Ann Verhelst, known professionally as Ann Demeulemeester, is a Belgian fashion designer whose label, Ann Demeulemeester, is mainly showcased at the annual Paris Fashion Week. She is known as one of the Antwerp Six in the fashion industry.
The Antwerp Six are a group of fashion designers who trained at Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980–81 under Linda Loppa. The press began referring to them as a group beginning in about 1990 after the group in 1986 drove in a van from Belgium to present at a London tradeshow and unexpectedly made an impact.
Raf Jan Simons is a Belgian fashion designer. Beginning in furniture design, Simons launched his own menswear label in 1995. He was creative director at Jil Sander (2005–2012), Christian Dior (2012–2015), and Calvin Klein (2016–2018). As of 1 April 2020, he is the co-creative director of Prada, in partnership with Miuccia Prada.
Calvin Klein Collection was the brand name for the high-end designer womenswear and menswear lines from fashion house Calvin Klein which were presented on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week, respectively.
Walter Van Beirendonck is a Belgian fashion designer. He has been the head of the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp until 2022.
Berluti is a French leather maker that manufactures menswear, especially the leather finishing of calfskin, kangaroo leather and alligator skin in its production of shoes and boots. It makes leather belts, bags, and wallets, as well as bespoke and ready-to-wear garments. Established in 1895 by Italian Alessandro Berluti of Marche, Berluti is based in Paris on rue Marbeuf. The brand was bought by LVMH in 1993. The latest creative director was Kris Van Assche (2018-2021).
Fashion design is the art of applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction and natural beauty to clothing and its accessories. It is influenced by culture and different trends, and has varied over time and place. "A fashion designer creates clothing, including dresses, suits, pants, and skirts, and accessories like shoes and handbags, for consumers. He or she can specialize in clothing, accessory, or jewelry design, or may work in more than one of these areas."
Nina Ricci is a fashion house founded by Maria "Nina" Ricci and her son Robert in Paris in 1932, and owned by the Spanish beauty and fashion group Puig since 1998.
Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford was a British fashion designer. Beginning in the mid-1980s he established an international reputation as one of the UK's most respected and consistently relevant designers of men's and womenswear clothing. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the fashion industry, in the 2007 Birthday Honours.
Veronique Branquinho is a Belgian fashion designer of Portuguese ancestry who studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, from which she graduated in 1995. In 1997, she presented her first womenswear collection in Paris and in 1998 she founded her namesake brand Veronique Branquinho. She quickly rose to prominence in the international fashion scene and in 2003 she extended her brand with fall men's collection. In 2009, she decided to stop her label, as a consequence of the 2008 financial crisis, but she revived it three years later, in collaboration with Italian manufacturer Gibò. This was only a brief revival, as the brand was discontinued again in 2017. Veronique Branquinho was based in Antwerp, while her runway shows took place in Paris, the last of which was shown in June 2017.
Ports is an international luxury fashion house founded by Japanese Canadian fashion designer Luke Tanabe (1920–2009) in Toronto in 1961. It specializes in luxury women's and men's ready-to-wear as well as accessories. Acquired by Chinese Canadian brothers Alfred Chan and Edward Tan in 1989, Ports expanded into the Chinese market in the early 1990s where its parent company — which traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2018 and has since been privatized — now operates more than 300 retail stores. Sub-brands of the fashion house include Ports (International) in China and Asia as well as Ports 1969, with subsidiaries in Milan and New York City as well as a flagship store in Paris, for global distribution.
Kris Van Assche is a Belgian fashion designer. He was the creative director of Berluti (2018-2021), a luxury leather brand owned by LVMH, and artistic director for Dior Homme from 2007 to 2018.
Comme des Garçons is a Japanese fashion label based in Paris founded by Rei Kawakubo. Its French flagship store is located in Paris. The brand has physical retail stores in London, Melbourne, Seoul, Hong Kong, New York City and in the Aoyama district of Tokyo. Other than fashion, the label has expanded to include jewelry and perfume.
Billy Reid is an American fashion designer based in Florence, Alabama. His line includes menswear, womenswear, accessories and eyewear. His clothing, self-described as "lived-in luxury" and "broken-in luxury", is known for its unusual accents and Southern influence. Reid summarizes his brand's concept as "American luxury built to last". Billy Reid, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, and Michael Kors are the only fashion designers who have won 3 or more CFDA Awards.
Haider Ackermann is a Colombian-born French designer of ready-to-wear fashion. He lives in Paris.
MoMu is the fashion museum of the City of Antwerp, Belgium. Founded on 21 September 2002, the museum collects, conserves, studies and exhibits Belgian fashion. The museum is specifically focusing on Belgian contemporary fashion designers due to the arising of a group of Antwerp-trained fashion designers during the Eighties and Nineties. The museum's first director was Linda Loppa who was also the founder and the director of the Fashion school of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp). The current director is Kaat Debo.
Heaven Tanudiredja is an Indonesian fashion designer living and working in Antwerp, Belgium. He is noted for his sculptural accessories, yet he trained in womenswear not accessory design from the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
Todd Snyder is an American fashion designer based in New York City. He founded his eponymous fashion label in 2011, and has been called "the most influential menswear designer of his generation" by GQ. The brand was acquired by American Eagle Outfitters in 2015, and reports $100 million in annual sales revenue.
Maison Margiela, formerly Maison Martin Margiela, is a French luxury fashion house founded by Belgian designer Martin Margiela and Jenny Meirens in 1988 and headquartered in Paris. The house produces both haute couture-inspired artisanal collections and ready-to-wear collections, with the former influencing the designs of the latter. Product lines include womenswear, menswear, jewellery, footwear, accessories, leather goods, perfumes and household goods. Known for deconstructive and avant-garde designs with unconventional materials, Maison Margiela has traditionally held live shows in unusual settings, for example empty metro stations and street corners. Models' faces are often obscured by fabric or long hair to direct attention to the clothes and design. Margiela resigned as creative designer in 2009 and John Galliano was appointed to the role in 2014.
Virgil Abloh was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur. He began his own line of luxury streetwear clothing, Pyrex Vision, in 2012, and became the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013. Abloh was also the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021.
