Andre Courreges, designer who gave the world the miniskirt, dies at 92

Andre Courreges, the innovative French fashion designer whose creations spoke of the future, symbolised stylistic freedom and provoked hot dispute over whether he was first with the miniskirt, has died at his home outside Paris. He was 92.

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According to the Courreges firm, he had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 30 years.

One of the most influential couturiers of his time, Courreges won fame for fitting out his models in attire that seemed to suggest not past eras or conventions, but the space age.

He was also interested in providing high-quality ready-to-wear clothing, and at one time, his name adorned more than 120 shops across the globe.

In the rarefied world of high-end fashion, partisans took sides as to whether Courreges or British designer Mary Quant deserved more credit for creating the miniskirt in the mid-1960s.

The knee-baring garment seemed to stand for all the sauciness of the ’60s and what the decade represented in banishing the stodgy in favour of the swinging.

In sorting out the finer points of the miniskirt’s origin story, the website Fashion-Era noted that in 1965 Quant “took the idea from the 1964 designs by Courreges and liking the shorter styles she made them even shorter for her boutique Bazaar. She is rightly credited with making popular a style that had not taken off when it made its earlier debut.”

According to British newspaper The Independent, “Courreges was the inventor of the miniskirt: at least in his eyes and those of the French fashion fraternity ... The argument came down to high fashion vs street fashion and to France versus Britain – there’s no conclusive evidence either way.”