Fashion and French cinema are in mourning this week. Mathilde Favier, the emblematic public relations chief for Dior’s womenswear line, and Nicolas Altmayer, the producer behind decades of landmark French films, died late Monday afternoon following a traffic accident near Thouars, France.
The couple has long been one of the most beloved and enduring presences in the upper echelons of the French capital. News of the crash sent shockwaves through the industries they each called home.
How the crash unfolded
According to the Niort prosecutor’s office, the fatal accident occurred around 4 p.m. The car that Altmayer and Favier were in collided with a heavy goods truck traveling in the opposite direction while the couple attempted to overtake another vehicle.
French authorities have opened an investigation into involuntary homicide by a driver to determine the precise circumstances of the crash.
The woman who was the heart of Dior
With her unmistakable presence and a calendar that rarely had an empty slot, Mathilde Favier, 57, wasn’t just a fixture in the front rows of Paris Fashion Week — she was the connective tissue between Dior and the celebrities the house most coveted.
Favier joined the maison over a decade ago after a stint at Prada. In her time there, she redefined what the role of a fashion house’s PR chief could look like. Her job went well beyond dressing stars for the red carpet; she saw it as her mission to make those stars feel like genuine members of the Dior family, now led creatively by Jonathan Anderson.
© Victor BoykoThat personal touch made her an essential figure not just in fashion but in European high society. She was especially close with the house’s ambassadors, forging particularly warm relationships with figures like Beatrice Borromeo and Sassa de Osma — the kind of gala dinners and runway shows the three of them shared regularly, proof that the bond went well beyond the professional.
Favier’s career began in her youth alongside her half-sister, Victoire de Castellane, now Dior’s creative director of fine jewelry — and beyond the runway, Mathilde was also a passionate ambassador for French living itself. She channeled that love into her 2024 book, “Mathilde à Paris” (published in English as Living Beautifully in Paris), an intimate portrait of the French capital’s charms co-written with close friends, among them Carla Bruni.
Fashion pays its respects
© WWD via Getty Images“Mathilde loved life with a passion. With her death, Dior loses an incredible professional, and I have lost a loyal friend. Her optimism and her courage were worthy of admiration. We will miss her smile and her talent. I feel profound sadness today; my thoughts are with her children, her mother, her sisters, her family, her friends, and her team, whom she loved so much,” Dior chairwoman and CEO Delphine Arnault wrote in a statement.
Dior’s creative director wasted no time reacting either. “We have lost the kindest, most generous, and happiest person. We will miss you deeply. My thoughts are with your family. With love, Jonathan Anderson,” he posted on social media.
Other names from film and fashion left their own messages of condolence beneath Favier’s final Instagram post once the devastating news broke. Filmmaker Xavier Dolan wrote simply, “Mathilde, what an injustice, what an absurdity,” while designer Simon Porte Jacquemus wrote: “All my condolences. Dear Mathilde, it was a pleasure to cross paths with you, always with that big smile.”
© Corbis via Getty ImagesNicolas Altmayer: a pillar of contemporary French film
Nicolas Altmayer, born in 1965, was one of the indispensable figures of the French film industry. In 1996, alongside his brother Éric, he founded Mandarin Cinéma, the production company that would become one of the most prolific in the country.
Altmayer had a rare gift for balancing box-office crowd-pleasers with prestige filmmaking, backing landmark titles of recent decades including “OSS 117,” “Frantz, Young & Beautiful,” “Mon crime” and, more recently, “Monsieur Aznavour” and “Les caprices de l’enfant roi.“
The sudden, tragic loss of Mathilde and Nicolas leaves a void for their countless friends. Favier is survived by her two children, Héloïse and Carlo Agostinelli, with whom she shared a close bond — a closeness reflected in Carlo’s own Instagram, where nearly every photo includes his mother.
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