Paris (AFP)
The French designer of Italian origin Emanuel Ungaro died Saturday in Paris at the age of 86, we learned Sunday from his family.
Emanuel Ungaro, who had left the fashion world since 2004, had been "weakened" for two years, a family source told AFP.
"Even if he had left the house, he was still very much in the inspiration. It is a very great loss," said a spokeswoman for the house Emanuel Ungaro.
Born February 13, 1933 in Aix-en-Provence (south) in an Italian immigrant family and having learned the basics of the trade from his father, tailor, he moved to settle in Paris in 1956, where he continued his training with the Spanish fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga, the only master he recognizes.
After a brief stint at Courrèges, in 1965 he opened his own fashion house, then launched his women's ready-to-wear line in 1968, before embarking on men's ready-to-wear in 1973.
In 1980, the one who described himself as a "sensual obsessed" had received the Golden Dice for the best haute couture house.
Over the years, he had built a fashion empire (perfumes, shoes, glasses), bought in 1996 by the Ferragamo family.
From 2001, Emanuel Ungaro, married and father of a daughter, had started to distance himself, before retiring from the world of haute couture in 2004.
Culture Minister Franck Riester praised on Twitter "a huge designer. His name will forever be associated with a certain form of freedom and daring. Fashion owes him a lot".
"Farewell to Emmanuel Ungaro who marked the fashion world with his style made up of drapes, bright shades and prints", for his part, tweeted Claude Montana, a fashion figure of the 1980s.
The French Fashion Institute has for its part reproduced on the social network some quotes from an intervention by Emanuel Ungaro from 2008: "Fashion is above all a craft, the search for style and an individual vocabulary ".
Or "my job is that of + couturier +, I want this expression, and not + creator +, + designer + or whatever, we are couturiers, we must claim this term".
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