Max Azria

Max Azria ( born January 1, 1949 in Sfax, Tunisia ) is a Tunisian- American fashion designer and fashion entrepreneur. He is the managing owner of the fashion house BCBG Max Azria and the world's active textile company BCBG Max Azria Group ( in its own notation: BCBGMAXAZRIAGROUP ). Azria is one of the few personalities who is internationally successful in both profession in the fashion industry.

Biography

Max Azria has been one of six children of a Sephardic olive oil manufacturer and grew up in Paris. At 16 he received his first knowledge in the fashion business. He began studying classical philology but then changed his interest and he worked almost eleven years as a fashion designer for women's fashion. In 1981 he emigrated to Los Angeles, USA. Azria founded there in 1989 his own fashion house BCBG Max Azria. BCBG is an acronym that stands for the ironic phrase " bon chic, bon genre " (about: spruced up, nines ).

Fashion

The fashion brand BCBG Max Azria is defined today as " fashionably innovative, affordable designer women's wear concept for the core target group of active, stylish interested woman between 25 and 35 ". Apart from its own creations of light and elegant designs to Azria is also oriented to the successful ideas and trends of the leading fashion designers. The bandage dress the estimate of its couturier Hervé Léger, a tight-fitting dress, Azria built with colorful patterns and sophisticated styles from a landmark of fashion brand Hervé Léger. Prominent customers of the brand are movie stars and singers like Kate Bosworth, Victoria Beckham, Alicia Keys and Catherine Zeta -Jones. The fashion brand Max Azria Atelier, founded in 2004 manufactures costumes that were worn by prominent U.S. actresses such as Sharon Stone, Halle Berry, Demi Moore and Beyonce Knowles at film galas.

Business

In August 1998, he expanded the first time overseas and bought the economically ailing Parisian fashion house Hervé Léger the conglomerate Seagram from.

From 2001 Azria began to diversify its business in many fashion brands, so that can be served by the children's fashion to accessories to haute couture as much as possible to different needs. This in turn required a flexible organization of the production chain to respond quickly to changes in customer needs. Another business strategy is the cooperation with large retail companies. In December 2006 he began a collaboration with the French retail group Carrefour at first 450 stores in several European countries. With women's clothing brand Manoukian he has continued to grow in Europe, so he cooperated with Harvey Nichols in London and in Germany with Breuninger and Peek & Cloppenburg. Azria launched in June 2009 with the young star actress Miley Cyrus a youth fashion line for Wal -Mart.

Furthermore Azria focused on the acquisition of fashion houses that are in financial difficulties. In addition to the French fashion houses Alain Manoukian and Herve Leger, this was among other things a takeover of ten branches of the bankrupt Belgian fashion chain Donaldson in 2009 in Germany. Finally, he placed his prices generally below the level of the well-known fashion brands.

In 2010, the BCBG Max Azria Group were headquartered in Vernon (California ) about 1200 shops, 500 factories and workshops and more than 22 fashion brands. In 2009 his company made ​​960 million dollars in sales.

End of May 2010 he was presented by the investor Nicolas Berggruen as a partner for the operational business of the insolvent German department store Karstadt company. Azria 'll make " a young appearance and a more youthful style " for. Berggruen explained his choice for Azria as: " BCBG knows the market extremely well and knows a lot about merchandising. " The BCBG Max Azria Group know from " in the promotion as well as in vertical integration, ie the control of the value chain from production to the shop. "Even before the award of the creditors' committee to Berggruen Azria had agreed with Karstadt that textiles its womenswear brand Manoukian offered in summer 2010 in the branches.

Family

Despite a 18 -hour day, he celebrated with his family and mostly very many guests almost every Friday night Shabbat. His wife Lubov Azria ( born 1968 ) is a former ballerina from Kiev, Ukraine, which had been selected for the youth department of the Bolshoi Ballet. Her family emigrated to the U.S. and she studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. Since 1991 she has worked for BCBG Max Azria as a designer and later as a creative director. They married in 1992 and have three daughters and three children from his first marriage Azrias.

Awards