Laura Biagiotti, an Italian fashion designer who conquered global markets with her soft, loose women’s clothes and luxurious knits that won her the title “Queen of Cashmere”, died on Friday following a heart attack. She was 73. Biagiotti began designing women’s clothes in the 1960s and by the 1980s was making her mark.

In 1988, she became the first Italian designer to put on a fashion show in China, presenting dresses and blouses in silk and cashmere, and in 1995 was the first to have a show inside the Kremlin walls in Moscow.

She later started a men’s fashion line and an exclusive line for children.