Latest news with #Azagury
New York Post
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Princess Diana's bold request was the one thing her designer refused: ‘You are a princess'
Advertisement Princess Diana was ready to put royal protocol to the test to prove she was a 'free woman.' The late Princess of Wales is the subject of the upcoming 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' auction, which takes place on June 26 in Los Angeles. It will feature some of fashion designer Jacques Azagury's design illustrations for Diana, and fabric swatches from some of her famous dresses. 'It feels wonderful [to keep her memory alive],' Azagury, who helped Diana revamp her style during her final years, told Fox News Digital during a private preview at The Peninsula Residences London. 'Anything that I can do that's going to carry on the legacy of the princess, I will always do it… It's a way of keeping her alive really.' Advertisement Azagury said he met Diana in 1985 when he was showing his new collection in London. They were introduced by Anna Harvey, deputy editor of British Vogue. 6 The late Princess of Wales is the subject of the upcoming 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' auction. Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images 'She immediately put me at ease,' he described. 'She had this amazing ability to make you feel completely at ease in no time.' Advertisement In return, Azagury would help Diana step out of her shell. 'In her later years, Diana embraced this sexier, sleeker look, which was my aim,' he explained. 'My aim was really to just get her out of all these frills and… frumpy skirts that she was wearing at the beginning. As her life was developing, she had to be on the international stage, and it was my job to make her fit there. Gradually, I simplified and simplified her right to the end until there wasn't really that much dress. It was more about the princess and the fit of the dress.' 6 Azagury said he met Diana in 1985 when he was showing his new collection in London. Advertisement According to reports, British royals are subject to strict fashion rules. And as the wife of the future king, Diana was expected to follow them. But as her marriage publicly crumbled, Diana was ready to send a new message using her style. One of the most iconic looks was 'The Revenge Dress,' a slinky little black dress that she wore in 1994, on the same night that her ex-husband, the former Prince Charles, confessed his infidelity on national television. Reports claimed that Diana owned the Christina Stambolian design for three years, but never wore it until then because it was too daring. Charles and Diana separated in 1992. Their divorce was finalized in 1996. And it was during the '90s that Azagury created 'The Famous Five,' a collection of dresses that showed Diana in a new light. 'This is a period when you see the Diana that we all loved, where she was feeling free from her marriage,' said Azagury. 6 Charles and Diana separated in 1992. Their divorce was finalized in 1996. Getty Images 'It was her new life starting. She was fit, she was training. She looked phenomenal, and these dresses were saying exactly what she wanted to say, that she was a free woman. She could wear what she wanted to wear. She moved away from royal protocol with the length of the dresses. It was kind of a rebellion, but not a rebellion. But it was her way of telling people that she's her own woman.' But Azagury admitted he wasn't prepared for Diana's bold fashion request. Advertisement '[She surprised me] only once,' he said. 'She wanted to go super short on the dresses, and we wouldn't allow it, particularly on that blue ['Swan Lake' dress from June 1997]. It was quite a low décolletage and quite short anyway, and she wanted to go even shorter. We just said, 'Look, you're not going to have a dress left and you are a princess. We've got to remember you're a princess.' So it was way short anyway, so that's really the only request we would not abide by.' Azagury said that one of Diana's favorite colors to wear was black, which, for the royals, is typically reserved for mourning. But the princess, who was thriving during the era of supermodels, wore several pieces by Azagury that were low-cut, figure-hugging, and showcased her bare, lean arms. Her 'Venice' dress from 1995 was a bright red silk two-piece featuring a short skirt. The 1997 'Washington' dress featured a deep V cut in the back. 6 'This is a period when you see the Diana that we all loved, where she was feeling free from her marriage,' said Azagury. Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images 'After Diana's marriage, she portrayed herself in a slightly different manner,' Azagury explained. 'She had total freedom… She could wear what she wanted to wear. She was able to wear black, which she's usually not allowed to wear because royals only wear black for funerals.' Advertisement 'So the minute she was away from that, the first dress we made for her… was a black dress we made for her after the Martin Bashir interview… a black sexy dress,' he shared. 'That was her way of saying, 'This is me, this is the new me. I'm confident.' And it had all of those things in that one dress. She treated the dresses like that all the way through.' And as one of the most photographed women in the world, there was no room for error, Azagury stressed. 6 '[She surprised me] only once,' he said. 'She wanted to go super short on the dresses, and we wouldn't allow it.' 'As a designer, my main thing was to make sure that every single little thing on the dress was perfect,' he said. 'She was stepping out of her shell, and she would have 500 photographers surrounding her, so everything had to be perfect, even though the dresses were very, very simple.' Advertisement 'It took a lot of work to get everything immaculate, and that was my job,' he said. 'We never had any mishaps at all. We just didn't want to end up in a circle of shame with a bit of something sticking out. So really, it was my job to make sure that everything was perfect for her.' Azagury created what royal watchers have coined the 'Final Goodbye' dress. It was a full-length black dress highlighting a plunging neckline, thin straps and a high front slit. Diana was fitted for it in London just before she flew to Paris. 'I think it might've been for a Disney premiere, so we wanted to make it more wow than the other dresses and make it really Hollywood red carpet,' said Azagury. 'All that had to be done was to [adjust] the straps. Sadly, she never got back to wear it.' 6 Azagury created what royal watchers have coined the 'Final Goodbye' dress. WireImage Advertisement But her legacy lives on, he said. 'The princess is still indirectly affecting fashion, affecting the other royals,' said Azagury. 'Of course, anytime that Kate wears something that possibly remotely looks like something Diana wore… it always gets compared in the newspapers. So, she's still there.' 'In a way, the dresses that she wore at the time, yes, they were fashions of the time, but they were timeless pieces,' he reflected. 'Any of the dresses that I made, for instance, could be worn today, and they wouldn't look out of place. There's something to say about her dress sense… it went quite deep.' The auction 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' by Julien's Auctions kicks off June 26 at The Peninsula Beverly Hills.
