Bijan Pakzad, celebrity designer, dies

LOS ANGELES -- Bijan Pakzad, an Iranian American designer of jewelry, fragrances and luxury menswear who ran a Beverly Hills boutique and was renowned as clothier to some of the world's most powerful men, died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his family said.

Pakzad's family said he was 67, despite some public records that listed his age as 71.

Pakzad suffered a stroke while working Thursday and was rushed to the hospital but never recovered, said his son, Nicolas Bijan Pakzad.

"He's dressed over 40,000 clients," his son said, including Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. "We have a picture of all five living presidents wearing his suits."

Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore said Sunday that Pakzad was "a larger-than-life personality whose ultra-luxe Beverly Hills boutique helped to make Rodeo Drive a world-class shopping destination. Long before Tom Ford and Karl Lagerfeld, Bijan had a keen understanding of the cult of personality in fashion, starring in his own ads and billboards, name-checking countless celebrities and parking exotic cars outside his store, all to stoke his fame."

Pakzad was born to affluence in Iran, went to a boarding school in Switzerland and moved to the United States in the early 1970s. He opened House of Bijan, his by-appointment-only boutique on Rodeo Drive, in 1976.

He was often referred to only by his first name.