Iconic Women Designer Spotlight

Written by Jet Thurmond

Stitch by stitch, women fashion designers have constructed their legacies in a way that embraces all that the gloriously boundless fashion industry has to offer. Women’s history month commemorates and encourages the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in our history. They play an especially important role in the fashion industry, and few designers have been able to create an environment of continuous growth and build their legacies around their own creative visions.

Our featured designers are leaders and trailblazers, and they have become a standard for the rest of the industry to follow. Their visions were innovative and catered to those who were looking for something just a little bit different than the norm. Many have used these iconic designers as a source of inspiration because of their vision and their impact on fashion throughout the decades

Madeleine Vionnet. Image via faz.net

Madeleine Vionnet

Madeleine Vionnet was a French fashion designer with a career running from the 1910s to the late 1930s. She opened her first fashion house in 1912. It was forced to close in 1914 due to bombings and the unpredictable battles of WWI but it was reestablished in 1923. It was again forced to close with the onslaught from WWII.

British Vogue named her “the greatest geometrician among all French couturiers,” in 1925 based on her use of geometry to immaculately produce her garments. Also known as the “Queen of the bias cut” throughout the industry, she is revered for revolutionizing the utilization of the bias cut for her designs.

A bias cut is when fabric is cut off grain, traditionally at a 45° angle. This gives the fabric room to stretch and cling to the body and promotes better draping due to the increased flexibility. She was the first designer to use the bias cut throughout her entire design, not just on components.

Unlike many designers of her time, she preferred to drape fabric on live models. This allowed her to shape the garment directly to the body. Her name became synonymous with her elegant, grecian inspired dresses that created a natural, pleasurable silhouette that allowed room for movement.

She was a private individual, and outwardly expressed her distaste for the fashion industry’s ever-changing ideals. Her designs were minimalistic, and inspired by and her own vision of beauty found in the female form throughout her career.

Vionnet was also revolutionarily feminist in labor practices. She consistently advocated for copywriting for designers and gave benefits like paid holidays and maternity leave, day-care, a dining hall, and a resident doctor and dentist for her workers. Her designs still continue to inspire other creative minds today.

Anne Lowe. Image via fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu

Ann Lowe

Ann Lowe was the first African American to become a noted fashion designer. Her designs were popular among elite upper-class women from the 1920s until her retirement in 1972. Her works were especially popular upon opening her own salon in 1950.

She was known to incorporate design elements including fine handwork, signature flowers, and trapunto technique into her pieces. Trapunto quilting is a stuffed quilting technique that raises specific sections of a quilted piece to create texture.

Lowe was very particular about the clientele for whom she chose to design. She wanted to design only for the most elite people in society and notoriously wealthy families. Part of this exclusive clientele was Jacqueline Bouvier, whose father commissioned Lowe to design Jaqueline’s wedding gown for her marriage to John F. Kennedy in 1953.

This is arguably her most iconic design with the ivory silk taffeta wedding dress being heavily featured in the press. However, she did not receive credit for the design by name in the press until after JFK’s assassination.

Lowe faced challenges receiving equal pay for her gowns compared to her contemporaries. Even though her clientele could afford to pay a fair price for her gowns and despite hundreds of hours of finesse being put into each unique design, they would often work her prices down to a level that resulted in net loss for the designer.

While the reason for acceptance of the lower fees for designs is ambiguous it is possible that racial inequalities of the time allowed her clients to strong arm her. She has said that the happiness sewing brought her was its own reward. 

Mary Quant. Image via vogue.com

Mary Quant

Mary Quant is a self-taught British fashion designer who was popular in the late 1950s through the 1980s. After an early career selling wholesale clothing at a boutique and working for a milliner, she began producing her own designs in 1956 as she found it difficult to find and purchase the types of garments she was interested in selling. 

Quant's designs were revolutionary to the world of fashion, moving trends away from popular 40s wartime fashions to the extravagance of the 50s and 60s. She is the inspiration of many iconic looks from the 60s such as the miniskirt, one of the most defining fashions of the time. Colored and patterned tights were also popularized due to her influence.

Additionally, she popularized short shorts, a forerunner to hot pants. This launched her to iconic status. For a while, Quant was one of only two high-end London designers that were making youthful clothes for young people. In 1966, Women’s Wear Daily named Quant as one of the “fashion revolutionaries'' in New York.

She began designing for men in 1972, releasing a line of men’s ties. She continued her expansion with children’s wear into the ‘80s in Japan, and transitioned into founding and spearheading a makeup line. She resigned from directorship of her cosmetics line Mary Quant Limited in 2000, but remained a consultant. 

Rei Kawakubo. Image via newyorker.com

Rei Kawakubo

Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese fashion designer that revolutionized the way fashion is viewed and understood. Throughout her career, she challenged traditional garments and expectations of design, and she is known as an avant-garde designer.

She was not formally trained as a fashion designer, but worked for a textile company in Japan and as a freelance stylist before founding her own label. Currently based in Paris and Japan, her brand Comme Des Garçons, French for “Like the Boys”, was founded in 1969 in Tokyo. She opened her first boutique in 1978.

Her brand specializes in anti-fashion, austere, and deconstructed garments. Anti-fashion is a style of dress that explicitly contrasts with fashion of the day, and is considered radical creativity.

Her early garments were all black, white, and dark gray. She and her followers were often called “The Crows” by Japanese press.

Kawakubo likes having input on all areas of her business beyond design, and she remains greatly involved in graphic design, advertising, and shop interior design processes. Despite her influence, she does not see herself as a fashion icon and she is known to be very media-shy. 

Humility aside, she is a point of reference and inspiration for many designers in recent years. Designers like Viktor & Rolf and Alexander McQueen have expressed their appreciation and she has had the consistent support of designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Donna Karan. 

Donna Karan. Image via businessoffashion.com

Donna Karan

Donna Karan is an American Designer that focused on essentials throughout her career. She founded her eponymous company in 1984, and showcased her first collection under the label in 1985.

One of her first collections was a line meant to be mixed and matched together around a bodysuit, the central piece. Bodysuits were a cornerstone of her ‘easy pieces’ and became a signature.

Karan truly spoke for women and represented their true desires for their clothes. Other male designers perceived their women customers differently, treating them as dress-up dolls, but she catered to working women.

These women wanted clothes that were chic, comfortable, and wearable no matter their location, and Karan was passionate about providing this for them.

She founded DKNY in 1988, a more budget friendly version of her original label. The bridge line caters to a younger demographic. She chose to work with soft fabrics and neutral colors for her clothing, furthering her brands’ focus on comfort and simplicity.

She is credited with the conception of the “Capsule Wardrobe” because of her essentials line. A capsule wardrobe is made up of several staple pieces that all have the ability to be worn interchangeably.

The press called her the “Queen of Seventh Avenue” in 1989 and the title stuck. She loves to wear her own brand and takes great pride in showing off her clothes. She published an autobiography in 2004 about her experiences within the industry and launched a lifestyle brand in 2007, Urban Zen.

Karan stepped down as chief designer at her namesake company, Donna Karan International, in 2015 to devote more attention to Urban Zen. DKNY has continued to flourish, and has become one of the strongest diffusion lines released by a brand in fashion. 

These women have built their legacies the same way they have made their clothes. The care, emotion, and detail that went into each of these designers' pieces throughout their career showcases how they have earned their place as an iconic designer.

They knew their calling, and saw that fashion could be so much more than what it had been. These designers and many others have stayed true to their own creative vision and still influence others to this day.