Jean Paul Gaultier was born April 24, 1952 in Arcueil, France and began working as an assistant for Pierre Cardin

Karl Lagerfeld (1938-) left his native Germany for school in Paris at the age of 14. He won a contest held by the International Wool Secretariat for a coat design soon thereafter, which led fashion house Balmain to offer him a job.  He worked for Balmain for three years before joining Patou as art director at age 20.  In 1964, disillusioned with the world of haute couture, he left Paris to study art history in Italy. 

John Galliano was born in 1960 in Gibraltar. 

Yohji Yamamoto (1943-) in 1966 decided to study fashion design at Bunkafukuso Gakuin after he obtained his law degree in Tokyo . He worked as a freelance designer, then formed his own company in 1972.  He created his first line called Y's, a women's collection, in the early 1970s and held his first fashion show in Tokyo in 1977.  Four years later, he presented his first Yohji Yamamoto collection in Paris.

In the mid-1980s, Yamamoto became known as a genius who changed the course of fashion.

Hubert de Givenchy was born in1927 in (1927-02-2Beauvais, France.  He attended the Ecole des...

Coco Chanel was born in1883 in Saumur, France.  She lived for seven years in an orphanage after her parents died, and it was there that a seamstress taught her how to sew. Once she turned 18, she left to work for a tailor and began an affair with a French millionaire who introduced her to some of life's luxuries.  Ultimately he, Etienne Balsan, financed her relocation to Paris and the opening of her first...

Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 in Jura, France, but he famously moved to Paris the old-fashioned way: on foot. He walked 250 miles to the fashion capital of the world, where he became an apprentice to luggage-maker Monsieur Marechal.  Soon he began to design his own luggage.

Claire McCardell was born in1905 in Frederick, MD.  As a child, McCardell noticed the clothes she wore were terrible for everyday activites like playing with her brothers. When she entered design school at what is now Parsons, she brought ...

Yves Saint Laurent was born in 1936 in Oran, Algeria.  Like his design contemporary Karl Lagerfeld, won first prize in an International Wool Secretariat competition in 1954 for his sketch of a cocktail dress.

Salvatore Ferragamo was born in 1898 in Bonito, Italy.  At nine years old, he made his first pair of shoes for his sisters to wear at their confirmation.  He studied shoemaking in Naples, and shortly after he opened a store out of his parents' house.  One of his brothers (he was the 11th of 14 c...

Season after season, Marc Jacobs (born New York, 1963), manages to predict exactly what women all over the world want to wear, whether that be his super-flat 'mouse' pumps, Sergeant Pepper-style denim jackets or 'Venetia' handbags fitted with outsized silver buckles.

Born in New York's Upper West Side to parents who both worked for the William Morris Agency, Jacobs was

Fendi is a house of extremes: big furs and little handbags, a family business with a worldwide reputation, a chic past and a street-cool future. Established in 1925, the Fendi empire was founded by Adele Fendi from a small leather-goods shop and workroom in Rome, where she and her husband Eduardo worked with private clients. The family business expanded with the opening- of a larger shop in 1946, but it wasn't until the death of Eduardo, eight years later, that the modern Fendi...

Next to Armani, global giant Hugo Boss is arguably the most recognizable suiting label in the world. In the forty-five years since the house began making suits, the label has been a dominant force in the market, with six hundred stores worldwide and a presence in 108 countries. With collections for every demographic, from urban sport to demi-bespoke, Hugo Boss continues to expand its global reach.

Founded in 1923 by the eponymous Austrian tailor, Hugo Boss began life as a manufacturer of work wear, ...

For more than 50 years, the name “Christian Dior” spells seduction, creativity and femininity in luxury goods. From his first collection (launched 1947), trendsetters, celebrities and film stars - everyone who desires modern design and top quality stick to Dior’s designs for good. Until now, everything that bears the Dior name expresses the sophisticated style, inventiveness, and delight resides to the legendary founder. Since 1987, the House of Dior belongs to the world's leading manufacturer of luxury goods, the

Now in his fifth decade working in fashion, Giorgio Armani is more than just a designer - he's an institution, an icon and a multinational, billion-dollar brand.

