A handbag, commonly known as a purse in North American English, is a handled medium-to-large bag used to carry personal items. It has also been called a pocketbook in parts of the U.S.
Manuel "Manolo" Blahnik Rodríguez is a Spanish fashion designer and founder of the eponymous high-end shoe brand.
Charles Wilson Brega James was an English-American fashion designer. He is best known for his ballgowns and highly structured aesthetic. James is one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century and continues to influence new generations of designers.
Dame Zandra Lindsey Rhodes, is an English fashion and textile designer. Her early education in fashion set the foundation for a career in the industry creating textile prints. Rhodes has designed garments for Diana, Princess of Wales and numerous celebrities such as rock stars Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan. She has also designed textiles for interiors, featuring her prints on furniture and homewares. In 2003 Rhodes founded the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.
Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. She is the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market. In recognition of the notable design contributions of Kawakubo, an exhibition of her designs entitled Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons, Art of the In-Between opened on 5 May 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, modeled by Rihanna.
Miuccia Bianchi Prada is an Italian billionaire fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of Prada and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. As of October 2021, Forbes estimated her net worth at US$4.8 billion. In August 2021, Bloomberg estimated her net worth to be $6.6 billion, ranking 430th in the world.
Anna Maria Piaggi was an Italian fashion writer. She was known for her bright blue hair, liberal use of make-up, and her sense of style that mixed vintage and contemporary fashion.
Viktor & Rolf is a Dutch avant-garde luxury fashion house founded in 1993 by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. For more than twenty years, Viktor & Rolf have sought to challenge preconceptions of fashion and bridge the divide between fashion and art. Viktor & Rolf have designed both haute couture and ready-to-wear collections. The duo is renowned for their avant-garde designs, which rely heavily on theatrical and performative fashion runways.
Bonnie Cashin was an American fashion designer. Considered a pioneer in the design of American sportswear, she created innovative, uncomplicated clothing that catered to the modern, independent woman beginning in the post-war era through to her retirement from the fashion world in 1985.
Jason Wu is a Canadian artist and fashion designer based in New York City. Born in Taiwan and raised in Vancouver, he studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design, and trained under Narciso Rodriguez before launching his own line.
Pam Hogg is a Scottish fashion designer who launched her first fashion collection in 1981. She has created clothes for the likes of Ian Astbury of The Cult, Paula Yates, Marie Helvin, Siouxsie Sioux and Debbie Harry of Blondie.
Linda Jackson is an Australian fashion designer, fashion retailer and artist.
House of Flora is an established British fashion label and design house founded by designer Flora McLean.
Helen Storey, MBE, RDI, FRSA is a British artist and designer living and working in London. She is professor of fashion science at the University of the Arts, London and co-director of The Helen Storey Foundation.
Guo Pei is a Chinese fashion designer. She is best known for designing dresses for Chinese celebrities, and in America for Rihanna's trailing yellow gown at the 2015 Met Gala. Guo is the first born-and-raised Asian designer to be invited to become a guest member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. In 2016, Time listed her as one of the World's 100 Most Influential People.
Deborah Milner is a British fashion designer, active since the 1990s. Since 2000, she has focused on ecologically aware design, founding her ecological couture line, Ecoture, in 2005. In the early 2010s, she was head of the Alexander McQueen couture studio.
Duro Olowu is a Nigerian-born British fashion designer. He is best known for his innovative combinations of patterns and textiles that draw inspiration from his international background.
Princess Margaret wore a cream Dior dress for her 21st birthday commemorations at Sandringham House in 1951. The off-the-shoulder silk gown was created and customised by designer Christian Dior, whom Margaret became closely associated with. The princess was captured in the piece, dubbed one of her favourite dresses, by Cecil Beaton, with the portrait becoming one of the most memorable royal photographs of the twentieth century. The dress has been cited as a part of fashion history, and has been a part of the permanent collection at the Museum of London since 1968.
The oyster dress is a high fashion gown created by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection Irere. McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling the outside of an oyster shell. According to McQueen, the gown took a month's work for three people, who cut and assembled all the pieces individually. In addition to the original beige dress, a version with a red bodice and the ruffled skirt in rainbow colours was also created. The beige and red versions appeared in the Irere runway show, and were photographed for magazines to promote the collection.
Judith Clark is an exhibition-maker and art director living in London. Clark is Professor of Fashion and Museology at University of the Arts London in London and Co-Director of the Centre for Fashion Curation. She is visiting professor at Università Iuav di Venezia (IUAV), Venice, and Associate Fellow at City and Guilds of London Art School
