Key designer of the 80s, Claude Montana has just passed away

After Manfred Thierry Mugler in 2022, another monument of French fashion from the 80s has just passed away, Claude Montana. After a personal tragedy in 1996 and professional failure in 1997, he took refuge in immense discretion before dying on February 23, 2024.

It is another monument of fashion in France that has just collapsed. After Manfred Thierry Mugler in January 2022, it is Claude Montana’s turn to die on February 23, 2024, at the age of 76, it has just been made official The world. Sewing flashback.

Who was Claude Montana, the French designer who shaped the fashion of the 80s?

Claude Montamat, his real name, was born in 1947 (the year of birth of Christian Dior’s New Look, among other things) to a Catalan father and a German mother. He grows up in Paris, fascinated by fashion costumes without his parents believing in this passion, so he gets into the habit of sneaking backstage at the Opéra Garnier. After graduating from high school, at the age of 17 he went to London and there he created his first jewels, in papier-mâché, which British Vogue published on the cover, launching his career. Returning to Paris, he shared a studio with Manfred Thierry Mugler and worked for leather goods manufacturer Mac Douglas, where he fell in love with leather, which would remain his favorite material. In fact, since his first fashion show under his name in 1975, he has presented looks made entirely of leather or almost entirely, with square shoulders and an ultra-defined waist, becoming THE flagship silhouette of the ’80s, in contrast with the same shyness of he.

His house opened in earnest in 1979 and his sensational professional success was soon accompanied by personal excesses. When Dior was offered to him in 1990, he refused and moved on to Lanvin, where he signed two collections and then left, already discreetly, faithful to his shyness.

Notoriously gay, Claude Montana nevertheless married his muse, model Walliks Franken in 1993, before she killed herself in their home in 1996, traumatizing the designer. The following year he declared bankruptcy and a businessman bought his house, while he became more discreet than ever. Aside from three silhouettes designed in 2013, he no longer publicly presented anything under his name, and it was therefore with great discretion that he died on February 23, 2024, leaving behind an influence as immense as his famous shoulder pads. he.