ALAÏA

After Mulier’s final show, Alaïa returned to studio-led continuity under chief executive Myriam Serrano. No successor had been officially announced by the 10 July 2026 research cutoff, and no future collection has been assigned to a rumoured designer.

Alaïa announced on 30 January 2026 that Pieter Mulier would leave after Summer Fall 2026. His final show on 4 March concluded five years of creative direction and opened a new studio-led interval.

AZZEDINE ALAIA SAS relocated its registered headquarters from the founder’s rue de Moussy complex to 14 rue Boissy d’Anglas in early 2025. The move made the physical separation between the commercial company and the Fondation’s archival estate explicit.

Pieter Mulier was appointed creative director of Alaïa on 5 February 2021, the first individual to hold the role after the founder. He established a biannual calendar, expanded accessories and developed new collections through architectural drape, knit research and close atelier work until his final show on 4 March 2026.

Under Mulier, Alaïa formalised two annual presentation cycles named Winter Spring and Summer Fall. The structure made the founder’s resistance to the standard calendar predictable enough for a contemporary commercial house while limiting the atelier to two principal shows and campaigns each year.

Alaïa launched Editions on 16 November 2020 as a permanent programme of selected archival reproductions. Original seasons were identified on the garments, separating renewed commercial production from claims of new founder authorship.

A French state decree recognised the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa as a public-utility foundation on 28 February 2020. The change formalised an archival and cultural institution legally separate from the Richemont-owned commercial house.

Myriam Serrano was appointed chief executive officer of Azzedine Alaïa SAS in September 2019. She stabilised suppliers and archives, launched Editions, selected Pieter Mulier and directed the house’s subsequent retail and accessories expansion under Richemont.

The Design Museum in London opened Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier on 10 May 2018. Conceived with the designer before his death, the exhibition grouped more than sixty works by technique and archetype and became a major posthumous technical survey.

From November 2017 until Pieter Mulier’s appointment in February 2021, Alaïa’s internal studio maintained commercial output without an individual creative director. Caroline Fabre Bazin guided heritage, Editions and couture work while the atelier relied on founder patterns, prototypes and established techniques.

Azzedine Alaïa died in Paris on 18 November 2017 at the age of eighty-two. His death ended the founder-led house and initiated a four-year period in which the commercial studio maintained output without naming a creative director.

Caroline Fabre Bazin guided heritage, Editions and couture work during the post-founder studio period. Her verified remit supported archival interpretation and production continuity; she was not presented as the house’s creative director.

Alaïa Paris Eau de Parfum launched in summer 2015 under the BPI licence. Marie Salamagne composed the scent from Alaïa’s brief, while Martin Szekely designed a perforated black bottle that translated the house’s material vocabulary into packaging.

Beauté Prestige International, part of Shiseido, announced a thirteen-year exclusive agreement with Azzedine Alaïa Couture to create, manufacture and distribute fragrance and cosmetics. The licence opened a product category the founder had resisted for decades.

The Palais Galliera mounted the first major Paris retrospective devoted to Alaïa in 2013. The exhibition placed his construction methods and body of work within a museum history while he was still directing the commercial house.

Richemont acquired an initial controlling interest in Alaïa after the Prada divestment and later became the sole owner. The investment gave the house financial stability while leaving the independent Association, and later Foundation, outside commercial control.

Prada divested the Alaïa ready-to-wear business in July 2007 and the founder regained control of his name and apparel operations. Public accounts indicate that Prada retained footwear and leather-goods rights, although the later termination of that arrangement remains unresolved.

Azzedine Alaïa, Christoph von Weyhe and Carla Sozzani established the Association Azzedine Alaïa in 2007 to protect the designer’s work and historical fashion collection. The organisation was legally separate from the commercial house and later became the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa.

On 23 January 2003 Alaïa presented his first runway devoted exclusively to haute couture. The event did not begin his made-to-measure practice; it formalised a public couture programme enabled in part by the expanded atelier assembled after the Saint Laurent closure.

Alaïa returned to public runway presentation with the house-named Summer/Winter 2002 collection at 7 rue de Moussy. The show ended a long period of reduced public presentation while preserving the founder’s independent timing.

After Yves Saint Laurent’s couture house closed in January 2002, Alaïa hired about fifteen former Saint Laurent atelier workers, including senior tailoring and flou specialists. Their arrival expanded the house’s technical capacity and supported the couture programme presented in 2003.

Prada Group’s controlling entity acquired Azzedine Alaïa SAS in 1999, later transferring the holding to PRADA S.p.A. The arrangement supplied corporate backing but created friction with Alaïa’s slow, off-calendar working model.

By the mid-1990s Alaïa had sharply reduced wholesale runway presentations and seasonal public output. Private clients, select retail relationships and work at rue de la Verrerie sustained the house through a period defined by irregular delivery rather than closure.

For Spring/Summer 1991, Alaïa brought Tati’s pink-and-white check into the main collection and designed a bag, T-shirt and espadrilles for the discount retailer. The project connected couture-level construction to a mass-retail visual code without creating a permanent diffusion line.

Alaïa presented Spring/Summer 1988 in May, two months after Paris fashion week. The delayed show made explicit an operating principle that developed across subsequent years: collections would be presented when resolved rather than to satisfy the official calendar.

AZZEDINE ALAIA SAS was created under French law on 15 May 1985. The legal incorporation formalised a commercial house whose private atelier, public ready-to-wear debut and first Paris show had occurred in 1964, 1982 and 1983 respectively.

CAPC Bordeaux presented A Day with Azzedine Alaïa: Fashion 1980–1985, the first French museum invitation identified in the Foundation chronology. The survey helped establish the early ready-to-wear canon while Alaïa’s international profile was accelerating.

The Fondation chronology records 1983 as the establishment of the Maison under the Alaïa name and the year of its first Paris show, Spring/Summer 1983, at rue de Bellechasse. The event is separate from the legal creation of AZZEDINE ALAIA SAS in 1985.

Alaïa presented Autumn/Winter 1982 to international press and buyers at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. It was the first official ready-to-wear presentation of his work, distinct from the first Paris Maison show the following year.

Alaïa established a private made-to-measure atelier in his apartment at 60 rue de Bellechasse in 1964. The practice developed into a public ready-to-wear house in the early 1980s and remained under his creative authority until his death in 2017.