Campbell and fellow fashion icon Farida Khelfa, close friends of Alaia, accompanied his remains from France to Tunisia, French Ambassador Olivier Poivre d’Arvor told AFP.
Tunisian mourners carry the coffin of late French-Tunisian fashion designer Azzedine Alaia, who died this month aged 77, during his funeral in the Sidi Bou Said cemetery in the capital Tunis on November 20, 2017
Alaia is to be buried in the famous blue and white village of Sidi Bou Said.
An AFP journalist saw Campbell leaving Alaia’s home surrounded by dozens of people to head for the cemetery of Sidi Bou Said in the northern suburbs of Tunis.
President Beji Caid Essebsi, Alaia’s relatives and public figures took part in the commemoration.
Franco-Tunisien fashion designer Azzedine Alaia poses for a photograph at the Maison Alaia in Paris on September 7, 2017
Culture Minister Mohamed Zine El Abidine paid tribute to Alaia, saying the designer’s work had expressed “the quintessence, the beauty, the fertile imagination” of Tunisia.
Alaia was born to a farming family in Tunisia in 1940 and studied sculpture at the capital’s fine arts school before working at a modest neighbourhood dressmaker’s shop.
He moved to Paris in the late 1950s, working briefly for Dior and Guy Laroche before going solo, winning a reputation for sexy designs celebrating the female form.
His muses ranged from French actress and singer Arletty to Hollywood icon Greta Garbo and statuesque Jamaican singer and actress Grace Jones.
A visitor looks at a dress designed by Azzedine Alaia at the Museum NRW-Forum in Duesseldorf, Germany on June 11, 2013
He was dubbed the “King of Cling” for his form-fitting gowns.
Alaia gained world fame in the 1980s with tight black shorts and back-zipping skirts, designs that helped define the confident female silhouette of the time.
He refused to march to the beat of international fashion weeks, however, releasing his collections in his own time with scant concern for publicity.
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