Sadly, Sonia Rykiel who had Parkinson's disease, died Thursday morning at her home in Paris. She was 86.
Artistic, independent, rebellious, Rykiel embodied the intellectual chic and feminism of Paris in the late 1960s. She wanted women to look both powerful and appealing.
Above all, she wanted to give them complete freedom of movement. Knitwear wasn't new when she started making clothes, but Rykiel made it fashionable. With vibrant stripes or simple black, her clothes hugged a woman's body.
"She rejected linings and embraced exposed seams, defiantly decreeing that the sweater should be worn against the bare skin," according to her website.
The famously redheaded Rykiel was born to Russian and Romanian parents just outside Paris in 1930. She once said that having Slavic roots meant being "hopeless and hopeful, to be amazing and to be destroyed." But her first forays into fashion were more practical. Read more at NPR.
Learn about Sonia Rykiel’s birthday, what she did before fame, her family life, fun trivia facts, popularity rankings, and more at Famousbirthdays.com.