Couture beginnings

The first fashion designer who was not merely a dressmaker

Dressmaker

A dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker or a modiste.-Notable dressmakers:*Cristobal Balenciaga*Charles Frederick Worth...

 was Charles Frederick Worth

Charles Frederick Worth

Charles Frederick Worth , widely considered the Father of Haute couture, was an English fashion designer of the 19th century, whose works were produced in Paris.-Career:...

 (1826–1895). Before the former draper

Draper

Draper is the now largely obsolete term for a wholesaler, or especially retailer, of cloth, mainly for clothing, or one who works in a draper's shop. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. The drapers were an important trade guild...

 set up his maison de couture(fashion house

Fashion House

Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006...

) in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, clothing design and creation was handled by largely anonymous seamstresses, and high fashion descended from styles

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

 worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done.

It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. The images alone could be presented to clients much more cheaply than by producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If the client liked the design, they ordered it and the resulting garment made money for the house. Thus, the tradition of designers sketching out garment designs instead of presenting completed garments on models to customers began as an economy.

Early twentieth century

Throughout the early 20th century, practically all high fashion originated in Paris and to a lesser extent London. Fashion magazines from other countries sent editors to the Paris fashion shows. Department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

s sent buyers to the Paris shows, where they purchased garments to copy (and openly stole the style lines and trim details of others). Both made-to-measure salons and ready-to-wear departments featured the latest Paris trends, adapted to the stores' assumptions about the lifestyles and pocket books of their targeted customers.

At this time in fashion history the division between haute couture and ready-to-wear

Ready-to-wear

Ready-to-wear or prêt-à-porter is the term for factory-made clothing, sold in finished condition, in standardized sizes, as distinct from made to measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a particular person's frame. Off-the-peg is sometimes used for items which are not clothing.Ready-to-wear has...

 was not sharply defined. The two separate modes of production were still far from being competitors, and, indeed, they often co-existed in houses where the seamstresses moved freely between made-to-measure and ready-made.

Around the start of the 20th century fashion style magazines began to include photographs and became even more influential than in the future. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public taste. Talented illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

s - among them Paul Iribe

Paul Iribe

Paul Iribe was a French designer, journalist, artist, and fashion illustrator.-Early Life and Career:Paul Iribarnegaray was born in Angoulême, France in 1883, of Basque parentage....

, Georges Lepape, Erté, and George Barbier

George Barbier

George Barbier was one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century. Born in Nantes, France on October 10, 1882, Barbier was 29 years old when he mounted his first exhibition in 1911 and was subsequently swept to the forefront of his profession with commissions to design theatre and...

 - drew exquisite fashion plates for these publications, which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty

Beauty

Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du bon ton

La Gazette du Bon Ton

La Gazette du Bon Ton was a leading French fashion magazine that was published from November 1912 to 1925. Founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel, the magazine covered the latest developments in fashion, lifestyle, and beauty.-Elitism and arts focus:...

 which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception of the stupid years).

1900s

The outfits worn by the fashionable women of the 'Belle Époque

Belle Époque

The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...

' (as this era was called by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) were strikingly similar to those worn in the heyday of the fashion pioneer Charles Worth. By the end of the 19th-century, the horizons of the fashion industry had generally broadened, partly due to the more stable and independent lifestyle many well-off women were beginning to adopt and the practical clothes they demanded. However, the fashions of the La Belle Époque still retained the elaborate, upholstered, hourglass-shaped style of the 19th century. As of yet, no fashionable lady could (or would) dress or undress herself without the assistance of a third party. The constant need for radical change, which is now essential for the survival of fashion within the present system, was still literally unthinkable. The use of different trimmings were all that distinguished one season from the other.

Conspicuous waste and conspicuous consumption defined the fashions of the decade and the outfits of the couturiers of the time were incredibly extravagant, elaborate, ornate, and painstakingly made. The curvaceous S-Bend silhouette dominated fashion up until around 1908. The S~Bend corset was very tightly laced at the waist which forced the hips back and the drooping mono bosom was thrust forward in a pouter pigeon effect creating an S shape. Toward the end of the decade the fashionable silhouette gradually became somewhat more straight and slim, partly due to Paul Poiret's high-waisted, shorter-skirted Directoire line of clothes.

The Maison Redfern was the first fashion house to offer women a tailored suit based directly on its male counterpart and the extremely practical and soberly elegant garment soon became an indispensable part of the wardrobe of any well-dressed woman. Another indispensable part of the outfit of the well-dressed woman was the designer hat. Fashionable hats at the time were either tiny little confections that perched on top of the head, or large and wide brimmed, trimmed with ribbons, flowers, and even feathers. Caroline Reboux

Caroline Reboux

Caroline Reboux was a well known Parisian milliner and French fashion designer. She had white hair and a "girlish" look.Reboux made an art form out of high fashion hats which were re-emerging in France to supplant the bonnet in the mid-19th century...

, Legroux, and E. Lewis were the most sought-after names of the time. Parasols were still used as decorative accessories and in the summer they dripped with lace and added to the overall elaborate prettiness.

1910s

During the early years of the 1910s the fashionable silhouette became much more lithe, fluid and soft than in the 20th century. When the Ballets Russes

Ballets Russes

The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...

 performed Scheherazade

Scheherazade

Scheherazade , sometimes Scheherazadea, Persian transliteration Shahrazad or Shahrzād is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.-Narration :...

 in Paris in 1910, a craze for Orientalism

Orientalism

Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

 ensued. The couturier Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion have been likened to Picasso's contributions to twentieth-century art.-Early life and career:...

 was one of the first designers to translate this vogue into the fashion world. Poiret's clients were at once transformed into harem

Harem

Harem refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men...

 girls in flowing pantaloons, turbans, and vivid colors and geisha

Geisha

, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...

s in exotic kimono

Kimono

The is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...

. Paul Poiret also devised the first outfit which women could put on without the help of a maid. The Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 movement began to emerge at this time and its influence was evident in the designs of many couturiers of the time. Simple felt hats, turbans, and clouds of tulle replaced the styles of headgear popular in the 20th century. It is also notable that the first real fashion shows were organized during this period in time, by the first female couturier, Jeanne Paquin

Jeanne Paquin

Jeanne Paquin was a French fashion designer, known for her resolutely modern and innovative designs.Born in Saint-Denis in 1869, Paquin trained as a dressmaker at Rouff and later opened her own fashion house in 1891, the first woman to ever do so...

, who was also the first Parisian couturier to open foreign branches in London, Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, and Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

.

Two of the most influential fashion designers of the time were Jacques Doucet

Jacques Doucet (fashion designer)

Jacques Doucet was a French fashion designer, known for his elegant dresses, made with flimsy translucent materials in superimposing pastel colors....

 and Mariano Fortuny

Mariano Fortuny

Mariano Fortuny may refer to:* Mariano Fortuny , Spanish painter* Mariano Fortuny , Spanish fashion designer, son of the painter...

. The French designer Jacques Doucet excelled in superimposing pastel colors and his elaborate gossamery dresses suggested the Impressionist shimmers of reflected light. His distinguished customers never lost a taste for his fluid lines and flimsy, diaphanous materials. While obeying imperatives that left little to the imagination of the couturier, Doucet was nonetheless a designer of immense taste and discrimination, a role many have tried since, but rarely with Doucet's level of success.

The Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

-based designer Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo was a curious figure, with very few parallels in any age. For his dress designs he conceived a special pleating process and new dyeing techniques. He gave the name Delphos to his long clinging sheath dresses that undulated with color. Each garment was made of a single piece of the finest silk, its unique color acquired by repeated immersions in dyes whose shades were suggestive of moonlight or of the watery reflections of the Venetian lagoon. Breton straw, Mexican cochineal, and indigo from the Far East were among the ingredients that Fortuny used. Among his many devotees were Eleanora Duse, Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...

, Cleo de Merode

Cléo de Mérode

Cléo de Mérode was a French dancer of the Belle Époque.-Biography:Cléopatra Diane de Mérode was born in Paris, France, the daughter of the Austrian landscape painter, Karl von Merode . The painter belonged to a famous Belgian noble family 'de Mérode'...

, the Marchesa Casati, Emilienne d'Alençon, and Liane de Pougy

Liane de Pougy

Liane de Pougy , was a Folies Bergères dancer renowned as one of Paris's most beautiful and notorious courtesans.- Early Life and Marriage :...

.

Changes in dress during World War I were dictated more by necessity than fashion. As more and more women were forced to work, they demanded clothes that were better suited to their new activities. Social events had to be postponed in favor of more pressing engagements and the need to mourn the increasing numbers of dead, visits to the wounded, and the general gravity of the time meant that darker colors became the norm. A new monochrome look emerged that was unfamiliar to young women in comfortable circumstances. By 1915 fashionable skirts had risen above the ankle and then later to mid-calf.

