Shelly Verthime on Alber Elbaz’s Fashion Dreams

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The designer’s teacher turned close collaborator and friend, reflects on how Elbaz communicated his fashion dreams to the world.

Ever since the news of Alber Elbaz’s death broke last weekend, the fashion world has been in a collective state of mourning. Many have eulogised and memorialised the designer’s unique ability to make women feel empowered in the clothes designed. But few knew him better than Shelly Verthime, his close friend and collaborator, who first met him as his teacher at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel.

This week on The BoF Podcast, editor-in-chief Imran Amed and editor-at-large Tim Blanks speak with Verthime and reflect on Elbaz’s influence, recounting the highs and lows of his career defining moments.

From the beginning of his career, Verthime said Elbaz created a clear path for the steps he wished to take with the industry. “I knew that there was just something so special about him, it was so clear to me where he is going,” she said. “At the time I was his teacher but very, very soon he became my teacher, and then he became [the industry’s] teacher and mentor and friend.”
Throughout his career, Elbaz exercised the power of communication as well as creativity. Elbaz was an “original creator, emotional creator but he was a fantastic communicator,” Verthime said. “He knew what works and what doesn’t work for him.”
Elbaz was known for his efforts to empower women, dressing them suit to their needs and build their confidence. His close relationship to his mother facilitated his understanding of women as multifaceted. “What he wanted to do was that his clothes would enhance the personality, where you see the face… it was about the woman who would wear it,” said Verthime. “He wanted assertive women [and] he wanted women to love themselves.”

Lessons for the Fashion Industry From Alber Elbaz’s Talk at VOICES 2018

Alber Elbaz on Making His Return to Fashion

Inside Alber Elbaz’s Return to Fashion

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion.
0:14.1	Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, April 30th.
0:18.3	Last Saturday, the fashion world lost one of its most beloved designers,
0:22.8	Albert El Baz, to COVID-19. He was 59 years old. Today, on a very special episode of the B-OF
0:30.0	podcast, Tim Blanks and I are joined by Shelley Vertheim, who collaborated with Albert for almost
0:36.2	40 years. Shelly first met a 21-year-old Albert
0:40.2	al-Baz when he was her student at the Shankar College of Design in Israel. Soon, she became his most
0:46.7	trusted creative partner, and they maintained a close friendship right up until his passing
0:51.6	last week. Today, Shelley sits down with the business of fashion
0:55.2	to give her first ever interview about Albert, offering us a unique perspective on his life
1:00.5	and work. This is my first ever public talk about a conversation, podcast, a film, whatever interview
1:09.7	about Albert. I never talk publicly about him. My heart is
1:15.4	empty. My mind is full. Memories, moments, high, slows, everything. We discuss Albert's
1:23.1	early years in New York, working for Jeffrey Bean. Oh my God, he was his mentor.
1:28.3	He was the fifth assistant when he started.
1:31.3	In less than a month, he became first assistant working with Jeffrey Bean in his room together.
1:37.3	And his tenure at Guy LaRos.
1:39.3	When Ralph Toledano called him, he wore a red suit and he went to the interview. And they bonded from the first interview because you cannot not fall in love with him.
1:51.0	We learned how he was hired by Eve Saint Laurent's right hand, Pierre Berger, to lead the design of the YSL women's collections.
1:58.5	Mr. Berger called to ask for a seat to be invited to the show.
2:03.2	So he said to sit next to me. And by the fifth model, Lou coming on the catwalk, he started to clap.
2:10.9	And he didn't stop. And you saw him. He was like very vivid person full of energy.
	...

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