LAROCHE, GUY

born July 16, 1921, La Rochelle, France died Feb. 17, 1989, Paris French couturier known for designing elegant fashions at moderate prices. From 1949 Laroche trained under the Paris designer Jean Desss and, he studied production and marketing techniques on a 1955 trip to the New York City garment district. In 1957 he showed his first solo collection in Paris, and four years later he opened a boutique for a new ready-to-wear line. In the late 1960s he launched a line of menswear and the first of many successful perfumes, but in the 1970s he stopped personally designing ready-to-wear clothing to concentrate on haute couture. By the late 1980s he owned some 250 boutiques worldwide. Laroche received two Golden Thimbles, awards given by the international fashion press for the best Paris collection of the season. Laroche was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1987.