Between the wars

The period between the two World Wars, often considered to be the Golden Age of French fashion, was one of great change and reformation. Carriages were replaced by cars, princes and princesses lost their crowns, and haute couture found new clients in the ranks of film actresses, American heiresses, and the wives and daughters of wealthy industrialists.

1920s

Soon after the First World War, a radical change came about in fashion. Bouffant

Bouffant

A bouffant is a type of hairstyle characterized by hair piled high on the head and hanging down on the sides.-History:The bouffant was a mainstream hairstyle in the mid-to-late 18th century in western Europe. It was thought to be created for Marie Antoinette, as she had relatively thin hair and...

 coiffures gave way to short bob

Bob

Bob is a common nickname for the given name Robert.Bob may also refer to:- Science and technology :* Bob , the weight at the end of a pendulum* Hurricane Bob, first major hurricane of the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season...

s, dresses with long trains gave way to above-the-knee pinafores. Corsets were abandoned and women borrowed their clothes from the male wardrobe and chose to dress like boys. Although, at first, many couturiers were reluctant to adopt the new androgynous style, they embraced them wholeheartedly from around 1925. A bustless, waistless silhouette emerged and aggressive dressing-down was mitigated by feather boas, embroidery, and showy accessories. The flapper

Flapper

Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...

 style (known to the French as the 'garçonne' look) became very popular among young women. The cloche

Cloche

Cloche may refer to:* Bell , especially in music directions* Row cover, a covering for protecting plants from cold temperatures* Cloche hat, a close-fitting women's hat...

 hat was widely-worn and sportswear became popular with both men and women during the decade, with designers like Jean Patou and Coco Chanel popularizing the sporty and athletic look.

The great couturière Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...

 was a major figure in fashion at the time, as much for her magnetic personality as for her chic and progressive designs. Chanel helped popularize the bob hairstyle, the little black dress, and the use of jersey knit for women's clothing and also elevated the status of both costume jewelry and knitwear.

Two other prominent French designers of the 1920s were Jeanne Lanvin

Jeanne Lanvin

Jeanne-Marie Lanvin was a French fashion designer and the founder of the Lanvin fashion house.One of the most influential designers of the 1920s and '30s, Jeanne Lanvin's skillful use of intricate trimmings, virtuoso embroideries and beaded decorations in clear, light, floral colors became a...

 and Jean Patou

Jean Patou

- Early life :Patou was born in Normandy, France in 1880. Patou's family's business was tanning and furs. Patou worked with his uncle in Normandy, then moved to Paris in 1910, intent on becoming a couturier.-1910s - World War I and later:...

. Jeanne Lanvin, who began her career in fashion as a milliner, made such beautiful outfits for her young daughter Marguerite that people started to ask for copies, and Lanvin was soon making dresses for their mothers. Lanvin's name appears in the fashion yearbook from about 1901 onwards. However, it was in the 1920s that she reached the peak of her popularity and success. The Lanvin style embraced the look of the time, with its skillful use of complex trimmings, dazzling embroideries, and beaded decorations in light, clear, floral colors that eventually became a Lanvin trademark. By 1925 Lanvin produced many different products, including sportswear, furs, lingerie, men's fashion, and interior designs. Her global approach to fashion foreshadowed the schemes that all the large contemporary fashion houses would later adopt in their efforts to diversify.

The style of Jean Patou was never mainstream, but full of originality and characterized by a studied simplicity which was to win him fame, particularly in the American markets. Many of his garments, with their clean lines, geometric and Cubist motifs, and mixture of luxury and practicality, were designed to satisfy the new vogue for the outdoor life, and bore a remarkable similarity to modern sportswear. The most famous advocate of his style was Suzanne Lenglen

Suzanne Lenglen

Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player who won 31 Championship titles between 1914 and 1926...

, the legendary tennis champion.

In menswear there was a growing mood of informality, among the Americans especially, which was mirrored in fashions that emphasized youthfulness and relaxation. In the past, there was a special outfit for every event in the well-dressed gentleman's day, but young men in the 1920s, no longer afraid to show their youthfulness, began to wear the same soft wool suit all day long. Short suit jackets replaced the old long jackets of the past which were now only worn for formal occasions. Men had a variety of sport clothes available to them, including sweaters and short pants, commonly known as knickers. For evening wear a short tuxedo was more fashionable than the tail-coat, which was now seen as somewhat old-fashioned. The London cut, with its slim lines, loose-fitting sleeves, and padded shoulders, perfected by the English tailor Scholte, was very popular.

Fair Isle

Fair Isle

Fair Isle is an island in northern Scotland, lying around halfway between mainland Shetland and the Orkney islands. It is famous for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting.-Geography:...

 patterns became very popular for both sexes. Heels, at the time, were often over two inches high and helped popularize the two-tone shoe its one of her trademarks. Salvatore Ferragamo

Salvatore Ferragamo

Salvatore Ferragamo was a Florentine and Italian shoe designer. He worked with many Hollywood stars in the 1920s, before returning to Italy to found the eponymous company making unique hand-made footwear. His scientific and creative approach to shoes spawned many innovations such as the wedge heel...

 and André Perugia were two of the most influential and respected designers in footwear. Many stars of the [silent film]s had a significant impact on fashion during the 1920s, perhaps most notably Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks

Mary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...

, Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

, and Colleen Moore

Colleen Moore

Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...

. The lighthearted, forward-looking fashions of the 1920s gradually came to halt after the Wall Street Crash of 1929

Wall Street Crash of 1929

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...

, and succumbed to a more conservative style. While the flapper look persisted into 1930, it quickly disappeared afterwards, although bell-shaped hats lasted through 1933.

1930s

In the 1930s, as the public began to feel the effects of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, many designers found that crises are not the time for experimentation. Fashion became more compromising, aspiring to preserve feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

's victories while rediscovering a subtle and reassuring elegance and sophistication. Overall, 1930s clothing was somber and modest, reflecting the difficult social and economic situation of the decade. Women's fashions moved away from the brash, daring style of the 1920s towards a more romantic, feminine silhouette. The waist was restored to its proper position, hemlines dropped, there was renewed appreciation of the bust, and backless evening gowns and soft, slim-fitting day dresses became popular. The female body was remodeled to a more neo-classical shape and slim, toned, and athletic bodies came into vogue. The fashion for outdoor activities stimulated couturiers to manufacture what would nowadays be called sportswear. The term 'ready-to-wear' was not yet widely used, but the boutiques already described such clothes as being 'for sport'.

Two of the most prominent and influential fashion designers of the 1930s were Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs were heavily influenced by Surrealists like her collaborators...

 and Madeleine Vionnet

Madeleine Vionnet

This article is about the haute couture designer. For the fashion label, see Vionnet Madeleine Vionnet was a French fashion designer...

. Elsa Schiaparelli showed her first collection in 1929 and was immediately hailed by the press as 'one of the rare innovators' of the day. With her exciting and inventive designs, Schiaparelli did not so much revolutionize fashion as shatter its foundations. The first pullover she displayed in her windows created a sensation: it was knitted in black with a trompe-l'oeil white bow. She consistently turned out breathtaking collections thereafter. Schiaparelli was a close friend of Christian Berard

Christian Bérard

Christian Bérard , also known as Bébé, was a French artist, fashion illustrator and designer.Bérard and his lover Boris Kochno, who directed the Ballets Russes and was also co-founder of the Ballet des Champs-Elysées, were one of the most prominent openly homosexual couples in French theater during...

, Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...

, and Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, who designed embroidery motifs for her and supplied inspiration for models like the desk suit with drawers for pockets, the shoe-shaped hat, and the silk dress painted with flies and the one bearing a picture of a large lobster. All of Paris thronged to her salon at 21 Place Vendôme

Place Vendôme

Place Vendôme is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the...

 as collection succeeded collection.

Madeleine Vionnet found her inspiration in ancient statues, creating timeless and beautiful gowns that would not look out of place on a Greek frieze. Queen of the bias cut (cutting diagonally across the fabric's lengthwise threads), she produced evening dresses that fitted the body without excessive elaboration or dissimulation, employing a flowing and elegant line. Her perfect draping of chiffon, silk, and Moroccan crepe

Crêpe

A crêpe or crepe , is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour . The word is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled". While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France...

 created a marvelously poised and sensual effect. The unparalleled success of Vionnet's cuts guaranteed her reputation right up until her retirement in 1939.

Mainbocher

Mainbocher

Mainbocher is a fashion label founded by the American couturier Main Rousseau Bocher , also known as Mainbocher. Established in 1929, the house of Mainbocher successfully operated in Paris and then in New York...

