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André Laug is an Italian High Fashion house founded in 1968 by the homonymous French designer.

The early years

The brand André Laug was founded in 1968 when the French designer, trained in Paris by André Courrèges and Nina Ricci, helped by Susy Gandini, opened his couture house in Piazza di Spagna, in Rome.

This date indicates the official entrance of the designer in the Italian fashion.

The first decade (1969-1978)

In 1969 Laug runs the first agreements with foreign buyers, including Elizabeth Arden, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. The US buyer Martha Phillips introduces the brand in the United States. Laug become one of Audrey Hepburn reference designers- which devotes one of the lines of ready-to-wear, the "Audrey" - and actresses and international socialite. The famous fashion models parade for him: the designer anticipates a decade the starification phenomenon of supermodels.

Vogue US and the most important fashion magazines dedicate the covers to André Laug. After his famous suits, in 1970 the designer launches blouses, sold in America at $ 2,500.

In the collections of 1972 André Laug proposes the bow. Vogue dedicated a long photo shoot signed by Oliviero Toscani.

Among the customers of these years there are Audrey Hepburn, American First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Barbara Bush, Lee Radziwill, Diana Ross, Kathy Hilton, Estée Lauder, Carroll Baker, Ira von Fürstenberg, Mia d'Acquarone et de Riencourt, Anna and Alice Bulgari, Margaret Trudeau, Helietta Caracciolo, Rossella Falk, Paulette Goddard, Capucine and many others.

The Laug 1974 collections are inspired by Tsarist Russia. In 1975, while the new english punk tendencies arrive in Europe, Laug answers the challenge by producing his tuxedo. At the end of year in New York, in Rizzoli Library on Fifth Avenue, Roberto Polo and Diana Vreeland, historical editor of American Vogue, organize an exhibition of "creative fashion." Designers and artists invited from around the world are present with works created or chosen exclusively for the exhibition. Representing Italy only Pino Lancetti, Valentino and André Laug. Which in July presents the "1976 haute couture collections ready" (ready-to-couture hand made but on size) in a set staged by Vogue alongside works by Michelangelo Pistoletto (the photo shoot is by Norman Parkinson).

In the late seventies, André Laug refines his style proposing softer luxury classics and even more colorful. The novelty of the winter season of 1978 is the marabou, which also contaminates the dresses made by the designer for the Italian-French film Il Vizietto ( "La cage aux folles"), designed by costume designer Piero Tosi, who wins the Oscar nomination. At the end of the year, André Laug celebrates its first ten years of activity in Italy with a lunch in Milan which many Americans flock to buyers and the international press. The company has grown and has in recent years over a hundred permanent employees.

The eighties and early death (1979-1984)

In the early eighties Laug insists robe-manteau, celebrated in Harper's Bazaar, and states with a strong dandy line. In 1982, the supermodel Susan Hess to pose with Laug clothes in a photo shoot for Vogue. Susan, but also Pat Cleveland, Gia Carangi, Linda Evangelista, Brooke Shields, Yasmin LeBon, Jerry Hall, Iman: the designer's creations continue to be interpreted from the most famous fashion models. In December 1982 the great photographer Helmut Newton to sign a short story by Natalia Aspesi, always in Vogue, dedicated to the contemporary woman. Once again, dressed in Laug.

In 1984, Laug brings art and parades on the catwalk with models inspired by Matisse. The designer is the height of success. But, on the night between 15 and 16 December, he died suddenly at his home in Rome, after a heart attack at just 53 years old.

Laug from 1985 to 2005

On the death of Laug, the entrepreneur Giancarlo Rossetti (known as "Olivier") assumes the presidency of the company. Olivier called to work with him Laura della Croce di Dojola and constitutes a team of three designers and two managers image: their mission is to preserve Laug brand. The company, with 83 collections of haute couture and pret-a-porter luxury, starts again again by the amount of drawings left by the designer.

With this inexhaustible collection of sketches left by André Laug, the heir Olivier develops new collections. Olivier experiences a line of ready-to-wear very close to a luxury product, almost haute couture. The House launches a new line of women's clothing at a more affordable price than the main line: the "André Laug Chic", distributed to about 230 stores in Europe. Japan and North America, however, remain the most important markets of high fashion. The brand also comes on Television: Laug realizes the interpreter yellow dress advertising of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The chiffon blouses are sold to three million lire in stores in New York, Washington, Palo Alto, Houston and Palm Beach: "We were the only ones, along with Yves Saint Laurent, to be able to afford to sell at these figures: rather than sell an item to a million I'd rather swallow it, "says Olivier.

The US remains the reference point of the High Fashion House Laug also in the nineties and early twenty-first century. But in 2005, Giancarlo Rossetti died in Rome. The fashion house passes to the heirs.

Laug today

Laug insists chic femininity and the rigor of the early years. In addition to High Fashion, the flagship of the house is also the wedding dress (the robe de mariée). In 2015 the studio moved to Rampa Mignanelli and, in 2016, proposed the Worldly Collection.