L’Wren Scott, fashion designer, dead at 49

L’Wren Scott, the celebrated American fashion designer, has been found dead in New York after committing suicide, police sources confirmed on Monday.

The 49-year old launched her haute namesake brand – renowned for its understated, womanly elegance – in 2006, after earlier forays into the industry first as a teenage model then later as a highly sought after Hollywood stylist. Her glamorous, alpha woman designs had most recently found a home on the London Fashion Week calendar, orbited by her make-up, fragrance and accessories partnerships with some of the biggest names in fashion.

With milky skin, long raven hair and statuesque height – a striking 6 foot 3 – Ms Scott often stood out within an industry crowd. She was born in Roy, Utah, adopted and raised by a Mormon family, before escaping small town life after high school by moving to Paris, where she modeled for the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Thierry Mugler.

After moving to California in her late twenties Scott then trailblazed an early path for stylists in Hollywood – now a billion dollar business. She was adored by the brightest of silver screen stars for her ability to make them red carpet ready, working her magic with a distinctively feminine and fiercely sexual flair. She also consulted on costumes for several major motion features, including ‘Oceans Eleven’ and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

Later, Scott turned her hand to designing, launching an eponymous brand in 2006 that was supported by high-profile patrons like Angelina Jolie and Julia Roberts, Madonna and Michelle Obama.

The FT’s fashion editor Vanessa Friedman interviewed Ms Scott in the line’s earliest days about her approach to fashion design:

“I have started from the inside out,” says Scott. “It’s a very old-fashioned approach. All the skirts have an anchor at the base of the slit so they won’t rip; there are loops in the dresses to keep your bra straps in place; there are built-in bras. There are dresses that look like they’re made of stretch but they’re not, they’re totally constructed.”

Like Scott herself, they manage to be both striking and self-effacing, Vanessa later wrote of the clothes.

As the brand gained momentum, all of of her collections were underpinned by a similar kind of rigid construction and understanding of the female form: Scott took classic, long and lean shapes and transformed them through use of lush materials, contouring and complex internal corsetry.

Scott showed first in New York, then Paris and later in London – her budding but still small business often the victim of inter-city squabbling over fashion week dates that put unyielding pressure on manufacturing deadlines.

Last February, the FT’s David Hayes interviewed her backstage prior to her AW/13 show.

Although Scott’s collections were almost always well received by editors and buyers, the couture-like attention to garments meant sky-high price-tags and a very small coterie of elite, international clients, marketing looks that would only work in the most exclusive of environments.

This isn’t to say she wasn’t afraid to experiment – her first resort collection, entitled ‘Bromance’ took a pared-down, playful approach to dressing and late last year Scott launched a savvy collaboration with Banana Republic, starring in ads for a clothing line that aimed to bring her exquisite yet eye-wateringly expensive offerings to a more mainstream audience.

Still, in recent seasons the business had struggled and last month the brand cancelled its AW/14 runway show.

Scott was the long-term partner of Rolling Stone frontman Mick Jagger, and the pair had been together since 2001. A spokesman for the singer said that he was “completely shocked and devastated” by the news of Ms Scott’s untimely death.

Her body was discovered by her assistant at 10am on Monday morning.

“The investigation is ongoing. We are awaiting medical examiners to determine the cause of death,” said a spokeswoman for New York City Police Department.

May she rest in peace.