, the first American designer to live and work in Paris, was also influential, with his plain yet supremely elegant designs, often employing the bias cut pioneered by Vionnet. The luxury goods manufacturer Hermès

Hermès

Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès is a French high fashion house established in 1837, today specializing in leather, lifestyle accessories, perfumery, luxury goods, and ready-to-wear...

 started selling handmade printed silk square scarves in early 1930s, and also popularized the zip and many other practical innovations. Toward the end of the decade, women's fashions took on a somewhat more imposing and broad-shouldered silhouette, possibly influenced by Elsa Schiaparelli. Men's fashions continued the informal, practical trend that had dominated since the end of the First World War.

Mid-twentieth century

The Second World War created many radical changes in the fashion industry. After the War, Paris's reputation as the global center of fashion began to crumble and off-the-peg and mass-manufactured fashions became increasingly popular. A new youth style emerged in the 1950s, changing the focus of fashion forever. As the installation of central heating became more widespread the age of minimum-care garments began and lighter textiles and, eventually, synthetics, were introduced.

In the West, the traditional divide that had always existed between high society and workers came to be considered simply unjustifiable. In particular, a new young generation wanted to reap the benefits of a booming consumer society. Privilege became less blatantly advertised than in the past and differences were more glossed over. As the ancient European hierarchies were overturned, the external marks of distinction faded with them. By the time the first rockets were launched into space, Europe was more than ready to adopt a quality ready-to-wear garment on American lines, something to occupy the middle ground between off-the-peg and couture. The need was all the more pressing because increases in overheads and raw material costs were beginning to relegate handmade fashion to the sidelines. Meanwhile, rapidly developing new technologies made it easier and easier to manufacture an ever-improving high-quality product.

Faced with the threat of a factory-made fashion-based product, Parisian haute couture mounted its defenses, but to little effect. It could not stop fashion leaking out onto the streets. In these years when the old world was taking its final bow, the changes in fashion were one of the most visible manifestations of the general shake-up in society. Before long, whole categories of women hitherto restricted to inferior substitutes to haute couture would enjoy a greatly enlarged freedom of choice. Dealing in far larger quantities, production cycles were longer than those of couture workshops, which meant that stylists planning their lines for the twice-yearly collections had to try to guess more than a year in advance what their customers would want. A new power was afoot, that of the street, constituting a further threat to the dictatorship of the masters of couture.

1940s

Many fashion houses closed during occupation of Paris during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, including the Maison Vionnet and the Maison Chanel. Several designers, including Mainbocher, permanently relocated to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. In the enormous moral and intellectual re-education program undertaken by the French state couture was not spared. In contrast to the stylish, liberated Parisienne, the Vichy regime

Vichy France

Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

 promoted the model of the wife and mother, the robust, athletic young woman, a figure who was much more in line with the new political criteria. Germany, meanwhile, was taking possession of over half of what France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 produced, including high fashion, and was also considering relocating French haute couture to the cities of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, neither of which had any significant tradition of fashion. The archives of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture were seized, most consequentially the client list. The point of all this was to break up a monopoly that supposedly threatened the dominance of the Third Reich.

Due to the difficult times, the number of models in shows was limited to seventy-five, evening wear was shortened and day wear was much skimpier, made using substitute materials whenever possible. From 1940 onward, no more than four meters (thirteen feet) of cloth was permitted to be used for a coat and a little over one meter (three feet) was all that allowed for a blouse. No belt could be over 3 centimetres (one and a half inches) wide. Despite this, haute couture tried to keep its flag flying. Humor and frivolity became a way of defying the occupying powers and couture somehow survived. Although some have argued that the reason it endured was because of the patronage of the wives of rich Nazis, in actuality, records reveal that, aside from the usual wealthy Parisiennes, it was the wives of foreign ambassadors, clients from the black market, and a whole eclectic mix of people who continued to frequent the salons, among whom German women were but a minority.

In spite of the fact that so many fashion houses closed down or moved away during the war, several new houses remained open, including Jacques Fath, Maggy Rouff, Marcel Rochas, Jeanne Lafaurie, Nina Ricci, and Madeleine Vramant. During the Occupation, the only true way for a woman to flaunt her extravagance and add color to a drab outfit was to wear a hat. In this period, hats were often made of scraps of material that would have otherwise been thrown away, sometimes incorporating bits of paper, and wood shavings. Among the most innovative milliners of the time were Pauline Adam, Simone Naudet, Rose Valois, and Le Monnier.

Paris's isolated situation in the 1940s enabled the Americans to exploit the ingenuity and creativity of their own designers. During the Second World War, Vera Maxwell

Vera Maxwell

Vera Huppe Maxwell was a legendary sportswear and fashion designer until her retirement in 1985.She was the first American designer to make clothes with Ultrasuede material...

 presented co-ordinates in plain, simply cut outfits and also introduced innovations to men's work clothes. Bonnie Cashin

Bonnie Cashin

Bonnie Cashin is considered one of the most significant pioneers of designer ready-to-wear, more commonly called sportswear, in America. Among the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful designers of the 20th century, Cashin was revered for her intellectual, artistic, and...

 transformed boots into a major fashion accessory, and, in 1944, started to produce original and imaginative sportswear. Claire McCardell

Claire McCardell

Claire McCardell was an American fashion designer in the arena of ready-to-wear clothing in the 20th century. From the 1930s to the 1950s, she was known for designing functional, affordable, and stylish women’s sportswear within the constraints of mass-production, and is today acknowledged as the...

, Anne Klein

Anne Klein

Anne Klein was an American fashion designer who founded her own women's sportswear and apparel label.-Biography:Anne Klein was born as Hannah Golofski in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York on August 3, 1923...

, and formed a remarkable trio of women who were to lay the foundations of American sportswear

Sportswear (fashion)

Sportswear has been called America's main contribution to the history of fashion design. The term became popular in the 1920s to describe relaxed, casual wear typically worn for spectator sports...

, ensuring that ready-to-wear

Ready-to-wear

Ready-to-wear or prêt-à-porter is the term for factory-made clothing, sold in finished condition, in standardized sizes, as distinct from made to measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a particular person's frame. Off-the-peg is sometimes used for items which are not clothing.Ready-to-wear has...

 was not simply thought of as second best, but as an elegant and comfortable way for modern women to dress.

Among young men in the War Years the zoot suit

Zoot suit

A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...

 (and in France the zazou

Zazou

The Zazous were a subculture in France during World War II. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing and dancing wildly to swing jazz and bebop...

 suit) became popular. Many actresses of the time, including Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

, Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

, and Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

, had a significant impact on popular fashion.

The couturier Christian Dior

Christian Dior

Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...

 created a tidal wave with his first collection in February 1947. The collection contained dresses with tiny waists, majestic busts, and full skirts swelling out beneath small bodices, in a manner very similar to the style of the Belle Époque. The extravagant use of fabric and the feminine elegance of the designs appealed greatly to a post-war clientele and ensured Dior's meteoric rise to fame. The sheer sophistication of the style incited the all-powerful editor of the American Harper's Bazaar

Harper's Bazaar

Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...

, Carmel Snow

Carmel Snow

Carmel Snow was the influential editor of the American edition of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 and, after her retirement, the chairman of the magazine's editorial board.-Family:...

, to exclaim 'This is a new look!'.

1950s

Flying in the face of continuity, logic, and erudite sociological predictions, fashion in the 1950s, far from being revolutionary and progressive, used more from the previous decade. A whole society which, in the 1920s and 1930s, had greatly believed in progress, was now much more circumspect. Despite the fact that women had the right to vote, to work, and to drive their own cars, they chose to wear dresses made of opulent materials, with corseted waists and swirling skirts to mid-calf. As fashion looked to the past, haute couture experienced something of a revival and spawned a myriad of star designers who profited hugely from the rapid growth of the media.

Throughout the 1950s, although it would be for the last time, women around the world continued to submit to the trends of Parisian haute couture. Three of the most prominent of the Parisian couturiers of the time were Cristobal Balenciaga

Cristóbal Balenciaga

Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was a Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house....

, Hubert de Givenchy

Hubert de Givenchy

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded The House of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn, as well as clothing for clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy...

, and Pierre Balmain

Pierre Balmain

Pierre Alexandre Claudius Balmain was a French fashion designer. Known for sophistication and elegance, he once said that "dressmaking is the architecture of movement."...

. The frugal prince of luxury, Cristobal Balenciaga Esagri made his fashion debut in the late 1930s. However, it was not until the post-war years that the full scale of the inventiveness of this highly original designer became evident. In 1951, he totally transformed the silhouette, broadening the shoulders and removing the waist. In 1955, he designed the tunic dress, which later developed into the chemise dress of 1957. And eventually, in 1959, his work culminated in the Empire line, with high-waisted dresses and coats cut like kimonos. His mastery of fabric design and creation defied belief. Balenciaga is also notable as one of the few couturiers in fashion history who could use their own hands to design, cut, and sew the models which symbolized the height of his artistry.