Vogue
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
The Untold Story Behind the Final Jacques Azagury Dress Princess Diana Never Got to Wear
'We didn't really talk about it,' Azagury tells Vogue of why it was kept hidden. 'Even when I did talks or exhibitions, I never did show that dress.' Azagury does not refer to August 31, 1997 as the day Diana died—instead, he refers to it, poignantly, as 'when she left.' When asked if the Final Goodbye Dress was too painful to talk about for all of those years, he thinks for a moment before responding, 'I just found—I just feel it was very personal to me.' Now, though, he's ready to share. Azagury first met Princess Diana in 1987, when he was working on his second fashion collection. British Vogue editor Anna Harvey, who was a fashion mentor to Diana throughout her royal life, made the introduction. 'Of course I was dumbstruck,' he says, 'but within seconds, within seconds, she put me at ease.' A few weeks after their initial meeting, the palace called, saying that Diana would like to visit Azagury's atelier. She had noticed a dress from the collection that she ended up wearing—a black velvet creation with blue stars—which ultimately sold for $1.1 million, 11 times its estimated value, in 2023. 'So that was our very, very first meeting together,' Azagury says. 'And then, of course, we had a very good relationship right to literally two days before she left for Paris.' Azagury estimates that he made about 20 dresses for Diana during their 10 years working together, but the Famous Five were when he 'achieved the look that I wanted for her,' he says. He helped modernized her image with these five creations, starting with the Venice Dress in June 1995, a red silk georgette two-piece tunic worn to a fundraiser in the Italian city to raise money for London's Serpentine Gallery. Three months later, she wore the Bashir Dress, a long black silk georgette dress with a fishtail hem, in London that September; she would wear it again to the Cancer Research Ball in New York City the following December. The last summer of her life, she wore the ice blue Swan Lake Dress to a performance of the ballet of the same name at Royal Albert Hall on June 3, 1997, and that same month, she wore the Washington Dress, a red silk georgette column gown, to a Red Cross Ball gala dinner in Washington, D.C. on June 18.
CBS News
27-03-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Bay Area lab utilizes AI in search for next effective weight loss drug
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, especially here in the Bay Area, one lab is working to use AI technology to find the next effective weight loss drug. Richard Yu has always been passionate about science and technology. "Being able to find these really rare drugs that can give you the beneficial effects without some of the side effects. And that really is about finding drugs that can activate certain parts of your body while avoiding activating other parts on other cells," Yu, the co-founder and CEO of Abalone Bio, told CBS News Bay Area. He, along with his staff of scientists, are generating billions of yeast cells out of his biotech lab in Emeryville. Yu's mission is to discover new drugs, including a weight-loss drug without the common side effects. As medications like Ozempic and Wegovy are becoming more popular, he is researching a drug that can only bind and activate in certain parts of your body without producing unwanted symptoms. "It can turn on neurons that make you feel full, and you eat less, which is generally how drugs like the GLP-1 drugs work. But in our case, we're going to do that much more specifically so we're not activating the neurons that also give you diarrhea or nausea," Yu said. He added that he is using AI technology to help with his drug discovery process. "It sifts through hundreds and millions and billions of antibody sequences and learns that often very non-intuitive combinations of those different sequences and how to combine them," Yu said. "What we're doing is looking for even much rarer molecules, much rarer antibody molecules that can do special things. They can interact with cells in very specific ways that can turn on or off different biological processes," he added. CBS News Bay Area talked to one medical expert who cautioned people to be more mindful when it comes to weight-loss medication. "There is no quick development of a drug. Yes, there are some things that can be done faster these days. But ultimately, every single drug will have a side effect and it's a matter of which one has the best safety profile, which one has the best efficacy profile. And it's been very hard to develop effective weight-loss drugs and it will continue to be difficult to develop new types of drugs," said Dr. Dan Azagury, the director of Stanford Lifestyle and Weight Management Center. Azagury adds that while surgery remains the most effective therapy for weight loss, drugs can help but will not work alone. "The tip is, find a reputable provider that can explain all the options and that can manage the treatments in a way that is tailored to you, and that will be the most helpful for each specific patient," Dr. Azagury said. He also said with more weight-loss medications becoming more popular to the average person, it's important to take a step back and assess all options that are best catered to your health. "There is still a lot of education that needs to be done," the expert said. "It definitely changed the mindset of patients overall. And they're starting to think about, 'oh maybe it is appropriate for me to talk to my doctor about it,'" Dr. Azagury said. Meanwhile back at Abalone Bio, Yu, a lifelong scientist, said his journey may take more than 10 years to develop the drugs. He is also working on medication for inflammation, while also assisting in cancer research. "What we want to do is make sure we can make drugs that can access that other population that can't take those other drugs so they can benefit from these," Yu said. Abalone Bio is also working with the University of Pennsylvania to continue the discovery process of these new drugs. "Do something that can help increase human welfare and reduce human suffering," Yu said.
