[1] Following Dior's death in 1957, Scherrer worked under Saint Laurent, and then for Louis Féraud,[2] before launching his own fashion house in 1962 on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with the backing of Jacques Chabrol, a French millionaire.
[2] His clients included Anne-Aymone Giscard d'Estaing, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Raquel Welch, who wore Scherrer animal-print dresses in the 1977 film L'Animal.
[1] His extremely expensive designs were popular with the wealthy wives of Middle East oil tycoons, but after the Gulf War broke out, they stopped purchasing his clothes.
[1] Although the sacking was publicly criticised by high-profile figures in the French fashion industry including Marc Bohan, and Saint Laurent's co-founder Pierre Bergé, there was little that could be done.
[1] The fashion historian Colin McDowell described it as "a salutary warning of the dangers of putting too many eggs in one basket, of not keeping control of one's business and, according to some, of designer hubris".