Sonia Rykiel, the French designer famous for her striped garments and cool-girl knits, died on Thursday, August 25, in Paris after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. My husband [Sam Rykiel, whom she married in 1953] had a boutique called Laura.

French fashion designer Sonia Rykiel in 2010 posing for photographs in Paris, on the eve of the start of an exhibition of 200 of her drawings.

Rykiel first designed clothes in the early '60s out of practicality: pregnant with her son Jean-Philippe, she was dismayed by the bad options for maternity clothes, and so she crafted her outfits herself. She opened her first women's ready-to-wear shop on the Left Bank in 1968. The designer's empire grew to include menswear and children's lines as well as accessories, perfumes and home goods, sold in the label's stores on four continents.

Rykiel's daughter Nathalie has long helped manage the fashion house. It was featured on Elle magazine's cover and made her an immediate star in the fashion world. By 1970, the fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily had dubbed Rykiel the "queen of knitwear".

In 2009, Rykiel stepped down from her brand but was awarded The Order of Légion d'Honneur in recognition of her 40 years of service in the French fashion industry.

According to her website, Rykiel "urged women to be eccentric, seductive, mysterious, and to create their own style".

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When she was pregnant in the early 1960s, she told WWD in an interview, "I wanted a maternity dress, but I couldn't find anything I liked".

"She abolished hemlines and linings, she invented knitwear, she made clothes that were reversible, she used layering", Olivier Saillard, who curated the retrospective of her work, said at the time.

Sonia's designs were a favorite among A-list celebrities on the red carpet. Working with journalist Judith Perrignon, she published the book Don't Forget It's a Game (N'Oubliez Pas Que Je Joue) that detailed her struggle.

Instead, she went on to produce decades of collections and became a prominent figure on the Paris cultural scene.

Rykiel is survived by her daughter, Nathalie, and son, Jean-Philippe.