Loris Azzaro
| File:Logo-Azzaro.jpg | |
| Industry | Fashion |
|---|---|
| Founder | Loris Azzaro |
| Products | Haute couture, ready-to-wear, perfume, jewellery, accessories |
| Website | www |
Loris Azzaro (9 February 1933 – 20 November 2003) was a French-Italian fashion designer. He was born in Tunisia of Sicilian parents and went to Paris to set up his cloth and perfume lines in 1962. By 1968 his business was a huge success. He was well known for making glamorous party dresses for the elite of French society. Often his creations featured ornate beading and daring cut outs. He was also known to use brightly colored chains woven onto shirts to make intricate chainmail dresses and tops. Over the course of his long career he dressed numerous celebrities including Dalida, Sophia Loren, Raquel Welch, Marisa Berenson, Claudia Cardinale, Isabelle Adjani, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Nicole Kidman.
Azzaro's collections are always named alphabetically by season. The first season's collection featured clothing all given names starting with an A, the next with B names and so on. Azzaro admitted that he would sometimes skip a letter like Q, X or Z because it was too hard to find names for those letters.
Azzaro released a wide range of products including women's and men's clothing lines and accessories as well as a wide range of fragrances. in 1975 he created his first fragrance for women, "Couture", which became his signature scent. Over time Azzaro became known for his fragrances as much as his clothing. His favourite colour was blue as he quoted: "The blue colour is the colour that suits me". His inspirations came from the surroundings of his country of birth, Tunisia: "I let myself get carried by the atmosphere of the country of my childhood with its spiced odors, its colors, its flowers and its perfumes. It is the country where I really become myself, the country where my preferred color is everywhere, azure of the sea and the sky.”
Loris Azzaro died at the age of 70 in Paris France in November 2003.
In November 2003, French designer Vanessa Seward took over as head designer of the Azzaro label until 2011.
In October 2006, a new chapter of the renaissance opens up when the Andorran group Reig makes the acquisition of the company Azzaro. The Reig group is an essential actor of the economy of the Principality of Andorra, assets in seven countries, in the areas of de luxe hotel business, estate, tobacco, bank and fashion.
Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejon took over from Vanessa Seward as artistic directors of the house, and presented their first collection in June 2013.
