History of fashion design

Marie Antoinette's unique fashion preferences such as masculine riding breeches or simple muslin shift dresses, contrasted sharply with elaborate gowns as the Queen attempted to create a persona that would allow the citizens of France to connect with her and her lifestyle.

Although Marie Antoinette's attempts were largely unsuccessful, the way in which Bertin helped the Queen express herself through fashion were groundbreaking and set a precedent for the monarchs who followed, and their designers, such as Louis Hippolyte Leroy.

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.

Social events had to be postponed in favor of more pressing work 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.

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.

Schiaparelli was a close friend of Christian Bérard, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dalí, who designed embroidery motifs for her and supplied inspiration for models like the desk suit with drawers for pockets, the shoe-shaped hat, the silk dresses painted with flies or lobsters.

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.

The collection contained dresses with accentuated busts, tiny (or "wasp") waists, and extravagantly full skirts, emphasizing the feminine hourglass figure in a manner very similar to the style of the Belle Époque.

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.

Following the closure of her salons in the war years, in 1954, aged over seventy, she staged a comeback and on 5 February she presented a collection that 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.

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.

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, Lauren Bacall, or Grace Kelly 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.

Many of the radical changes in fashion developed in the streets of London, with such gifted designers as Mary Quant (known for launching the mini skirt) and Barbara Hulanicki (the founder of the legendary boutique Biba).

Emilio Pucci's sportswear designs and prints inspired by Op art, psychedelia, and medieval heraldic banners earned him a reputation that extended far beyond the circles of high society.

The hippie and psychedelic movements late in the decade also had a strong influence on clothing styles, including bell-bottom jeans (designed by the English tailor Tommy Nutter, from his Savoy store), tie-dye and batik fabrics, as well as paisley prints.

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 and an instinctive understanding of what his young customers wanted.

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 after its opening in 1977.

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.

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

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.

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.

Chantal Thomas, 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.

Carolina Herrera, 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.

It was until the 1980s that Miuccia Prada, 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.

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.

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 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.

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, with rounded hips, corsets, and platform heels.

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.