French designer Claude Montana, a singular designer who left an indelible mark of the look of the ’80s, has passed away at the age of 76 in Paris. The news was confirmed by the Agence France-Presse who learned of his passing by those around the designer. Montana will be remembered for championing the oversized shoulder silhouette, which continues to be referenced by designers to this day, and dressing woman with a sense of both power and panache.
Montana was born Claude Montamat on June 29, 1947 to a German mother and Spanish father, parents he once described at “very bourgeois” to The Washington Post. They had hopes their son would study something more obviously practical, like his older brother, a chemist. “I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t that,” Montana once told W in 1979. So, Montana left home when he was just a teen and headed to London. “I left Paris because I couldn’t stand my father’s disappointment.” Once in London, Montana made a living on papier-mâché, designing jewelry out of the grade school-inspired process and selling it to much success, even getting a piece on the cover of British Vogue. When he attempted to bring his goods to Paris, however, the French set was not as willing to accept his crafts, so Montana switched to clothing, persuaded by a friend.
By the late ’70s, Montana was getting grouped with Thierry Mugler—his one time roommate turned rival—as the future of fashion and the purveyors of a big-shouldered sci fi look once referred to as the “Star Wars syndrome.” But leather was hardly the only fabric in which Montana operated. He also dabbled in cashmeres and silks, always imbuing them with brights colors. Known for being shy and soft spoken, his clothing never matched the designer’s demeanor. He once told the Post he designed for women “who like to make an entrance,” and likely take up space as well. One 1979 collection displayed shoulders so large they “extended half a foot on each side by padding and huge shelflike sleeves,” according to The New York Times.
In 1985, the Times quipped that Montana “is to big shoulders what Alexander Graham Bell is to the telephone,” as the designer exclaimed, “Shoulders forever!” But in the seasons following, he began tampering down his signature silhouette, and by fall of 1988, shoulders on his clothes were being constructed to match the natural slope of a woman’s upper body.
In the early ’90s, Montana was at the top of his game with boutiques in Paris, multiple fragrances, and awards touting his name. In 1993, Montana married model Wallis Franken, a surprise among many who new Montana as an out gay man. Many assumed it to be a marriage of convenience between the two close friends, as Montana felt having a woman on his side would be more appealing for buyers. Stylist Olivier Echaudemaison said Montana married Wallis as “a gesture of kindness” as she “had no future left in fashion.” In 1996, however, Franken committed suicide. It was around this time that Montana began to lose his footing in fashion. Many blamed it on drugs and alcohol—Montana was an avid cocaine user throughout the ’80s and early ’90s—while some said that he refused to adapt to the changing trends, as deconstruction and minimalism began to take over the runways. Retailers started to drop his line and in 1997, the House of Montana went bankrupt and he was forced to sell it. Not long after, Montana disappeared from the public world. The man who many considered to be the next Yves Saint Laurent or Hubert de Givenchy was suddenly impossible to even get on the phone. For years, the designer lived at his home in Paris’s First Arrondissement, where he was sometimes spotted, often in manic states.