Hubert de Givenchy

Hubert de Givenchy

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded The House of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn, as well as clothing for clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy...

 opened his first couture house in 1952 and created a sensation with his separates, which could be mixed and matched at will. Most renowned was his Bettina

Bettina

Bettina is a female name of Hebrew and Latin origins predominantly found in the Italian and German languages. Pronounced BahTeeNah, this name has various interpreted meanings....

 blouse made from shirting, which was named after his top model. Soon, boutiques were opened in Rome, Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, and Buenos Aires. A man of immense taste and discrimination, he was, perhaps more than any other designer of the period, an integral part of the world whose understated elegance he helped to define.

Pierre Balmain opened his own salon in 1945. It was in a series of collections named 'Jolie Madame' that he experienced his greatest success, from 1952 onwards. Balmain's vision of the elegantly-dressed woman was particularly Parisian and was typified by the tailored glamour of the "New Look", with its ample bust, narrow waist, and full skirts, by mastery of cut and imaginative assemblies of fabrics in subtle color combinations. His sophisticated clientele was equally at home with luxurious elegance, simple tailoring, and a more natural look. Along with his haute couture work, the talented businessman pioneered a ready-to-wear range called Florilege and also launched a number of highly successful perfumes.

Also notable is the return of Coco Chanel (who detested the "New Look") to the fashion world. Following the closure of her salons in the war years, in 1954, aged over seventy, she staged a comeback and on February 5 she presented a collection which contained a whole range of ideas that would be adopted and copied by women all over the world: her famous little braided suit with gold chains, shiny costume jewelry, silk blouses in colors that matched the suit linings, sleek tweeds, monogrammed buttons, flat black silk bows, boaters, quilted bags on chains, and evening dresses and furs that were marvels of simplicity.

Despite being a high fashion designer, American born Mainbocher also designed military and civilian service uniforms. In 1952, he redesigned the Women Marines service uniform combining femininity with functionality. Previous redesigns include uniforms for the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in 1942, and uniform designs for the Girl Scouts of America and the American Red Cross in 1948.

Dior's "New Look" (that premiered in 1947) revived the popularity of girdles and the all-in-one corselettes. In the early 1950s, many couture houses used the interest in "foundationwear" to launch their own lines, soon after many lingerie manufacturers began to build their own brands. In 1957, Jane Russell wore the "Cantilever" bra that was scientifically designed by Howard Hughes to maximize a voluptuous look. The invention of Lycra (originally called "Fibre K") in 1959 revolutionized the underwear industry and was quickly incorporated into every aspect of lingerie.

After the war, the American look (which consisted of broad shoulders, floral ties, straight-legged pants, and shirts with long pointed collars, often worn hanging out rather than tucked in) became very popular among men in Europe. Certain London manufacturers ushered in a revival of Edwardian elegance in men's fashion, adopting a tight-fitting retro

Retro

Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...

 style that was intended to appeal to traditionalists. This look, originally aimed at the respectable young man about town, was translated into popular fashion as the Teddy boy

Teddy Boy

The British Teddy Boy subculture is typified by young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, styles which Savile Row tailors had attempted to re-introduce in Britain after World War II...

 style. The Italian look, popularized by Caraceni

Caraceni

Caraceni was founded in Rome in 1913 by the father of Italian tailoring, Domenico Caraceni. At one point in the 1930s, Domenico and his family operated ateliers in Rome, Milan and Paris. The Paris atelier was operated by Domenico's brother, Augusto, who closed his atelier when Mussolini declared...

, Brioni

Brioni

Brioni is an Italian fashion house founded in 1945. It specializes in the sale of hand-made suits. PPR acquired the company in 2011.-History:...

, and Cifonelli, was taken up by an entire generation of elegant young lovers, on both sides of the Atlantic. Plaid was very common in 1950s men's fashion, both for shirts and suits, along with the "ducktail" haircut, which was often viewed as a symbol of rebellion and banned in schools.

The designers of Hollywood created a particular type of glamour for the stars of American film, and outfits worn by the likes of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

, Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

, or Grace Kelly

Grace Kelly

Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...

 were widely copied. Quantitatively speaking, a costume worn by an actress in a Hollywood movie would have a much bigger audience than the photograph of a dress designed by a couturier illustrated in a magazine read by no more than a few thousand people. Without even trying to keep track of all the Paris styles, its costume designers focused on their own version of classicism, which was meant to be timeless, flattering, and photogenic

Photogenic

A subject is photogenic if appearing aesthetically or physically attractive or appealing in photographs. Photogenic drawing, coined by William Fox Talbot, also describes the earliest method for recording camera images....

. Using apparently luxurious materials, such as sequins, chiffon, and fur, the clothes were very simply cut, often including some memorable detail, such as a low-cut back to a dress which was only revealed when the actress turned her back from the camera or some particularly stunning accessory. The most influential and respected designers of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s were Edith Head

Edith Head

Edith Head was an American costume designer who won eight Academy Awards, more than any other woman.-Early life and career:...

, Orry-Kelly

Orry-Kelly

Orry-Kelly was the professional name of Orry George Kelly , a prolific Hollywood costume designer....

, William Travilla

William Travilla

William Travilla , who went by the professional name of Travilla, was an American costume designer for theatre, film, and television. He is perhaps best-known for dressing Marilyn Monroe in eight of her films....

, Jean Louis

Jean Louis

Jean Louis was a French-born, Hollywood costume designer and an Academy Award winner for Costume Design. Louis worked as head designer for Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1960...

, Travis Banton

Travis Banton

Travis Banton was the chief designer at Paramount Pictures. He is considered one of the most important Hollywood costume designers of the 1930s.He was born in Waco, Texas. Travis moved to New York City as a child...

, and Gilbert Adrian. Everyday women's clothing during the decade consisted of long coats, hats with small veils, and leather gloves. Knee-length dresses combined with pearl necklaces, which were made instantly popular by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower

Mamie Eisenhower

Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower was the wife of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961.-Early life:...

. Short, permed hair was the standard women's hairstyle of the period.

By the end of the decade mass-manufactured, off-the-peg clothing had become much more popular than in the past, granting the general public unprecedented access to fashionable styles.

1960s

Until the 1960s, Paris was considered to be the center of fashion throughout the world. However, between 1960 and 1969 a radical shake-up occurred in the fundamental structure of fashion. From the 1960s onward, there would never be just one single, prevailing trend or fashion but a great plethora of possibilities, indivisibly linked to all the various influences in other areas of people's lives. Young people, with a power and culture that was all their own, now at an age to speak out, were a force to be reckoned with and had a powerful impact on the fashion industry. For perhaps the first time in history, there was an independent youth fashion that was not based on the conventions of an older age group. In the 1960s fashion became just as much a statement of personal freedom.

In stark contrast to their mature, ultra-feminine mothers, the women of the 1960s adopted a girlish, childlike style, with short skirts and straightened curves, reminiscent of the look of the 1920s. At the start of the decade skirts were knee-length, but steadily became shorter and shorter until the mini-skirt emerged in 1965. By the end of the decade they had shot well above the stocking top, making the transition to tights

Tights

Tights are a kind of cloth leg garment, most often sheathing the body from about the waist to the feet with a more or less tight fit, hence the name....

 inevitable.

Many of the radical changes in fashion developed in the streets of London, with such gifted designers as Mary Quant

Mary Quant

Mary Quant OBE FCSD is a British] fashion designer and British fashion icon, who was instrumental in the mod fashion movement. She was one of the designers who took credit for inventing the miniskirt and hot pants. Born in Blackheath, London, to Welsh parents, Quant brought fun and fantasy to...

 (known for launching the mini skirt) and Barbara Hulanicki

Barbara Hulanicki

Barbara Hulanicki is a Warsaw-born fashion designer, known for being the founder of the iconic clothes store Biba. Born in Warsaw, to Polish parents, after studying at Brighton School of Art, now the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts, Hulanicki won a London Evening Standard competition for...

 (the founder of the legendary boutique Biba

Biba

Biba was an iconic and popular London fashion store of the 1960s and 1970s. It was started and primarily run by the Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki with help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon.-Early years:...

). Paris also had its share of new and revolutionary designers, including Pierre Cardin

Pierre Cardin

Pierre Cardin Cardin was known for his avant-garde style and his Space Age designs. He prefers geometric shapes and motifs, often ignoring the female form. He advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical...

 (known for his visionary and skillfully-cut designs), André Courrèges

André Courrèges

André Courrèges is a French fashion designer, known for his ultra-modern designs. At the age of 25, after studying to be a civil engineer, he went to Paris to work at Geanne Lafaurie fashion design house...

