Fashion

ul Poiret Selection Met Museum

Fashion Design from 1900 to 1920 – Focus on Freedom. Newfound political independence came newfound fashion freedom. READ MORERead More →

two fridas

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist that lived most of her life and physical pain, yet she continued to paint until her death, her artwork records her suffering and experiences as a woman. She was born to a Mexican mother and a German father.Read More →

Mary Quant black and white image

Mary Quant, a pivotal figure in British fashion design, studied art and design at Goldsmiths College of Art from 1952 to 1955 while also taking evening classes in clothing construction and cutting. In 1955, in Knightsbridge, London, she established her first shop Bazaar on King’s Road, followed by the second shop Terence Conran designed in Knightsbridge.Read More →

Pierre Balmain black and white featured image

Pierre Balmain (1914 – 1982) was a French fashion designer and the influential postwar fashion house Balmain founder. He described the art of dressmaking as “the architecture of movement,” and he was known for his sophistication and elegance. LEARN MORERead More →

Judith Leiber featured image

Judith Leiber (1921 – 2018) was a prolific designer whose fanciful minaudières had accessorised royalties, first ladies, and film stars, and entered the collections of art the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While her couture handbags—carried by celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Claudette Colbert, Björk, and Barbara Walters—are widely regarded as works of art, Leiber preferred the word “artisan” to “artist.”Read More →

Models walks the runway during the Krizia show as a part of Milan Fashion Week , 2014

Krizia is an Italian fashion design company based in Milan. Their clothes often have fruit-themed prints on them to give them a fantasy feel. The company was started in 1954 by its designer, Mariucca Mandelli, and her husband Aldo Pinto.Read More →

Marimekko featured image

Marimekko, one of the most well-known Finnish textile companies, was founded by Armi and Viljö Ratia in Helsinki in 1951 as the trendy and innovative arm of their parent business, Printex, which they also formed two years earlier. At Printex, Armi Ratia created bold, experimental printed cotton textiles. Still, after this failed to catch the popular imagination, she founded Marimekko.Read More →

Charles James was one of the first American fashion designers to gain recognition abroad. He created sculptural, moulded clothing using wire and padding. James designed a white satin jacket in 1938 that had channels filled with eiderdown padding.Read More →

Zandra Rhodes featured image

Zandra Rhodes studied lithography and printing at Medway College before going on to the Royal College of Art to study textiles, graduating in 1964 during the height of the pop movement. She made a paper wedding dress that cost less than two shillings, motivated by this trend and the work of painter Roy Lichtenstein in particular (about 7 new pence). In 1967, paper clothing was all the rage: it was the ultimate representation of disposable apparel.Read More →

Princess Catherine Doll with packaging

The Princess Catherine Doll has been dressed and accessorised by seven British fashion and design leaders. Kate’s engagement ring is made from sterling silver, plated with rose gold, and it is set with 24 brilliant-hardened diamonds. Catherine Middleton loves the Eaton Clutch Bag, and she has been seen with it many times. It is made by the up-and-coming British luxury goods brand Aspinal of London. The Princess Catherine Doll high-heeled slingback shoes are typical of Beatrix Ong’s style.Read More →

Her family settled in the USA when she was in her teens and took the Carnegie name. In 1909, with a friend, she opened a tiny dress and hat shop, New York, known as Carnegie—Ladies’ Hatter.Read More →

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, 1920

From gold buttons to comfortable tailored trousers and comfortable cardigan sweaters, there is no more significant influence on clothes than Coco Chanel.Read More →

Jean Patou fashion designer

One of Patou’s most famous customers was the French tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen, whom he dressed both on and off the court. This lean and active young woman epitomised the 1920s “new woman.” She created a furore in 1921 when she wore Patou’s knee-length pleated skirt, which revealed much of her legs when she ran. The headband she wore while playing tennis was widely copied by women throughout the 1920s for day and evening wear.Read More →

Geoffrey Beene in black and white

Geoffrey Beene (1927 – 2004) was an American fashion designer; born Haynesville, Louisiana. He was a premed student at Tulane University when he found himself sketching gowns when he became bored during his lectures. Along with Bill Blass, he was regarded as the Godfather of American sportswear. Read More →

Art of Zandra Rhodes featured image

Zandra Rhodes is known for her creativity and talent worldwide, and it is images and impressions from all around the world that has so often inspired her art. Images have met her eye and been interpreted through her own very personal vision, boldly pushing their way into the highest levels of fashion, from an aerial view of a Mexican sombrero to the wiggle of the Great Wall of China.Read More →

Calvin Klein featured image

Klein’s excellent, modest tailoring and beautiful sportswear lines, as well as his casual separates created in the finest linens, silks, and cashmere, had earned him a name by the mid-1970sRead More →

Jean-Paul Gaultier French Fashion Designer

Before launching his label in 1976, Gaultier worked for Cardin, Jacques Esteirel, and Patou. From the onset, Gaultier was dubbed the ‘enfant terrible de Paris’.Read More →

New York Fashion featured image

New York Fashion has been a seminal book on the story of American fashion since its hardcover debut in 1989. Caroline Rennolds Milbank chronicles the enormous changes in the fashion world from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century and the rise of prominent American designers such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and others.Read More →

Mainbocher and models wearing his dresses

When designing his 1945 spring collection, Mainbocher – the noted French designer who worked in New York after the fall of Paris in WWII. Declared that he had attempted more than ever to make clothes “that would embody the right amount of novelty, were stimulating for today,Read More →

American Fashion featured image

American Fashion is the definitive book on the country’s fashion culture, spanning eight decades and featuring the work of more than 100 designers. American Fashion is a visual journey through classic and fresh photographs by the century’s most outstanding photographers and illustrators, followed by essays defining nearly a century of fascinating culture, commissioned by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).Read More →