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Fashion designer Sonia Rykiel has died at the age of 86. She had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
In 1948, she worked as a window dresser at the Grande Maison de Blanc. In 1954, she married Sam Rykiel, owner of Laura, a clothing boutique in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. It was here, at 104 avenue du Général Leclerc, that she designed her first sweaters. She had two children with him (Nathalie in 1955 and Jean-Philippe in 1961).
In 1960, one of her sweaters made the cover of Elle magazine. Audrey Hepburn, visiting Laura’s boutique, bought 14 Sonia Rykiel sweaters (the poor boy sweater) in every color. Sam Rykiel helped her set up Sonia Rykiel C.D.M. in 1965 and, despite their divorce, they founded the Sonia Rykiel label in May 1968, opening her first boutique at 6, rue de Grenelle, on the Left Bank in Paris.
In 1970, the American magazine Women’s Wear Daily named her the “Queen of Knitwear in the World”, and she quickly invented purl seams, “no hem” and “no lining” in the name of a new fashion philosophy: “la démode”. She created a style with unmistakable elements, whose key words were black, stripes, lace, rhinestones, knitwear and messages written on sweaters.
Her creations are associated with the image of a Parisian woman who is “feminine, free, sensual and independent”. As an actress, she inspired the title character and played herself in a Robert Altman film. She also designed the interiors of the Hôtel de Crillon in 1972 and the Lutetia in 1985.
She has known she had Parkinson’s disease since the late 1990s. She first publicly addressed the subject in 2012 in a book entitled N’oubliez pas que je joue, written in collaboration with journalist Judith Perrignon.
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