Joie d Vivre, Wit, Intuition, Empathy—Alber Elbaz Had It All

Reported by Vogue.

It's been five years since Alber Elbaz died of Covid-19, and honestly, we could use more of what he brought to fashion right now. Not just clothes—though his sculptural dresses still live in our closets as the evening wear we reach for when nothing else feels right. What we're missing is his particular alchemy: the joie de vivre, the wit, the intuition, the empathy, and the refusal to overcomplicate things. He designed for how women actually live, not how fashion fantasizes about them.

During his 14 years at Lanvin, Elbaz created a signature visual language that still feels urgent on the runway—the abstract diamanté patches he'd back onto fabric and transform into necklaces, pearls wrapped in black tulle, ribbons that dismantled the rigidity of formal dressing. But the technical innovation wasn't what made him legendary among editors and buyers. It was his radical accessibility as a designer. He'd gather small groups at the Hotel Crillon, show a few pieces with models in an intimate setting, and talk about respecting the women in his atelier, about designing by observing how women navigate jobs, families, bodies. He'd make us laugh. He respected us.

A Blueprint for a Different Kind of Fashion

Compare that to today's spectacle-driven fashion calendar, where most presentations feel engineered and distant. Elbaz's approach—human-scaled, conversational, unpretentious—now reads as almost radical. According to Vogue, designers like Daniel Roseberry have cited Elbaz's sculptural precision and his "love of women" as foundational to their own work. That phrase keeps surfacing: his love of women. Not as muses or abstractions, but as people deserving of clothes that celebrate their bodies and acknowledge their lives.

His legacy isn't purely aesthetic. The AZ Academy, established by the Richemont Group in Milan and named for the first and last letters of his name, was created to honor his memory while building what it calls "smart fashion." The executive program offers scholarships to emerging independent designers, prioritizing both creative and business acumen. Applications close May 20.

The harder lesson Elbaz left behind isn't about pleats or embellishment—it's that fashion doesn't need to be distant to be serious, or exclusive to be excellent.

Read the original at Vogue.