Swiss designer Christa de Carouge has died

De Carouge was known for using the colour black in her designs Keystone

Iconic Swiss fashion designer Christa de Carouge has died following a short illness, according to her staff.

A colleague of de Carouge’s confirmed to the Swiss News Agency on Wednesday that the 81-year-old designer had passed away overnight.

Best known for her flowing black clothing designs, the Basel native presented her first solo fashion collection in 1983. It was the first completely black collection ever shown in Switzerland, and the theatrical presentation of her work help make de Carouge an instant sensation.

Her clothing collections soon became known across Switzerland, Germany and Austria and were featured in several museum exhibits. The designer told swissinfo.ch in a 2004 interview that “I think we need to adopt a sensible attitude towards clothes, because if we carry on with the current fashion trends, people will soon be wearing nothing at all, and that’s not the right way to go”.

+ Read our full interview with de Carouge

Her obsession with the colour black, she said, stemmed from the fact that it is “the least problematic and the most urbane in Europe”. 

“It was always my favourite colour, because it is the most neutral, most opaque colour that offers the most protection,” she said.

Born Christa Furrer in 1936, de Carouge changed her last name to reflect her favourite Geneva neighbourhood, having lived in French-speaking Switzerland for 40 years.