Armani the man was born in 1934 in Piacenza, northern Italy. He spent his formative years not in fashion but studying medicine at university and completing his national service. After working as a buyer for Milanese department store La Rinascente, he scored his first break in 1964,...

Roberto Cavalli (born 1940, Florence) designs some of the most glamorous clothes in fashion: baroque combinations of exotic feathers, overblown florals, animal prints and incredibly lightweight leathers comprise the signature Cavalli look for day or night, which is always shown on his Milan runway atop the highest heels and with the biggest, blow-dried hair in the city. In winter collections, fur - the more extravagant the better - is dominant.

And to think it all started on a ping-pong table. This is where, as a student at F...

Jil Sander is a name synonymous with a particularly pure and understated type of fashion. The German-born designer, who launched her first women's collection back in 1973, is closely associated with '90s minimalism, yet her philosophy of fashion is far from simplistic. She studied textile design in Germany before spending a year as an exchange student at UCLA.  She then became a journalist for American and German women’s magazines before turning to freelance clothing design. In ’68 she opened her first shop in Hamburg

McQueen's rise to power is a fashion fairytale all of its own. The East End taxi driver's son, born in 1969, is apprenticed to the Prince of Wales' tailor Anderson & Sheppard on Savile Row where he infamously scrawls obscenities into the linings of HRH's suits. He works with Romeo Gigli, theatrical costumers Angels & Bermans and Koji Tatsuno before Central Saint Martins MA course director Bobby Hilson suggests he enroll.

His 1992 'Jack the Ripper' graduation collection thrills members of the British fashion press, none more so than Isabella Blow who buys the enti...

A serious accident while riding his bike put paid to Paul Smith's dream of becoming a professional racing-cyclist. However, this mishap propelled him to pursue a career involving his other passion: fashion. In 1970, Smith (born Nottingham, 1946) opened a store in his native city, selling his own early designs that reflected the types of clothing he loved but was unable to buy anywhere else. Studying fashion design at evening classes, and working closely with his wife, Pauline Denyer, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, by 1976 he was showing a full range of menswear in

Lacroix made fashion history with his July 1987 debut couture collection backed by LVMH. His was the first Paris haute couture house to open since Courreges in 1965. Lacroix took the bustles, bows, corsets and crinolines painted by 18th century artists Boucher, Fragonard and Nattier and mixed them up with ruffles, feathers and fringes of Toulouse-Lautrec's can-can dancers and the gypsies in his hometown Trinquetoulle, Provence. "Personally I've always hovered between the purity of structures and the ecstasy of ornament," says the designer who ...

His culturally diverse style has made him one of the most successful of the 'Antwerp Six' designers who arrived at the London collections back in March 1986. His signature soft jackets and scarves are embroidered or beaded using the traditional folkloric techniques of India, Morocco or Eastern Europe - whichever culture has caught his attention that season.  He is a minimalist who favors spare lines and dark color palettes.  He built up ...

Miss Kawakubo is the founder of Comme des Garcons and was born in Tokyo in 1942. She has no formal training as a fashion designer, but having studied fine arts and literature at Tokyo’s Keio University, she conveys her ideas verbally to her patternmakers. After graduation Kawakubo worked at the textile company Asahi Kasei and began working as a freelance stylist in 1967.

In 1973, she established her o...

Ennio Capasa is the creator of Costume National, the Italian fashion house he founded in 1986 and now an internationally renowned designer label famous for its subtle shapes, dark tones and sartorial detail. He was born in Puglia, Lecce (Italy) in 1960.  Influenced by oriental culture from an early age as he traveled around Japan in his youth, his travel eventually led to enrolling in a sculpture course at Milan’s Academia di Belle Arti di Brera.  When he graduated he was invited to return to Japan to train under Yohji Yamamoto, who had been sent some of Capasa’s illustrations by a friend.  He stayed for three years (82-85) and then set up his own label with his brother Carlo.  The label combined Japanese purism ...