R.I.P. Joseph Ettedgui

Image from Vogue.

I just want to post something about the passing of fashion designer and retailer Joseph Ettedgui. You won’t have read about Ettedgui’s death, at age 74, on many blogs, and you may not even have heard of him, because he was always a very modest, low-key figure, both in terms of personality and design: he never attracted attention, nor became part of the fashion world as the sort of global, entertainment circus that we have today. Ettedgui was French-Moroccan, and he lived in London, where he achieved first-name-only status and was known simply as ‘Joseph.’ Under the name Joseph he designed luxurious, understated clothing, which was based around superlative wardrobe staples (tailoring, crisp white shirts, knitwear), which was designed above all to flatter, and with style (rather than fashion) in mind. A generation of women relied on his clothes for effortless, sophisticated city dressing.

He was also a master retailer, whose cool, modern stores in London (and later, in Paris, New York and Tokyo) helped to transform retail, especially perhaps in London where one of his earliest stores, on Sloane Street, that opened in 1979, was designed by the now-superstar architect Norman Foster. The fact that stores today are designed (in theory, at least) to be cool, inviting places which you want to visit, and which are associated with socialising and a certain lifestyle, is largely thanks to Ettedgui, whose sleek stores set a new retail precedent. His shops sold other brands alongside his own, including Azzedine Alaïa, Helmut Lang, Prada and Kenzo, many of which he helped to launch really in London. Of his death, Alaïa said “if everyone were like him, fashion would be saved,” and Miuccia Prada said “his shops are amongst the most beautiful in the world.”

As much as I enjoyed reading about (and occasionally experiencing first-hand) the crazed antics of the flashy fashion set, it is people like Joseph Ettedgui who I admire the most in the industry.