 (known for his futuristic outfits and for launching the mini skirt along with Mary Quant), Yves Saint Laurent (known for his revolutionary yet elegant fashions), and Emanuel Ungaro

Emanuel Ungaro

Emanuel Ungaro is a French fashion designer.-Early life:Ungaro's Italian father fled to France from Francavilla Fontana of Brindisi province because of the fascist uprising in Italy...

 (known for his imaginative use of color and bold baroque contrasts). In the United States, Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich was a Austrian-born American fashion designer and gay activist.-Biography:Born in Vienna, Gernreich fled Austria at age 16 due to Nazism, and later migrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California...

 (known for his avant-garde and futuristic designs) and James Galanos

James Galanos

James Galanos is an American fashion designer, widely considered to be one the world's foremost 20th century couturiers.-Early life:James Galanos was born September 20, 1924 in a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the only son of Greek-born parents...

 (known for his luxurious read-to-wear) were also reaching a young audience. The main outlets for these new young fashion designers were small boutiques, selling outfits that were not exactly 'one-offs', but were made in small quantities in a limited range of sizes and colors. However, not all designers took well to the new style and mood. In 1965, Coco Chanel mounted a rearguard action against the exposure of the knee and Balenciaga resolutely continued to produce feminine and conservative designs.

The basic shape and style of the time was simple, neat, clean cut, and young. Synthetic fabrics were very widely-used during the 1960s. They took dyes easily and well, giving rise to colors that were both clear and bright, very much mirroring the mood of the period. Hats suffered a great decline and by the end of the decade they were relegated to special occasions only. Lower kitten heels were a pretty substitute to stilettos. Pointed toes gave way to chisel shaped toes in 1961 and to an almond toe in 1963. Flat boots also became popular with very short dresses in 1965 and eventually they rose up the leg and reached the knee.

Two notable and influential designers in the 1960s were Emilio Pucci

Emilio Pucci

Emilio Pucci, Marquis of Barsento , was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colours.-Early life:...

 and Paco Rabanne

Paco Rabanne

Francisco "Paco" Rabaneda Cuervo, more commonly known as Paco Rabanne is a Franco-Spanish fashion designer. He fled Spain for France with his mother when the Spanish Civil War broke out...

. Emilio Pucci's sportswear designs and prints inspired by Op art

Op art

Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...

, psychedelia, and medieval heraldic banners earned him a reputation that extended far beyond the circles of high society. His sleek shift dresses, tunics, and beachwear, created a 'Puccimania' that was all part of a movement to liberate the female form and his designs are today synonymous with the 1960s. Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo (later Paco Rabanne) opened his first couture house in 1966 and, from the start, produced resolutely modern designs. Rather than using conventional dress materials, he created garments from aluminum, Rhodoid, and pieces of scrap metal. His designs, as well as being experimental, were also closely in tune with what modern adventurous young women wanted to wear. Among his innovations are the seamless dress made, after much experiment, by spraying vinyl chloride on to a mold, and the low-budget disposable dress made of paper and nylon thread. Rabanne was also the first fashion designer to use black models, which very nearly resulted in his dismissal from the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. The success of his perfume Calandre helped support the less profitable areas of his work, while his utopianism assured him a unique position in the conservative world of haute couture.

The principal change in menswear in the 1960s was in the weight of the fabric used. The choice of materials and the method of manufacture produced a suit that, because it was lighter in weight, had a totally different look, with a line that was closer to the natural shape of the body, causing men to look at their figures more critically. The spread of jeans served to accelerate a radical change in the male wardrobe. Young men grew their hair down to their collars and added a touch of color, and even floral motifs, to their shirts. The polo neck never succeeded in replacing the tie, but the adoption of the workman's jacket in rough corduroy, and especially the Mao

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

 jacket proved to be more than simply a political statement. A few futuristic rumblings were set off by Pierre Cardin and Andre Courrèges, but the three-piece suit still survived intact.

In the early 1960s there were influential 'partnerships' of celebrities and high-fashion designers, most famously Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...

 with Givenchy

Givenchy

Givenchy is a French brand of clothing, accessories, perfumes and cosmetics with Parfums Givenchy.The house of Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de Givenchy and is a member of Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Pret-a-Porter...

, and Jackie Kennedy with Oleg Cassini

Oleg Cassini

Oleg Cassini was a French-born American fashion designer noted for being chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to design her state wardrobe in the 1960s....

. Also, many models had a very profound effect on fashion, most notably Twiggy

Twiggy

Lesley Lawson née Hornby known as Twiggy is an English model, actress, and singer. In the early-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree....

, Veruschka

Veruschka

Vera Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort is a German model, actress, and artist who was popular during the 1960s...

, Jean Shrimpton

Jean Shrimpton

Jean Rosemary Shrimpton is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels....

. Early in the decade, culottes were in style and the bikini

Bikini

The bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as "a woman's scanty two-piece bathing suit" or "a...

 finally came into fashion in 1963. The hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 and psychedelic

Psychedelic

The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...

 movements late in the decade also had a strong influence on clothing styles, including bell-bottom jeans (designed by the English tailor Tommy Nutter

Tommy Nutter

Tommy Nutter , was a British tailor, famous for reinventing the Savile Row suit in the 1960s.Born in Barmouth, Merioneth, he was raised in Edgware, Middlesex, where his father owned a local High Street Cafe. After the family moved to Kilburn, Nutter and his brother David attended Willesden...

, from his Savoy store), tie-dye and batik fabrics, as well as paisley prints.

1970s

Nicknamed the 'me' decade; 'please yourself' was the catchphrase of the 1970s. Some saw it as the end of good taste. The decade began with a continuation of the hippie look of the late 1960s, with afghans, Indian scarves, and floral-print tunics. Jeans

Jeans

Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...

 remained frayed and bell-bottomed, tie dye was still popular, and the fashion for unisex mushroomed. An immense movement claiming civil rights for blacks combined with the influence of soul music from the USA created a nostalgia for Africa and African culture. A radical chic

Radical chic

Radical chic is a term coined by journalist Tom Wolfe in his 1970 essay "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's," to describe the adoption and promotion of radical political causes by celebrities, socialites, and high society...

 emerged, influenced by the likes of James Brown

James Brown

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...

, Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

, Angela Davis

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...

, and the Black Panthers, in everything from afro

Afro

Afro, sometimes shortened to fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair...

 hairstyles to platform soles. During the 1970s brands greatly increased their share of the international market. Hems began dropping in 1974 to below the knee, until finally reaching the lower mid calf in 1977 and shoulderlines were dropped.

Perhaps the two most innovative fashion designers in 1970s France were Kenzo Takada

Kenzo Takada

Kenzo Takada is a Japanese fashion designer. He is also the founder of Kenzo, a worldwide brand of perfumes, skincare products and clothes....

 and Sonia Rykiel

Sonia Rykiel

Sonia Rykiel née Flis is a French fashion designer.Ethnically a Polish-Romanian Jew, Sonia Rykiel was born in Neuilly a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, the eldest of five daughters of a Polish mother and a Romanian father. At the age of 17, she was employed to dress the window...

. The undisputed star of Parisian fashion in the 1970s, Kenzo drew his inspiration from all over the world, mixing Western and Oriental folk influences with a fantastic joie de vivre

Joie de vivre

Joie de vivre is a French phrase often used in English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life; an exultation of spirit. Joie de vivre"can be a joy of conversation, joy of eating, joy of anything one might do… And joie de vivre may be seen as a joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy...

 and an instinctive understanding of what his young customers wanted. With his fluid lines, unusual prints, clever accessories, and finery that was hitherto unprecedented in ready-to-wear, he very much turned the fashion world upside down. The queen of figure-hugging knits, in 1974, Sonia Rykiel designed her first pullovers with reversed seams. However, more than that, she created a whole range of clothes that were extremely individual and yet could be worn almost anywhere. The Rykiel style, dominated by fluid knitted garments, dark blacks, rhinestones, long boa-like scarves, and little crocheted hats, conquered the American market, and even to this day Rykiel is considered by many Americans as the true successor of Chanel.

Because of punk

Punk fashion

Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including...

, London retained a considerable degree of influence over fashion, most significantly in the boutiques of the King's Road, where Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood

Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...

's boutique, SEX

SEX (boutique)

SEX was a boutique run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King's Road, London between 1974 and 1976. It specialized in clothing that defined the look of the punk movement.-History:...

, which opened in 1971, blew with the prevailing wind. This temple of British iconoclasm centered on fetishistic accessories and ranges of clothing in which black rubber and steel studs were the external signs of an underlying sadism. Postmodernist and iconoclastic in essence the punk movement was a direct reaction to the economic situation during the economic depression of the period, the vehicle for a hatred that was more visceral than political. Punk had at its heart a manifesto of creation through disorder. With their ripped T-shirt

T-shirt

A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....

s, Red Indian hairstyles, Doc Martens, bondage trousers, and chains, the punks exported an overall feeling of disgust around the globe.

