The internationally acclaimed French designer Andree Putman, whose many achievements include revamping the interior of the Concorde supersonic jet, died Saturday at her Paris home aged 87, her family said, reports AFP.
Putman helped coin the concept of the boutique hotel, gave her name to a skyscraper in Hong Kong, and designed movie sets and stores for luxury goods in a career that spanned nearly seven decades.
Seen by many as the Grande Dame of French design, the chic Parisienne was the subject of a retrospective at Paris city hall in 2010.
Her daughter Olivia, who now runs the Putman design studio and who curated the show, said Andree Putman "became a style ambassador in spite of herself -- she just did her own thing, she would never have claimed such a role."
From her upbringing in a wealthy, art-loving home on Paris's Left Bank, to summers spent in the family's historic abbey in Burgundy, Putman was born into a world of elegant comfort and refinement.
But her first design project -- her teenaged bedroom -- marked a break with her milieu when aged 15, she emptied it to get rid of all objects associated with the past, which she saw as loaded with social status.
Despite showing promise as a pianist, she signed up as messenger-girl at a woman's magazine, "Femina", and began gravitating towards the design world.
The 1960s and 1970s brought her marriage to the art dealer Jacques Putman, her discovery of the art scene, and stints in a design bureau and a talent incubator that launched such designers as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Issey Miyake.
Read more of this report from AFP.