Fashion Designers

Synopsis

Fashion designer Coco Chanel, born August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France, is famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits, and little black dresses. Chanel was raised in an orphanage and taught to sew. She had a brief career as a singer before opening her first clothes shop in 1910. In the 1920s, she launched her first perfume and introduced the Chanel suit and the little black dress.

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Synopsis

Born Donna Ivy Faske on October 2, 1948, in Forest Hills, New York. One of the most influential fashion designers in the world, Donna Karan has left a lasting impact on the world of clothing, bringing uptown New York chic into the mainstream. In 2004 she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

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Synopsis

Born on July 11, 1934, in Italy, Giorgio Armani is an iconic clothing designer who has expanded his empire to include restaurants and hotels. His popularity skyrocketed in America in the 1980s when his men’s ‘power suits’ appeared frequently on the television series Miami Vice and in the 1980 film American Gigolo, which starred Richard Gere in Armani’s signature garb.

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Synopsis

Born in Italy in 1955, Donatella Versace grew up with two major fashion influences. Her mother was a dressmaker and her older brother, Gianni Versace, was a budding designer. She went to work for her brother in the late 1970s, serving as his muse and adviser. Donatella Versace became the designer for the company’s Versus line in the 1980s.
After her brother was murdered, in 1997, she became creative director of the Versace Group.

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Synopsis

Fashion designer Miuccia Prada was born on May 10, 1949, in Milan, Italy. Once a member of the Italian Communist Party and a mime student, Prada was an unlikely entrepreneur when she took over her family’s luggage business in 1978.
She first dazzled the fashion world in 1985 with a series of black nylon handbags and backpacks. Prada is now a billion-dollar company.

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Synopsis

Iconic designer Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in New York City on October 14, 1939.
Lauren worked in retail before developing a line of neckties. The brand he established, Polo, is now one part of an empire that includes fragrances, home furnishings and luxury clothing.
Lauren has used his personal fortune to amass a collection of rare and classic cars.

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Synopsis

Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior was born in northern France in 1905. In 1947, Dior exploded onto the Paris fashion scene with designs that flew in the face of wartime restrictions and reintroduced a femininity and focus on luxury to women’s fashion.
His resulting success, based on the innovation of both his designs and his business practices, made him the most successful fashion designer in the world. His designs have been worn by film stars and royalty alike, and his company continues to operate at the forefront of the fashion industry. Dior died in Montecatini, Italy, in 1957, at the age of 52.

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Synopsis

Tom Ford was born on August 27, 1961, in Austin, Texas. While studying architecture at the Paris campus of the Parsons School of Design, Ford decided to switch to fashion. He became Womenswear Designer for Gucci in 1990 and Creative Director in 1994. Under Ford’s direction, Gucci’s annual sales grew to $3 billion.
Since resigning from Gucci in 2005, Ford has launched his own fashion brand and he also directed Colin Firth in the film The Single Man.

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Synopsis

Pierre Cardin is an Italian-born French high fashion designer best known for his geometric avant-garde designs. In the 1960s his use of stark tunics, goggles and helmets launched the Space Age look. Cardin expanded into the automobile market in the early ’70s and designed haute couture muscle car interiors. He now owns a chain of Maxim hotels and restaurants. Fashion designer Pierre Cardin was born on July 2, 1922, to French parents in San Biagio di Callalta, Italy (near Venice). Cardin became interested in fashion early.
He eventually went to work for a tailor in Vichy, France. There, he began to hone the skills that would make him one of the most successful designers of the 20th century.

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Synopsis

Yves Saint Laurent was a European fashion designer born on August 1, 1936 in Oran, Algeria. As a teen, he left for Paris to work for designer Christian Dior and gained acclaim for his dress designs.
In 1966, he launched his own fashion labels, where his adaptations of tuxedos for women garnered him fame. He was the first living designer to receive a solo exhibition in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. The Designer died in Paris on June 1, 2008 from brain cancer.

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Synopsis

Born in France in 1963, Christian Louboutin first started dreaming up fantastical footwear in his early teens. He was expelled from school at age 16 and started working for famed shoe designer Charles Jourdan two years later. In the early 1990s, Louboutin launched his own line of women’s shoes.
He added his legendary red soles in 1993. In 2003, Louboutin expanded into women’s handbags. He then started up his men’s shoes line in 2011.

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Synopsis

One of the most acclaimed fashion designers in the world, Karl Lagerfeld was born in Hamburg, Germany. While he’s never revealed his true birthday, it’s been reported he was born September 10, 1933.
Known for his bold designs and constant reinvention, he’s been hailed Vogue magazine as the “unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment.”

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Synopsis

Valentino Garavani was born in Voghera, Italy, on May 11, 1932. Valentino studied fashion design from a young age, completing his formal training in Paris and starting his own line in Rome in 1959. By the mid-1960s, Valentino was a favorite designer of the world’s best-dressed women, including Jacqueline Kennedy. Among his signatures is a particular fabric shade, known as “Valentino red.”

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Synopsis

Marc Jacobs was born April 9, 1963 in New York City. Marc’s life was completely altered following the death of his father at the age of 7. He would eventually move in with his grandmother and that made all the difference.
Marc entered the Parsons School of Design and later a position at Perry Ellis. Jacobs started his own label and continued to impress the fashion world.

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Synopsis

Stefano Gabbana was born on 14 November 1962, in Venice, Italy. Domencio Dolce was born on 13 September 1958, in a small village in Sicily. Dolce studied fashion design in Sicily and gained experience in his parents businesses. Gabbana, however, studied graphic design and gained some work experience in fashion, as an assistantin an atelier in Milan, where the pair first met in 1980.

By 1982, they had started their first fashion consulting studio and, in 1985, they showed their first women’s collection in Milan, winning national acclaim.

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