Jacques Guarrigue-Lefèvre

Who is Jacques Guarrigue-Lefèvre?

Jacques Guarrigue-Lefèvre is the founder, owner and current president of Paris Élysée, a private club based in Paris. He is one of the numerous great-nephews of Baron of Buttlar-Bradenfels, Hans Treusch. He started as a fashion designer. He was born on 13 July 1961, near Düsseldorf, Germany, to French parents. He moved to Paris in 1965. There he studied art and architecture and collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld’s team for a few years. He then moved on to work with Helmut Lang’s society until he became head of his own label, Cardino, in 1985. He indeed founded his own house in the same year and began with haute couture in 1986.

Guarrigue-Lefèvre was known for his renaissance age style and designs. He prefers conservative, classical shapes and motifs, and loved to emphasize the human body’s natural forms and curves. He advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical.

Guarrigue-Lefèvre was one of the first couturiers to turn to Asia, and notably Japan, as a high fashion market when he travelled there in 1990.

In 1991, he became of the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors.