Caroline Charles | |
|---|---|
| Born | Caroline Mary Charles 18 May 1942 Cairo, Egypt |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Swindon Art School |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Title | Head Designer and CEO |
| Children | 2 |
Caroline Mary Charles OBE (born 18 May 1942) is a British fashion designer.
Caroline Mary Charles was born on 18 May 1942, [1] [2] in Cairo, Egypt to British parents, Noel St. John Fairhurst and Helen T. Williams. [3] [4] From a young age she was interested in fashion. She left school at sixteen and studied locally at Swindon Art School from 1958–60. [2]
Charles did an apprenticeship at Michael Sherard's couture house, after which she worked with Mary Quant, and then worked for a year with the photographer Tony Rawlinson. [2]
She started her Caroline Charles label in 1963, aged 21. [5] Charles was one of the leading designers in the explosion of demand in the US during the 1960s for clothes from young British designers. She travelled widely with her Mod designs, visiting 36 cities and arranging fashion and pop shows, and appearing on television in the US and the UK, [6] including the 23 November 1964 episode of To Tell the Truth , in which she was the person whom the celebrity panelists were attempting to identify. Two of the four panelists correctly selected Charles.[ citation needed ]
Her customers have included Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, for both of whom she designed clothes, [6] Marianne Faithfull, Diana, Princess of Wales, [5] Cilla Black, Barbra Streisand, [2] Cherie Blair, Anne Robinson, Helena Kennedy and Lesley Garrett. [7] The actress Emma Thompson wore a green-beaded bodice and wide trousers by Caroline Charles, when receiving her Oscar for the 1992 film Howards End . [8]
According to The Guardian , "The beautiful classic cut, high standard of manufacture and quality fabrics are the foundations upon which the label was built". [8] Hilary Alexander, writing in The Daily Telegraph , called her "the thinking woman's designer". [5] Charles was awarded an OBE in June 2002. [2] [6] In 2012, her memoirs, Caroline Charles – 50 years in fashion were published. [8]
As of 2017, the Caroline Charles label has stores in London, Cheltenham, Tunbridge Wells, Wilmslow and Exeter. [9]
Charles lives in Knightsbridge, London. [3] She was married to environmentalist Malcolm Valentine from 1960 [7] until his death in 2016. [10] They had a daughter and a son, Kate and Alex. [3]
Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer, songwriter, fashion designer and television personality. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as a member of the girl group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Posh Spice. With over 90 million records sold worldwide, the group became the best-selling female group of all time. After the Spice Girls split in 2001, Beckham was signed to Virgin Records, in which she released her self-titled debut solo album, which produced two UK Top 10 singles.
Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.
Philip Anthony Treacy is an Irish award-winning haute couture milliner, or hat designer, who has been mostly based in London for his career, and who was described by Vogue magazine as "perhaps the greatest living milliner". In 2000, Treacy became the first milliner in eighty years to be invited to exhibit at the Paris haute couture fashion shows. He has won British Accessory Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards five times, and has received public honours in both Britain and Ireland. His designs have been displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, is a British fashion designer and fashion icon. She became an instrumental figure in the 1960s London-based Mod and youth fashion movements. She was one of the designers who took credit for the miniskirt and hotpants, and by promoting these and other fun fashions she encouraged young people to dress to please themselves and to treat fashion as a game. Ernestine Carter, an authoritative and influential fashion journalist of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote: "It is given to a fortunate few to be born at the right time, in the right place, with the right talents. In recent fashion there are three: Chanel, Dior, and Mary Quant."
Lee Alexander McQueen, CBE was an English fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards, as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003.
Samantha Gwendoline Cameron is an English businesswoman. Until 13 May 2010, she was the creative director of Smythson of Bond Street. Her husband, David Cameron, was the British prime minister from 2010 to 2016. She took on a part-time consultancy role at Smythson after he became prime minister.
Alexa Chung is a British writer, television presenter, model, and fashion designer. She has authored the book It (2013) and launched her eponymous fashion brand in May 2017.
Hilary Alexander is a New Zealand-born British journalist and former fashion director of the Daily Telegraph. She was twice named Journalist of the Year in the British Fashion Awards. She is editor-at-large for HelloFashion Monthly and freelances as a stylist and broadcaster.
Phoebe Philo OBE is a British fashion designer. She was the creative director of Céline from 2008 to 2018 and creative director of Chloé from 2001 to 2006.
Betty Jackson, is an English fashion designer based in London, England. She was born in Lancashire. In 2007, her achievement within British fashion was recognised with first a MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours 1987 and later with a CBE for "services to the fashion industry." She is also known for designing many of the outrageous costumes worn by Edina and Patsy on the 1990s hit television comedy Absolutely Fabulous.
Alice Temperley MBE is an English fashion designer based in Ilminster, Somerset, England. Her fashion label, Temperley London was launched in 2000.
Ghislaine Alexander was a wealthy heiress and British socialite who was a panelist on the British version of What's My Line?.
Jenny Packham is a British fashion designer. She mostly makes ready-to-wear clothes and wedding dresses. She is the sister of naturalist and television presenter Chris Packham.
Louise Janet Wilson was a British professor of fashion design. Wilson was based at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, where she was the course director of their MA in Fashion from 1992 until 2014. Her former students include Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders, Louise Goldin, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Peter Jensen, Richard Nicoll, Christopher Shannon, Yu Lun Eve Lin and Sophia Kokosalaki.
Mary Katrantzou is a Greek fashion designer who lives and works in London.
Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers was a membership organisation founded in 1942 to promote the British fashion and textile industry and create luxury couture to sell abroad for the war effort. It aimed to build the relationship between government and fashion industry and represent the interests of London couturiers. The organisation continued after the war and sought to present itself as an alternative to the revived Paris couture industry.
Wendy Dagworthy OBE is an English former fashion designer and now design academic. During her career she has led fashion design teaching at both the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, mentoring notable fashion designers including Stella McCartney and Hussein Chalayan. An influential designer in her own right in the 1970s and '80s with the Wendy Dagworthy label, and one of the founders of London Fashion Week, she was described by the Daily Telegraph as: "the high priestess of British fashion".
Michael Sherard was a British fashion designer and a member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, which represented the British couture industry in the wartime and post-war years. Operating his own label from the 1940s to 1960s, he is remembered primarily for his evening and occasion gowns. He also helped train future British designers, including Caroline Charles, and was later a design academic.
Christopher McDonnell is a British fashion designer who operated in the UK between the 1960s and 1980s. In the US, he was known under his own name, and in the UK he operated under the brand name Marrian-McDonnell before switching to an eponymous label in 1973.
Anna Valentine, previously known as Robinson Valentine, is a British luxury fashion house launched in 1986. It was founded by designer duo Antonia Robinson and Anna Valentine.
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