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Voici l'article paru dans le New York Times en 2016. Point question de FAFL ou de "Free French", juste de "pilote"...
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"André Courrèges, Fashion Designer Who Redefined Couture, Dies at 92
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André Courrèges in 1997.Credit...John Schults/Reuters
By Vanessa Friedman
Jan. 8, 2016
André Courrèges, the French designer who brought the space age to the catwalk and into the closets of women like Catherine Deneuve and Jacqueline Kennedy, died on Thursday at his home in Neuilly-sur-Seine outside Paris. He was 92.

Courrèges, the fashion house he founded, confirmed the death.

On Friday, President François Hollande wrote in a Twitter message, “A revolutionary designer, André Courrèges made his mark on haute couture using geometric shapes and new materials.” Though Mr. Hollande is known more for his politics than his fashion criticism, it was a fitting summation of the designer’s contribution to the industry and his importance in the historic arc of French fashion.

“If the words ‘modern’ and ‘future’ exist in fashion, it is because of Courrèges,” said Carla Sozzani, the proprietor of the influential Milanese boutique 10 Corso Como. “It changed the concept of couture, marking the turn of fashion into a new era.”

André Courrèges made his name in the early 1960s, at the dawn of the space age, and it quickly became synonymous with a certain style and attitude that gained momentum during that decade. As old norms were rejected, elaborate draping and decoration were left behind in favor of a celebration of freedom in the form of flat go-go boots, truncated A-line dresses, a palette of astronaut-friendly white and silver with an occasional shot of lime and tangerine, and, above all, a miniskirt.

Mr. Courrèges was interested in knees. He believed in trousers for women — the neater and more body-conscious the better — and worshiped the modernist architect and designer Le Corbusier. Mr. Courrèges thought the designer, not the client, knew best, and proudly refused to negotiate changes in his styles with the Duchess of Windsor. He liked to compare his atelier to a laboratory.

He disliked bras, corsets, high heels and anything that restricted movement. He once said, “A woman is never more beautiful than when she is naked,” which could be taken as an odd statement for a designer to make, except for the fact that nothing in Mr. Courrèges’s story was really what one might have expected.

André Courrèges was born on March 9, 1923, in the city of Pau, in the French Pyrenees. His father was a butler, who disapproved of André’s desire to go to art school and wanted him to be an engineer. André obliged, attending the École Nationale des Ponts-et-Chaussées (now known as École des ponts ParisTech).

He became a pilot in the French Air Force in World War II, and after the war decided to change professions: At 28, he joined the house of Balenciaga in an entry-level role. He stayed 10 years, ultimately becoming first assistant to Balenciaga before going out on his own in 1961.

Mr. Courrèges’s breakthrough came in 1964 with his “Space Age” collection. Patricia Peterson, writing in The New York Times, called him “the brightest blaze of the year.” The little white dress replaced the little black dress as the frock of choice.

Three years later he married his assistant, Coqueline Barrière, whom he had met at Balenciaga and who would remain his partner, both personally and professionally, for the rest of his life; they had one child, Marie. Both his wife and daughter survive him.

Interested in dressing working women as well as socialites, Mr. Courrèges established a factory in Pau and, in 1968, sold part of his brand to L’Oréal, the beauty products company, to help finance the expansion of his own business.

By 1972 there were 125 Courrèges boutiques worldwide, and Courrèges had introduced its first fragrance. Mr. Courrèges was chosen to create the staff uniforms for the Munich Olympics. The next year, his company began designing men’s wear.

Though fashion moved on from his futuristic vision, Mr. Courrèges never abandoned his core aesthetic. The brand changed hands a few times before he and his wife regained control in 1994; when he retired the next year, she became artistic director. In 2002, she began developing a line of electric concept cars that resemble nothing so much as the curvaceous white helmets that were her husband’s signature accessories.

The couple sold their brand in 2011 to two former Young & Rubicam advertising executives, Jacques Bungert and Frédéric Torloting. Last September, after a long hiatus, Courrèges reappeared on the Paris Fashion Week Runway schedule under new creative directors, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant.

“A Courrèges pantsuit in yellow with white plastic belt was my first Parisian outfit,” Ms. Sozzani said. “Today, 50 years later, the Courrèges shop is still my must destination in Paris.”

A correction was made on Jan. 12, 2016: An obituary on Saturday about the fashion designer André Courrèges misstated, in some editions, part of the name of the company where Jacques Bungert and Frédéric Torloting had been advertising executives before they bought the Courrèges brand in 2011. It is Young & Rubicam, not Young & Rubicon."

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