During the 60s and throughout the 70s due to rising labour and fabric costs, haute couture kept on losing money in France. The political events of May and June 1968 accentuated the problems the high fashion industry was living and soon instant fashion became the norm. Brigitte Bardot proclaimed the dead of couture stating it was “for the mémées (grannies)” and ready-to-wear began a long struggle to dominate the catwalks and the life of consumers.
American buyers started to look at Paris as the Mecca of a new young school of designing that produced simple and clear-cut collections for everybody. “The tide has changed in French ready-to-wear,” the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune wrote in 1963, “…obscure, cheaply priced and formerly neglected houses are stealing the show from Paris big names. The reason is that they turned over the styling of their collections to a group of new, young and original designers.” A new figure was soon born, the styliste, a ready-to-wear designer, who created clothes not for the elites, but for ordinary people. Many new designers and fashion labels contributed to make fashion accessible to men and women, among them there was also Edmund “Ted” Lapidus, who died yesterday at 79 of respiratory failure in a Cannes hospital, after suffering for years of leukaemia.
The son of a Russian tailor who emigrated in France, Lapidus was born in 1929 in Paris. The young designer launched his label in 1951 after returning from Japan where he had researched an advanced technological system to industrially produce high quality garments. Though he first became known for his haute couture creations, it’s his prêt-à-porter unisex line that turned him into an instant success. His military and safari jackets sold millions, he launched padded shoulder jackets and turned denim into a haute couture fabric.
A member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture since 1963, Lapidus also dressed a few movie stars, among them Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon. Throughout the 80s and 90s the ownership of the brand changed frequently and Ted's son Olivier, after working in Japan under the pseudonym Olivier Montagut, took over the leadership of his father’s haute couture house, though in the last few years Ted Lapidus’ label was mainly known for producing small accessories and perfumes.
Ted Lapidus will be buried on Friday at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. He is survived by his sister, Rose Torrente-Mett, owner of her own fashion house, Torrente, and son Olivier.
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