Another popular British style the was the resolutely unmodern, feminine, countrified style of clothing popularized by Laura Ashley

Laura Ashley

Laura Ashley was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She became a household name on the strength of her work as a designer and manufacturer of a range of colourful fabrics for clothes and home furnishings....

, which consisted of long flounced skirts and high-necked blouses in traditional floral prints, worn with crocheted shawls. Laura Ashley started out running a small business in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 in the mid-1960s and the company continued to expand until the accidental death of its owner in 1985. Laura Ashley was not the only designer to look nostalgically to the past. Fashions based on the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s were popular throughout much of the decade, with Hollywood films like The Godfather

The Godfather

The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...

and The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....

, and numerous exhibitions on costume history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York increasing their popularity. In Japan, the boutiques of Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku

Harajuku

Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan....

 district sold many reworked versions of traditional British and American looks.

In the United States, the general trend in fashion was towards simplification and longer skirts, although many women reacted negatively to the midi-length, which they felt to be aging. Pants, on the other hand, earned unanimous approval. Jeans profited most from becoming an accepted part of the American fashion scene in the 1970s, their new-found respectability deriving from their inclusion in collections under the heading of sportswear. The new stars of American ready-to-wear adapted the best of what they learned from Europe to the massive American clothing industry. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren rose from anonymity more or less simultaneously to tackle the question of designing clothes for the men and women of a new world. Two opposing movements dominated fashion in the U.S.A. during the 1970s. On one hand, there was the tailored, unisex look; on the other hand, a fluid, unstructured style with a strong feeling of 1930s glamor. The most influential American designer of the time, Roy Halston Frowick (known simply as Halston

Halston

Roy Halston Frowick, also known as Halston was a clothing designer of the 1970s. His long dresses or copies of his style were popular fashion wear in mid-1970s discotheques.-Early life and career:...

), belonged to the latter category. Acquiring celebrity status on the New York scene, his particular talent was in reconciling the made-to-measure garment for the special occasion with concepts of comfort, naturalness, and relaxation. With his kaftans, shirtwaisters, djellabas, ultra-lightweight shift dresses, and tunics worn over shorts and wide-legged pants, he was an icon of the era, and a regular visitor at the VIP room of the Studio 54

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...

 after its opening in 1977.

Geoffrey Beene

Geoffrey Beene

Geoffrey Beene was an American fashion designer.Beene was born in Haynesville, Louisiana. He studied medicine at Tulane University, but dropped out in 1946, after three years. He moved to New York in 1947 to attend the Traphagen School of Fashion...

, praised for his elegant and sophisticated cuts and his use of black and white, was at his most successful in the radically simplified designs at which he excelled. His smart little dresses and well-cut suits in jersey, flannel, and wool were instrumental in discouraging American women from over-accessorizing. Bill Blass

Bill Blass

William Ralph "Bill" Blass was an American fashion designer, born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is known for his tailoring and his innovative combinations of textures and patterns...

, who launched his own range in 1962, developed the habit of traveling all over the United States in order to hear for himself what his customers desired. One of the most popular designers of the time, he was almost too successful in fulfilling his customers wishes. His disciplined style and workmanship was particularly favored by businesswomen and the wives of senior executives. Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson is an American fashion designer best known for her feminine and whimsical designs. Many of her designs are considered "over the top" and embellished...

 started out designing for the boutique Paraphernalia. Using vinyl and metallic fabrics and putting emphasis on wit, imagination, and independence, she brought an unprecedented spirit of irreverence to New York in the 1970s.

In popular fashion the glam rock

Glam rock

Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 style of clothing, worn by such rock performers as David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 and Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...

, was very influential, particularly in the United Kingdom. The designer Elio Fiorucci

Fiorucci

Fiorucci is an Italian fashion label founded by Elio Fiorucci in 1967. The first shop exposed Milan to the styles of Swinging London and American classics such as the T-shirt and jeans. By the late 1970s and early 1980s this would be reversed, and the New York store would become famous for the...

 had a very similar look. His boutique in Milan sold such things as brightly colored rubber boots, plastic daisy sandals, fake fur, and Pop Art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

-inspired jackets.

During the 1970s a new generation of menswear boutiques sprang up, aiming to change the decor, rituals, and customer base of a traditionally 'difficult' trade. To sell fashionable clothes to a young man at the end of the 1960s was still, in many circles, tantamount to questioning his masculinity. Men's appearance changed more in the 1970s than it had done in a whole century. Many of the fashion designers who revolutionized the male look owed a lot of their innovations to Pierre Cardin: narrow shoulders, tight-fitting lines, no tie, no interfacing, zip-up boiler suits, waisted jackets or tunics, sometimes no shirt. Work clothes supplied inspiration for a less formal style, encouraging designers to look beyond the traditional suit and, for example, adopt a unisex look or investigate the massive supply of second-hand clothes. Sometimes this kind of male dressing-down, often denounced as 'hippie', gained formal recognition as a deliberate look. At certain other times, as part of a retro movement, designers introduced a revival of 1930s elegance. The unearthing of old military clothing, preferably khaki and from the United States; English-style shoes; Oxford shirts; immaculate T-shirts; tweed jackets with padded shoulders; brightly-colored V-neck sweaters; cashmere-printed scarves draped around the neck all imposed a certain uniformity on the casual beatnik

Beatnik

Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...

 look of the male wardrobe at the end of the 1970s.

Also significant are the developments in Italian fashion that happened during the period. In the course of the 1970s, as a result of its ready-to-wear industry, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 confirmed its status as second only to Paris as a center of international fashion. The 'alta moda' preferred Rome, the base of the couturiers Valentino

Valentino SpA

Valentino SpA is a clothing company founded in 1959 by Valentino Garavani. Nowadays it is a part of Valentino Fashion Group. New creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli will take Alessandra Facchinetti's seat as creative designer...

, Capucci, and Schön

Mila Schon

Mila Schön was an Italian-born fashion designer. Marella Agnelli was one of her early clients.Born Maria Carmen Nutrizio, in Traù – now Croatia – on September 28, 1915 to wealthy Italian aristocratic parents who relocated to the Italian peninsula when Schön was a child, she is known for her...

. Capitalizing on the dominant trend of anti-fashion Italy offered a glamor that had nothing to do with the dictates of Parisian haute couture. While profiting from a clearly defined style, Italian fashion was luxurious and easy to wear. The two most influential Italian fashion designers of the time were probably Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani is an Italian fashion designer, particularly noted for his menswear. He is known today for his clean, tailored lines. He formed his company, Armani, in 1975, and by 2001 was acclaimed as the most successful designer to come out of Italy, with an annual turnover of $1.6 billion and a...

 and Nino Cerruti

Nino Cerruti

Nino Cerruti is an Italian businessman and stylist, among the most famous in the world.He founded his own haute couture house Cerruti in 1967 in Paris...

. Giorgio Armani produced his first collection for women in 1975. From the outset, the line was dynamic, urban, and understated, androgynous in inspiration. Armani offered a restrained style that greatly appealed to the increasing population of women who now had access to the world of work and occupied progressively more senior positions within it. This was only the beginning of a tremendous career, which came to fruition in 1981 when Emporio Armani was launched. In 1957 Nino Cerruti

Nino Cerruti

Nino Cerruti is an Italian businessman and stylist, among the most famous in the world.He founded his own haute couture house Cerruti in 1967 in Paris...

 opened the menswear boutique Hitman in Milan. A man of taste and discernment, in 1976 he presented his first collection for women. Two years later, he launched his first perfume. In linking the career of a successful industrialist with that of a high-quality designer, Cerruti occupied a unique position in Italian ready-to-wear.

Late twentieth century

During the late 20th century, fashions began to criss-cross international boundaries with rapidity. Popular Western styles were adopted all over the world, and many designers from outside of the West had a profound impact on fashion. Synthetic materials such as Lycra, Spandex, and viscose became widely-used, and fashion, after two decades of looking to the future, once again turned to the past for inspiration.

1980s

The society of the 1980s no longer criticized itself as consumerist, but was, instead, interested in 'the spectacle'. The self-conscious image of the decade was very good for the fashion industry, which had never been quite so à la mode. Fashion shows were transfigured into media-saturated spectaculars and frequently televised, taking high priority in the social calendar. Appearance was related to performance, which was of supreme importance to a whole generation of young urban professionals, whose desire to look the part related to a craving for power. The way in which men and women associated with the latest styles was no more a matter of passive submission but Disco music rapidly fell out of favor as the decade began, along with its associated clothing styles. By 1982, the last traces of 1970s fashion were gone. possibly lost forever.

