Ted Lapidus

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Ted Lapidus (born June 23, 1929 as Edmond Lapidus in Paris , † December 29, 2008 in Mougins ) was an internationally known French fashion designer who was particularly successful in the 1960s and is considered the " old master of French fashion ".

The fashion company founded by Lapidus in 1951 still exists today with Ted Lapidus SAS . Since 1983 the perfume division of the house and since 1995 also the fashion division of Ted Lapidus has been owned by a French perfume manufacturer. The company offered high-priced haute couture fashion up to the year 2000 and continues to sell prêt-à-porter fashion for women and men, accessories and perfume in the medium to upper price segment , albeit largely in the licensed business .

Founder and company history

Beginnings and successes in Paris

Ted Lapidus was the son of a Russian tailor who emigrated to France . After a technical apprenticeship in Tokyo and an apprenticeship with Christian Dior in Paris, Lapidus founded his own company in the French capital in 1951 and opened his first boutique there in 1958 under his name on Rue Marbeuf. In 1963 he was recognized as a " Grand Couturier " by the Parisian 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 stood out on the street due to lack of space. In 1963, to the indignation of his couture colleagues, he entered into a cooperation with the textile manufacturer Belle Jardinier in order to have his haute couture designs produced at lower prices for the mass market.

With of uniforms influenced and nautical-themed designs with safari jackets and Nehru - collars he set in the times of the '68 movement a name as a modern fashion designer who turned mainly to young customers. Lapidus introduced the military look with epaulettes and gold buttons, the Sahara look and jeans to haute couture. He is considered a pioneer of unisex fashion and was the first to present the 60s star model Twiggy in a suit and tie instead of a miniskirt . 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 . Lapidus fashion has been worn by 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 Laforêt , Johnny Hallyday , Charles Aznavour and the Beatles .

International expansion, sales and succession

As early as the mid-1960s, Lapidus ready- to- wear fashion for women was sold in the USA, for example at Macy’s . In 1967 - at a time when none of the Parisian couturiers except Pierre Cardin was offering ready-made clothing for men - a men's collection was added to the Lapidus portfolio . In 1969 he entered into a contract with the Israeli state, which in return took a 50% stake in the Ted Lapidus company, to manage the entire Israeli fashion industry and was able to sell his designs there en masse. From 1970, Lapidus also marketed women's and men's perfumes under his name in collaboration with L'Oréal . The first perfume was called Vu for women; Since then, other fragrances, including for men, have been launched, most recently in 2012 Black Extreme for men. In 1974 the first Ted Lapidus boutique in the USA opened in New York City ; a shop in London followed in 1975. In the mid-1970s there were around 35 Lapidus boutiques worldwide.

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

Lapidus' son Olivier (* 1958), a graduate of the fashion school of the Paris Fashion Association and also a fashion designer since 1983, published due to a legal dispute with his father over the rights to the name Lapidus (quote from Ted Lapidus, addressed to his son: " Your name is not a name, but a brand ") his designs initially under the label " Olivier L "or under the pseudonym Olivier Montagut in Japan . After the reconciliation with his father, Olivier Lapidus took over the position of chief designer at Ted Lapidus in 1989 and subsequently created haute couture collections under the name Lapidus par Olivier Lapidus , in which he often incorporated elements of high tech with a futuristic appearance . From the mid-1990s, the prêt-à-porter collections of the house were called Olivier Lapidus pour Ted Lapidus . Olivier Lapidus left Ted Lapidus SAS as a fashion designer in 2000 and designed uniforms for Air China as a freelance designer . In 2010 he launched the Lapidus Vintage fashion line independently of Bogart SA , in which he has since interpreted classic haute couture models from his father as contemporary ready-to-wear fashion for women.

The Ted Lapidus brand today

In 2000 the company closed its haute couture division and from then on only operated in the ready-to-wear sector. As early as the mid-1990s, the handmade exclusive fashion had brought the house losses of 15 million francs (at that time approx. 2.5 million euros). At the end of the 2000s, the company operated under license boutiques in Istanbul , Ankara , Bucharest , Almaty , Karas , Tbilisi and Dubai , among others . In 2006 the license for Turkey , Eastern Europe and Russia was awarded to the Istanbul company Ant Tekstil . The Ted Lapidus brand from Jacques Bogart SA, which has mainly consisted of licensing business since the mid-2000s at the latest, does not play a significant role in the ranks of upscale French fashion and is not represented at the official Paris fashion weeks .

Private life

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

literature

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Olivier Lapidus , spiegel.de, May 31, 1993
  2. ↑ a b c d e William Grimes: Ted Lapidus, Designer Who Reshaped French Fashion, Is Dead at 79. The New York Times, December 31, 2008, accessed June 2, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Disparition du couturier Ted Lapidus , lefigaro.fr 31 December 2008
  4. ↑ a b c d French fashion revolutionary Ted Lapidus dead. WELT ONLINE, December 30, 2008, accessed on June 2, 2011 .
  5. ↑ a b c Godfrey Deeny: Military Mode Master Ted Lapidus Dead At 79. FWD - Fashion Wire Daily, December 31, 2008, accessed June 2, 2011 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Pierre Perrone: Ted Lapidus: Fashion designer who brought haute couture to the high street. The Independent, January 7, 2009, accessed June 2, 2011 .
  7. ^ A b Janie Samet: Disparition du couturier Ted Lapidus. Le Figaro, December 31, 2008, accessed June 2, 2011 (French).
  8. ^ Fashion - Designers & Tailors - Ted Lapidus. (No longer available online.) Toffsworld.com - Luxury Unique Boutiques Online, archived from the original on May 29, 2011 ; accessed on June 2, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / toffsworld.com
  9. ^ Ted Lapidus , telegraph.co.uk, December 31, 2008
  10. ^ A b c Charles Bremner: Ted Lapidus, designer who gave high fashion to masses, dies aged 79. The Times, December 31, 2008, accessed on June 2, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Disparition du couturier Ted Lapidus , lefigaro.fr 31 December 2008
  12. ^ Executive Profile * Richard Hubbard , businessweek.com, accessed March 2, 2013
  13. ↑ Olivier Lapidus receives the Golden Spinning Wheel , textilwirtschaft.de, November 23, 1995
  14. ↑ Ted Lapidus returns with Lapidus Vintage , stylesight.com, January 12, 2012
  15. ↑ Barneys New York Snaps Up Lapidus Vintage  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , fashionweekdaily.com, December 7, 2010@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.fashionweekdaily.com  
  16. ^ Haute couture with question marks , textilwirtschaft.de, December 14, 1995
  17. ↑ Fransız Modası, “Ted Lapidus” ile Artık Türkiye'de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , sirkethaberleri.com, May 5, 2006 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sirkethaberleri.com
  18. ^ Ted Lapidus , telegraph.co.uk, December 31, 2008
  19. ↑ Sidney Wassermann: Fashion Loses One More in 2008: Ted Lapidus Dies at 79th Interview Magazine, January 2, 2009, accessed June 2, 2011 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Lapidus, Ted
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lapidus, Edmond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 2008
Place of death Mougins