In Memoriam: Remembering 5 Fashion Figures Lost in 2021

In what is still considered one of the most shocking losses of 2021, Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director Virgil Abloh passed away on November 28 at 41 years old after a two-year battle with a rare cancer known as cardiac angiosarcoma.

As the first Black designer to helm a major luxury house and form creative brand partnerships within the LVMH family, Abloh will be remembered as a trailblazer in the industry. Alongside his stellar fashion career at both Louis Vuitton and his own brand Off-White, the Chicago-born designer explored the interdisciplinary connections of music, pop culture, interior design, and more. His final collection for Louis Vuitton, titled Virgil was Here, debuted during Miami’s Art Basel Week to an audience filled with Abloh’s friends, family, and fans.

Less than a year after his official return to the fashion world, Alber Elbaz died on April 24 due to complications from COVID-19. The legendary designer spent 14 years making a name for himself as the leader of Lanvin before his unexpected exit following creative differences with new management. After his departure in 2015, Elbaz largely left the fashion industry, which made his 2020 reappearance, with his new Richemont-backed brand AZ Factory in tow, such a triumphant return.

From its inception, AZ Factory was founded on Elbaz's own core principles about dressing the woman, not her shape, age, or color.

He told L'OFFICIEL in December 2020, "Looking at the lives of women today, you can see them running in ten different directions trying to be the best mother, the best wife, the best person you work with, etc. I realized I had to start working on a solution...I’m also trying to go a little bit deeper than just looking fabulous. I’m trying to listen to women to see what I can do to bring them their dreams, because at the end of the day, we are just not living in a world of only data and algorithms or instinct and emotion. We can put them both together as yin and yang. It’s not either-or; it’s both together."

Elsa Peretti moved from Florence, Italy to New York City in the 1960s, a time of great change as well as glamour. There, she met the famed fashion designer Halston, who hired her as his model and muse.

She later moved into the jewelry design realm after Halston introduced her to his friends from Tiffany & Co. This would begin Peretti's half-century-long career at the jewelry house, which included infusing her modern aesthetic into the Tiffany's opus by creating some of the brand's most iconic pieces like the Bone Cuff bracelet, bean designs, and open heart pendants.

Throughout the 1970s, one of the biggest names in Los Angeles retail was Fred Segal. By the end of the decade, he already racked up a client list that included Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, the Beatles, and more. His low-waisted jeans and chic t-shirt designs were the epitomai of California cool at a time when the concept of dressing casual was becoming increasingly popular.

Segal continued to open stores around the world before his death earlier this year on February 25.

Fashion designer Tom Ford announced the death of his husband Richard Buckley in September at 72 after a long battle with cancer, sending a shockwave through the fashion world. In his lengthy career, Buckley became a noted fashion journalist who wrote for New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Women's Wear Daily, and more. In 1999, he was named Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Hommes until 2005.

Buckley and Ford met and started a relationship in 1986, when the designer was fresh out of The New School and trying to break into the fashion world. Throughout Ford's eventual rise to the head of Gucci and then to his own namesake brand, their relationship remained, making the pair one of fashion's most well-connected couples. Buckley is also survived by his nine-year-old son, Alexander John "Jack" Buckley Ford.