The two French fashion designers who best defined the look of the period were Thierry Mugler

Thierry Mugler

Thierry Mugler is a French fashion designer and creator of several perfumes.-Childhood:Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France on 21 December 1948. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school and at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance...

 and Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaïa is a Tunisian-born couturier and shoe designer, particularly successful since the 1980s.-Biography:Alaïa was born in Siliana, Tunisia on 7 June 1940. His parents were wheat farmers but his glamorous twin sister inspired his love for couture. A French friend of his mother fed Alaïa's...

. Strongly influenced by his early career in the theater, Thierry Mugler produced fashion designs that combined Hollywood retro and futurism, with rounded hips, sharply accentuated shoulders, and a slight hint of the galactic heroine. Mugler's glamorous dresses were a remarkable success, and signified the complete end of the hippy era and its unstructured silhouette. Known for his awe-inspiring combinations, Azzedine Alaia greatly influenced the silhouette of the woman of the 1980s. The master of all kinds of techniques that had previously been known only to haute couture, he experimented with many new and underused materials, such as Lycra and viscose

Viscose

Viscose is a viscous organic liquid used to make rayon and cellophane. Viscose is becoming synonymous with rayon, a soft material commonly used in shirts, shorts, coats, jackets, and other outer wear.-Manufacture:...

. The finish, simplicity, and sheer sexiness of Alaia's look made women of every generation identify with his seductive style, and during the 1980s he achieved a certain glory and was held in high regard by members of his own profession.

Also creating designs very typical of the era were Claude Montana

Claude Montana

Claude Montana is a French fashion designer. His company, The House of Montana, founded in 1979, went bankrupt in 1997.Born in Paris in 1949 to a Catalonian father and German mother, Montana began his career by designing papier-mâché jewelry covered with rhinestones...

, whose imposing, broad-shouldered designs, often made of leather, would not have looked out of place in the futuristic universe of Thierry Mugler, and Christian Lacroix

Christian Lacroix

Christian Marie Marc Lacroix is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded.-Early life:Lacroix was born in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France. At a young age he began sketching historical costumes and fashions. Lacroix graduated from high school in 1969...

, who sent shock waves through the world of haute couture, with his flounced skirts, embroidered corselets, bustles, and polka-dotted crinolines which evoked the rhythms of flamenco.

A number of promising newcomers entered the fashion scene in the 1980s. Angelo Tarlazzi, an extraordinary technician who once worked for Patou, bewitched both the press and his customers with his 'handkerchief' dresses. Made of squares of fabric, they transpired, when you came to put them on, to be far more complicated than at first appeared. Many a Parisian soirée of the 1980s was enlivened by his dresses, all in a fluid and original style, in which cutting and sewing were kept to a minimum. Chantal Thomas

Chantal Thomas

Chantal Thomas is a French writer and winner of the Prix Femina, 2002, for Les adieux à la reine.-References:...

, the queen of sexy stockings and lace, won a devoted following for her seductive underwear and for evening gowns that looked like nightdresses and vice versa. Guy Paulin was one of the first designers to promote a severe, plain, and uncluttered look. His garments were classical in their proportions and made for comfort and simplicity, with their harmonious lines reinforced by a subtle palette of colors and fine materials. Under his own name, Joseph designed luxurious knitwear along classic lines, creating loose, sexy garments in neutral colors. Carolina Herrera

Carolina Herrera (fashion designer)

Carolina Herrera Carolina Herrera Carolina Herrera (born María Carolina Josefina Pacanins y Niño (born January 8, 1939) is a Venezuelan and naturalized American fashion designer and entrepreneur who founded her eponymous company in 1980.-Early life:...

, long regarded as one of the most elegant members of the jet set, in 1981 launched a series of collections aimed at women like herself, featuring impeccably cut clothes of high quality and attractive evening dresses.

Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo

Rei Kawakubo

is a Japanese fashion designer, founder of Comme des Garçons.She is untrained as a fashion designer, but studied fine arts and literature at Keio University. After graduation, Kawakubo worked in a textile company and began working as a freelance stylist in 1967....

 and Yohji Yamamoto

Yohji Yamamoto

Yōji Yamamoto , is an award winning Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. Yohji is considered to be among the master tailors whose work is thought to be of fashion genius and he has been described by Julie Gilhart, fashion director for Barney's New York as probably the only designer...

 offered a look which marked a total break with the prevailing fashion image of the time. Flat shoes, no make-up, reserve, modesty, and secrecy were the hallmarks of this modern look. Eventually, it began to include details from the fashions of the past, as Europe's ancient sites were revisited by these anarchists of fashion, whose influence on shape of clothes, at the end of the 20th-century, became legendary.

In American fashion the seductive, clinging style of Donna Karan

Donna Karan

Donna Karan is an American fashion designer and the creator of the Donna Karan New York and DKNY clothing labels.-Early life:...

 and the casual sophistication of Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer and business executive; best known for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand.-Early life:...

 were very influential. A star of the New York social scene, Donna Karan brought a very personal and feminine approach to the severe, sober-colored, casual look that dominated American ready-to-wear. Setting up her own label in 1984, her designs won instant popularity among active urban women who greatly appreciated the understated luxury of her clothes. In 1971 Ralph Lauren opened a boutique for both men and women in Beverly Hills. His aristocratic style at prices the average American could afford created a sensation. For an elite faced with all kinds of avant-garde fashions, it represented a rallying point, endorsing a classic look that had been adopted for an active life. The number one of American ready-to-wear, Lauren was equally successful with his sportswear and jeans, which allowed him to reach the widest possible range of social classes and age groups.

Central to the success of a new wave of American sportswear was the Perry Ellis

Perry Ellis

Perry Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded a sportswear house in the mid-1970s.-The rise of Perry Ellis:...

 label, established in 1978, which used color and natural fibers to great advantage in its elegant variations on the basics. Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali is a New York-based fashion designer born in 1945. She is best known for the "sleeping bag" coat, "parachute pants" made from silk parachutes, and versatile multi-use pieces. She designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn by Farah Fawcett in the iconic 1976 Charlie's Angels poster....

, with her short skirts made of sweatshirting, leotards, headbands, and leg warmers, made jogging look fashionable. Kamali also created the popular 'rah-rah skirt'. Also notable is the extreme popularity of the Adidas

Adidas

Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...

 sports label, which achieved an incredible level of street cred in the 1980s, inciting the hip hop group Run DMC to release the single 'My Adidas' in 1986. The legendary shoe designer Manolo Blahnik

Manolo Blahnik

Manuel "Manolo" Blahnik Rodríguez CBE, , is a Spanish fashion designer and founder of the self-named, high-end shoe brand.-Biography:Born to a Czech father and a Spanish mother and born and raised in the Canary Islands , Blahnik graduated from the University of Geneva in 1965 and studied art in Paris...

 also rose to fame during the 1980s.

The multiplicity of trends that bloomed during the 80s were curtailed by the economic recession that set in at the beginning of the 1990s, largely destroying the optimistic mood that is so advantageous to the fashion industry.

1990s

In the 1990s it was no longer the done thing to follow fashion slavishly, a sharp contrast to the highly a la mode 1970s and 1980s. The phobia of being underdressed was finally completely displaced by the fear of overdressing. Fashion in the 1990s united around a new standard, minimalism

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

, and styles of stark simplicity became the vogue. Despite the best efforts of a few designers to keep the flag for pretty dresses flying, by the end of the decade the notion of ostentatious finery had virtually disappeared. As well as the styling of the product, its promotion in the media became crucial to its success and image. The financial pressures of the decade had a devastating effect on the development of new talent and lessened the autonomy enjoyed by more established designers.

Fashion at the end of the 20th century tackled themes that fashion had not previously embraced. These themes included rape, disability, religious violence, death, and body modification. There was a dramatic move away from the sexy styles aimed at the glamorous femme fatale

Femme fatale

A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...

 of the 1980s, and many designers, taken with a vision of romantic poverty, adopted the style of the poverty-stricken waif, dressed in a stark, perversely sober palette, with a face devoid of make-up. Clothes by ready-to-wear retailers such as The Gap

Gap (clothing retailer)

The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

, Banana Republic, and Eddie Bauer

Eddie Bauer

Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc. is a holding company that operates the Eddie Bauer clothing store chain, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, United States. EBH was formed after Eddie Bauer's former parent company, Spiegel, Inc., went bankrupt in 2003...

 came to the forefront of fashion, managing to tap into the needs of women who simply wanted comfortable, wearable clothes. Retro

Retro

Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...

 clothing inspired by the 1960s and 1970s was popular for much of the 1990s.

The famous Italian fashion house, Gucci

Gucci

The House of Gucci, better known simply as Gucci , is an Italian fashion and leather goods label, part of the Gucci Group, which is owned by French company PPR...

 was created in 1921, by Guccio Gucci and was originally a firm that sold luxury leather goods. Under Guccio Gucci's children, by the end of the 1960s the label had expanded to include a plethora of products with a distinctly Latin glamor. However, only in the 1990s, when the Gucci heirs gave up control of the company to Invest Corp., who planned to turn the business around, did it truly begin to enjoy the kind of success it enjoys in the present day. Employing an unknown designer, Tom Ford

Tom Ford

Thomas Carlyle "Tom" Ford is an American fashion designer and film director. He gained international fame for his turnaround of the Gucci fashion house and the creation of the Tom Ford label before directing the Oscar-nominated film A Single Man.-Early life :Tom Ford was born August 27, 1961 in...

