Born in Paris in 1929, Ted Lapidus opened his Haute Couture House and a Boutique for Men and Women in Marbeuf in 1957.
It was in 1963 that he was admitted as a member of the Haute Couture Federation, that same year he presented his first fashion collection in 1963. In 1968 Lapidus opened the “Rive Gauche” boutique on the Saint-Germain-des-Près square with the aim of presenting the “first Haute Couture proposition targeted for the twenty-year-old generation”
Lapidus was considered the creator and pioneer of the unisex fashion look and is credited with introducing a military and safari look into haute couture. He is credited as the first designer to put Military style shoulder straps on both male and female clothing, and with making blue jeans part of the mainstream of fashion design.
Ted Lapidus gained prominence in the 1960s when French celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot, Twiggy and John Lennon. Lapidus was the first designer to persuade Twiggy to wear a suit and tie rather than a mini-skirt and Lapidus designed the white suit that John Lennon wore on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album.
The early 80s saw Olivier Lapidus succeeds his father and becomes the Artistic Director of the House of Lapidus. He went on to create and present his first Haute Couture collection in July 1989.
In 1995 Jacques Konckier who at the time held the license for the “Parfums Ted Lapidus”, acquired the entire Ted Lapidus operation. The Haute Couture collection autumn winter 94/95, who gave the ” 33 rd Dé d’Or ” was shown at the Musée des tissus de Lyon .
Since 1997 Olivier Lapidus has used technology and research to inject into high fashion unusual combinaitions of colours and materials, highlighted by new techniques of printing and weaving.
Lapidus died in Cannes in 2008.
