, I still can't pronounce the name... It was a heartbreak. Going up can be easy. It is staying balanced at the top that is difficult. “An ordeal that he is going through for the second time in his career (in 2000, he broke abruptly with the house of Yves Saint Laurent) and which again leads him to emptiness, to depression.

There followed five years of silence, wandering, traveling the world, being nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The hardest part was imagining the future. Start a new life by the sea? In his own words as a facetious storyteller, he does not like the blazing sun and the sand scratches him. “I needed to fall in love with fashion again. Today, you need 17-year-old designers and 20-year-old CEOs… I wanted to understand Generation Z.”

From then on, Elbaz changed his outlook, traveled to Korea, Europe, the United States, taught fashion, gave conferences, met engineers and clothing technicians. More than anything, he seeks to know this over-informed youth who no longer pounce on pizzas, like him at the same age, but dine healthy and intend to preserve the planet. The click occurs. In 2018, in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, the stylist, digitally clumsy – he has only had an email address since 2015 – learns the free vocabulary of social networks: “Engineers are the designers of today. today, they embody the new world! Fascinated by technology, the designer sketched out the outlines of his future AZ Factory. Everything is accelerating. The Swiss group Richemont, which finances it, aims for a 360-degree revolution: to create the largest and most desirable luxury brand sold on digital platforms. Alber Elbaz, with the humility of an artist before the white canvas, starts from scratch, without ego, without muse. “We cannot remain fixed in our heritage of know-how. We can play heavy metal and keep Mozart. “On January 9, when he receives us on the eve of the online launch of his brand, the “young designer” does not hide his fear but remains optimistic. “Fashion is like roast chicken. You don't have to wonder how to attack it when you eat it. It must be simple, well done, with a lot of love. »

Behind the translucent toilet walls erected on his desk, he walks his good-natured and benevolent look, which he hides thanks to clown tricks. He hates nothing so much as having his portrait taken but exceptionally lends himself to the game of our photo shoot. Overweight, doubly masked, the fear in his stomach of catching this Covid filth, he says, amused, that he checks every two hours in the kitchen if his taste has not left him. "I have to lose weight, but I'm greedy and the discussions around a table warm my heart. Hypochondriac since childhood, he can be summed up as follows: “Jew from Morocco, oversized Israeli, not photogenic. »

Born in Casablanca, Alber Elbaz spent his youth in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. His father, a hairdresser, died when he was little. Her mother, a painter, works in a restaurant to raise her five children. The experience of poverty is part of his legacy. “I'm not from Switzerland; my mother, Allegria, was not dressed in Dior… I led a simple life in Israel, full of warmth, joy and values. We didn't have much, but that was enough. At 5 years old, the kid Elbaz already designs dresses for imaginary queens. Complete collections for the women who make him dream. A way to escape. In his neighborhood, the neighbors predict a future for him as a fashion designer… in Paris. Albert, amputated his first name of the “t”: in the Hebrew tradition, to modify his name, it is to want to change destiny. “At school, I had two schoolbags. One for my books and my notebooks, the other stuffed with papers and colored pencils. We find them by the hundreds on the work table of his dream factory.

Find more photos from our report in issue 3755 of Paris Match, on sale at newsstands.