, as design director in 1994, the fashion house was endowed with a great prestige, as Ford triggered a tidal wave with his chic and shocking collections, perfumes for men and women, revamped boutiques, and advertising campaigns. In 1998 Gucci is named "European Company of the year" by European Business Press Federation. Today it is the second biggest-selling fashion brand (after LVMH

LVMH

LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton S.A., better known as LVMH, is a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate headquartered in Paris, Île-de-France, France. The company was formed after the 1987 merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy, a company formed after the 1971 merger...

) worldwide with US$7 billion worldwide of revenue in 2006 according to BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek

Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...

 magazine. Most importantly Gucci is the biggest-selling Italian brand in the world.

In the 1990s the designer label Prada

Prada

Prada S.p.A. is an Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women , founded by Mario Prada.-Foundations:...

 became a true creative force in the fashion industry. The Milanese company was first established in 1923, two years after Gucci, and like Gucci, it was a firm that sold high-quality shoes and leather. It was until the 1980s that Miuccia Prada

Miuccia Prada

Miuccia Prada is an Italian fashion designer and entrepreneur. She also has a Ph.D. in Political Science.Prada was born in Milan, the youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, founder of the company. According to: Forbes.com's The World's Richest People 2001: "She and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli,...

, the niece of the company's founder, began to produce ready-to-wear fashion, gaining fame for her subtle, streamlined, yet unquestionably luxurious style, that catered for the privileged young woman who prefers understatement to flamboyant extravagance.

In the united statess of america the three of the most influential fashion designers of the time were Michael Kors

Michael Kors

Michael Kors is an American fashion designer. He is best known for designing classic American sportswear for women.-Personal life:...

, Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for Marc Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, with more than 200 retail stores in 60 countries. He has been the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton since 1997...

, and Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein

Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....

. Michael Kors set up his own business in 1980. However, it was not until the 1990s that the designer reached the peak of his popularity. His knowledge and consciousness of trends enabled him to produce simple well-cut garments, whose sophistication and elegance appealed to a whole new breed of wealthy American customers drawn to the new vogue for minimalist chic. Marc Jacobs is one of the most notable American designers of the period in that, unlike many American fashion designers in the past, he was not so much the co-ordinator of a mass-produced garment as a designer in the European sense of the word. One of the most promising talents in the fashion industry at the time, the LVMH (Louis Vuitton-Moet Henessy) group offered him the job of designing a line of ready-to-wear to compliment the de-luxe products of luggage specialist Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...

 in the late 1990s. One of the first fashion designers to anticipate the globalization of world markets, the already well-known designer Calvin Klein started to market his fashions, perfumes, and accessories not only right across the US, but also in Europe and Asia, achieving an unequaled success. A brilliant artistic director, Klein used carefully constructed advertisements containing images tinted with eroticism to promote his sophisticatedly functional mass-produced designs, which won massive popularity among the urban youth of the 1990s.

The group of designers known as the 'Antwerp Six

Antwerp Six

The Antwerp Six refers to a group of influential avant garde fashion designers who graduated from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980-1981. At the Academy they were taught by Linda Loppa. The fashion collective presented a distinct, radical vision for fashion during the 1980s that...

' (so named because all of them were graduates of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp), who first emerged in the 1980s, came to prominence in the 1990s. Three of the most influential of the group were Ann Demeulemeester

Ann Demeulemeester

Ann Demeulemeester is a fashion designer whose eponymous label 'Ann Demeulemeester' is mainly showcased at the annual Paris Fashion Week.-Early life:...

, Dries van Noten

Dries van Noten

Dries Van Noten is a Belgian fashion designer and an eponymous fashion brand. In 2005, the New York Times described him "one of fashion's most cerebral designers"...

, and Walter Van Beirendonck

Walter Van Beirendonck

Walter Van Beirendonck is a Belgian fashion designer. He graduated in 1980 from the Royal Arts Academy in Antwerp. Together with Dirk Van Saene, Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee and Dirk Bikkembergs they became known as the Antwerp Six.Since 1983, he issues his own collections...

. Ann Demeulemeester, from her first collection in 1991, demonstrated a great deal of confidence and inventiveness. Naturally inclined to understatement, she built her designs on contradictions, introducing contrasting elements into her fluid and streamlined fashions, which appealed to women who dressed, above all, to please themselves. The work of Dries van Noten was founded on a solid mastery of the art of tailoring, to which the young designer added discreet touches of fantasy in a highly personal style. Managing to be both classical and original, his fashions appealed to those who preferred to express their individuality rather than slavishly follow trends. Walter Van Beirendonck, who erupted onto the fashion scene in 1995, produced decidedly futuristic designs under his label W & LT (Wild and Lethal Trash). Deliberately using fabrics developed by the very latest technologies, in violently contrasting colors, he produced clothes that were full of erotic and sadomasochistic references, touched with a caustic adolescent humor. His highly distinctive approach related to a resurgence of anti-fashion, but this time an anti-fashion with nothing in the least ethnic about its origins, instead based on science fiction that provided the inspiration for displays of such high-spirited provocation.

In Italy, Gianni Versace

Gianni Versace

Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer and founder of Gianni Versace S.p.A., an international fashion house, which produces accessories, fragrances, makeup and home furnishings as well as clothes. He also designed costumes for the theatre and films, and was a friend of Madonna, Elton John,...

, with his brilliant, sexy, and colorful designs, and Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana is an Italian luxury industry fashion house. The company was started by the Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in Milan, Italy. By 2005 their turnover was €597 million....

, with their superfeminine and fantastical style, broke away from the serious and sober-minded fashions that dominated during much of the 1990s. The British designer Vivienne Westwood produced many influential and popular collections in the early 1990s, which included outfits inspired by 18th-century courtesans and the Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...

, with rounded hips, corsets, and platform heels. The London-based designer Rifat Ozbek

Rifat Ozbek

Rifat Ozbek is a Turkish-born fashion designer, known for his exotic, ethnically-inspired outfits. He has been named British Designer of the Year in 1988 and 1992.-Biography:Ozbek was born in Istanbul, Turkey and grew up in in a yali on the Bosphorus...

 was also popular, particularly in New York and Milan. His youthful style, which mixed references to India, Africa, and his native Turkey with clever takes on historical clothing, was reminiscent of hippest nightclubs and the more outrageous street fashions of the time. Rap music was a prominent influence on popular and street fashion during the early and mid-1990s. Followers of hip hop adopted huge baggy jeans, similar to those worn in American prisons, with big patterned shirts and heavy black shoes. The sports label Nike

Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

 had great popularity and materials such as Lycra and Spandex

Spandex

Spandex or elastane is a synthetic fibre known for its exceptional elasticity. It is strong, but less durable than natural Latex, its major non-synthetic competitor. It is a polyurethane-polyurea copolymer that was co-invented in 1959 by chemists C. L. Sandquist and Joseph Shivers at DuPont's...

 were increasingly used for sportswear. Increasing eco-awareness and animal rights made even top couture houses such as Chanel introduce fake fur and natural fibers into their collections.

2000s

In the 2000s, as the future began to seem increasingly bleak, fashion, and indeed the Arts in general, looked to the past for inspiration, arguably more so than in previous decades. Vintage clothing, especially from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (the 1980s idea of clashing, electric colours becoming especially popular in mid-late 2007) became extremely popular and fashion designers often sought to emulate bygone styles in their collections. The early 2000s saw a continuation of the minimalist look of the 1990s in high fashion. Later on, designers began to adopt a more colorful, feminine, excessive, and 'anti-modern' look. Name brands became of particular importance among young people and many celebrities launched their own lines of clothing. Tighter fit clothing and longer hair became mainstream for many men and women.

For many of the own-label designers who emerged in the early years of the 21st century, financial factors became increasingly critical. Many new young talents found they now depended on investors (to whom, in extreme cases, they would even surrender their names) and were always burdened by the risk that their partners, motivated by market realism and the desire for quick returns, would severely restrict their autonomy.

Designers like Rodrick Gilchrist and Berny Martin

Berny Martin

Berny Martin is a fashion designer and founder of Catou. Catou was named after Martin's grandmother and created in 2005.He began Midwest Fashion Week in Indiana , in 2006 with the belief that fashion could be found outside the major metropolitan cities. He also founded FashionExpo and a host of...

struck out on their own to places like the midwest, USA. Their hopes were to bring fashion design back to its artisan roots.