Ted Lapidus

Ted Lapidus ( born June 23, 1929 as Edmond Lapidus in Paris; † 29 December 2008 Mougins ) was an internationally known French fashion designer, who enjoyed great success, especially in the 1960s and as the " doyen of French fashion " applies.

The fashion company founded by Lapidus in 1951 exists with the Ted Lapidus SAS today. Since 1983, the perfume division of the house and, since 1995, the fashion division of Ted Lapidus in possession of a French perfume manufacturer. The company offered up to 2000 high-priced haute couture fashion and continues to sell, although mostly in the licensing business, Ready -to-wear fashion for men and women, accessories and perfume in the mid to upper price segment.

Founder and Business History

Beginnings and success in Paris

Ted Lapidus was the son of a Russian émigré to France cutter. After a technical teaching in Tokyo and an education at Christian Dior in Paris Lapidus In 1951 he founded his own company in the French capital, and opened there in 1958 under his own name his first boutique in Rue Marbeuf. In 1963 he was recognized as " Grand Couturier " of the Paris Fashion Association " Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne". The rush to his first Haute Couture fashion show was so great that the assembled journalists and buyers from lack of space stood up on the street. In 1963, he was a collaboration with the textile manufacturers Belle Jardinier received, to the indignation of his couture colleagues to leave his haute couture designs to produce lower prices for the mass market.

With uniforms and influenced by marine-style designs, with safari jackets and Nehru collars he went in the days of the '68 movement a name as a modern fashion designers, who turned especially to young customers. Lapidus led, among other things, the military look with epaulettes and gold buttons, the Sahara and the jeans look into haute couture one. He is considered a pioneer of the Unisex fashion and was the first to place presented the 60s star model Twiggy in miniskirt suit and tie. He also designed uniforms for the Israeli army and was the designer of the white suit that John Lennon wears on the cover of Abbey Road. Mode of Lapidus was born, among other things film actors such as Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Geraldine Chaplin, Madeleine Robinson, Jean -Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon and pop musicians such as Françoise Hardy, Marie Laforet, Johnny Hallyday, Charles Aznavour and the Beatles.

International expansion, sale and succession

In the mid- 1960s was sold Lapidus clothing fashion for men in the United States, for example, at Macy's. 1967 has arrived - in times as of the Paris couturiers no one except Pierre Cardin offered clothing fashion for men - a men's collection for Lapidus portfolio added. In 1969, he went into an agreement with an Israeli state that participated in return for 50 % of the company Ted Lapidus, on the management of the entire Israeli fashion industry and could his designs there en masse to settle. From 1970 Lapidus marketed in collaboration with L'Oréal also ladies ' and men's perfume under his own name. The first perfume was called Vu for ladies; Since then, other scents also been linked for men on the market, most recently in 2012 Black Extreme for men. Opened in 1974 in New York City's first boutique Ted Lapidus in the U.S.; a shop in London followed in 1975. middle of the 1970s there were around 35 Lapidus boutiques worldwide.

In the late 1970s, when the demand for fashion by Ted Lapidus declined, the company began an extensive licensing policy for a variety of products, including eyewear, watches, writing instruments and jewelery, and also built for the world's Lapidus stores a franchising network on. The perfume division of the house ( Parfums Ted Lapidus SAS) was bought in 1983 by the perfumer Jacques Bogart SA and its owner family Knockier. In 1986, the fashion house Ted Lapidus to a Canadian investor group and 1988 to the Company to the Paris Eco entrepreneur Richard Hubbard. 1990 bought the Compagnie Financière Alain Mallart the fashion division of Ted Lapidus in 1993 and sold it to Altus Finances. The Bogart SA of Knockiers took over the fashion division ( Ted Lapidus SAS) finally in 1995 by Altus. Since then, the entire company is owned by Ted Lapidus Jacques Bogart the SA.

Lapidus ' son Olivier (born 1958 ), a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Paris Fashion Association and since 1983 also fashion designer, published because of a long-running legal dispute with his father for the rights to the name Lapidus ( Posted by Ted Lapidus, addressed to his son, "Your name is no name but a brand " ) his first designs under the label" Olivier L "or under the pseudonym Olivier Montagut in Japan. After reconciliation with the Father Olivier Lapidus took over in 1989 the post of chief designer at Ted Lapidus and created in the wake haute couture collections under the name Olivier Lapidus Lapidus par, in which he had often incorporate futuristic elements of high tech. From the mid- 1990s, the prêt-à- porter collections of the house Olivier Lapidus Ted Lapidus pour called themselves. Olivier Lapidus retired in 2000 as a fashion designer at the Ted Lapidus SAS and designed as a freelance designer uniforms for Air China. In 2010, he launched independent of the Bogart SA fashion line Lapidus Vintage, in which he has since interpreted in a contemporary classic haute couture models of his father as clothing fashion for women.

The Ted Lapidus brand today

In 2000 the company presented its Haute Couture a division and was active from now on only in the clothing area. In the mid- 1990s had the house leading to losses in the amount of 15 million francs (then about 2.5 million euros ), the handmade exclusive fashion. The company operated the end of the 2000s, among others, in Istanbul, Ankara, Bucharest, Almaty, Karas, Tbilisi and Dubai in license -operated boutiques. 2006, the license for the area of ​​Turkey, Eastern Europe and Russia at the Istanbul Tekstil company Ant was awarded. In the ranks of the French haute fashion the Ted Lapidus Jacques Bogart SA brand, which consists mainly of the licensing business at least since the mid-2000s plays a significant role and is not represented at the official Paris fashion weeks.

Private life

Ted Lapidus was married twice and had three sons and a daughter. The mid-1990s he retired to the Côte d' Azur and wrote, among other poems. After several years of leukemia, he died on 29 December 2008 at the age of 79 years at a private clinic in Mougins near Cannes leukemia. The funeral ceremony was conducted by Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France. His final resting place is the famous Parisian cemetery Père Lachaise, in the rest also celebrities such as Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his wife Carla Bruni was working as a model for Lapidus, Ted Lapidus, known as " the poet of French couture " who had "demo kati Siert French elegance ". Ted Lapidus ' sister, Rose Mett, founded in 1968, the Paris fashion house Torrente, the 1971-2004 offered also haute couture fashion, and sold it in 2003.