Swiss fashion doyen Ursula Rodel dies aged 75

The Zurich fashion designer and winner of the 2009 Swiss Grand Prix for Design died in a hospital on March 5.

The news was announced last week in an obituary in the Tages Anzeiger paper. Rodel started out as a fashion designer in the 1970s and in 1972 she co-founded the prêt-à-porter label “Thema Selection” in Zurich. She later launched her own label, “Ursula Rodel Création” in Zurich’s fashionable Kreis 4 quarter, where she designed home and fashion accessories.

She also briefly flirted with the film world working on costumes in films by Federico Fellini, Claude Berri and Daniel Schmid. She was also the make-up artist for the French actress (and friend) Catherine Deneuve on Lars von Trier’s film Dancer in the Dark.

Rodel has been adviser and designer to international brands like Cartier, Omega and Joop!.

“As a fashion de­signer she revolutionised the Swiss fashion world and be­longed to the avant-garde of those days. Her unmistakable style, to which she has remained loyal until today, is typified by distinctive, timeless cuts and lines which help to underline femininity,” said a statement from the organisers of the Swiss Grand Prix for Design which she won in 2009.