la vie alaïa

Azzedine Alaïa occupies a unique place in our present : described as the last of the great couturiers, he changed fashion, transformed the experience of women’s bodies. Couturier hailing from faraway lands, he opened fashion up to the world, and his fashion conquered the world. He passed away on November 18th 2017, he was a sovereign, with a subtle yet powerful personality, he surrounded himself with artists, designers, authors, musicians, dancers, choreographers, actors, superstars and ordinary people ; a dignified man, who maintained Paris in its historical position at the center of the world. He brought together around him a community unlike any other. Every day and every night, he lived his life in public, with this community, gathered beside him at 7, rue de Moussy. One day in 2012, Donatien Grau was invited there. Over the years that followed, he was one of the couturier’s closest friends, and he made the promise that he would one day write a book about him. This work is the accomplishment of that promise.

With La Vie Alaïa, Donatien Grau writes “not a tomb, not a book of grief, but a book of life, where, beyond death [...], Alaïa’s life would appear in all its facets, public or private, poetic or intimate”.