Claude Montana, the audacious and haunted French designer whose exquisite tailoring defined the big-shouldered power look of the 1980s — an erotic and androgenous tough chic that brought him fame and accolades until he was felled by drugs and tragedy in the ’90s — died on Friday in France. The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode confirmed the death but not specify a cause or say where he died. “His clothes were fierce, with a power that was both militaristic and highly eroticized,” said Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “It was not the American power look of the shoulder-padded executive. His was a different kind of working woman.”Mr. Montana often drew inspiration from the after-hours world of the Paris demimonde — the sex workers and dominatrixes, the denizens of the leather bars he frequented.

---

Persons: Claude Montana, —, ”, Valerie Steele, ” Mr Organizations: Haute Couture, Museum, Fashion Institute of Technology, Paris Locations: France, Montana