Sarah Miyazawa LaFleur is an American businesswoman and fashion designer who is the founder and CEO of MM.LaFleur. [1]
LaFleur was born in Paris, France, the daughter of Christopher J. LaFleur , the former United States Ambassador to Malaysia, and Keiko Miyazawa, the daughter of Kiichi Miyazawa, who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1991 to 1993. Her younger sister is Emma Miyazawa. [2]
She wore designs by Hanae Mori at the Bal des débutantes on December 7, 2002. [3] She graduated from Harvard University in 2006. [4] [5]
LaFleur worked as a management counselor for Bain & Company and TechnoServe in New York City. She worked in South Africa where she studied business opportunities in agriculture. She then worked for a private equity firm, Starwood Capital Group, in New York and Paris. [6] LaFleur left financial counseling to found MM.LaFleur, whom she named after her mother, in April 2011, along with Miyako Nakamura and Narie Foster. [7] [8] In February 2020 LaFleur announced the company will lend free clothing to any woman running for office. [9]
LaFleur is one of the signatories of a letter intended for Donald Trump and the United States Congress in an attempt to keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in place throughout the United States. [10]
Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.
Óscar Arístides Renta Fiallo, known professionally as Oscar de la Renta, was a Dominican fashion designer. Born in Santo Domingo, he was trained by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo. De la Renta became internationally known in the 1960s as one of the couturiers who dressed Jacqueline Kennedy. He worked for Lanvin and Balmain. His eponymous fashion house has boutiques around the world, and is headquartered on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.
DKNY is a New York City–based fashion house for men and women, founded in 1984 by Donna Karan. The company specializes in a wide range of fashion products, including clothing, footwear, and accessories.
Fashion photography is a genre of photography that portrays clothing and other fashion items. This sometimes includes haute couture garments. It typically consists of a fashion photographer taking pictures of a dressed model in a photographic studio or an outside setting. It originated from the clothing and fashion industries, and while some fashion photography has been elevated as art, it is still primarily used commercially for clothing, perfumes and beauty products.
Forever 21 is a multinational fast-fashion retailer headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. Originally founded as the store Fashion 21 in Highland Park, Los Angeles in 1984, it is currently operated by Authentic Brands Group and Simon Property Group, with about 540 outlets.
Vera Bradley Sales, LLC is an American luggage and handbag design company, founded by Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Patricia R. Miller in 1982. As of 2019, its home office is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company was named after Baekgaard's mother. Its original luxury cotton bag product lines have expanded to include fashion and home accessories, office supplies, and patterned gifts. Many items have distinctive florals, paisleys, or geometric prints with complementary linings, as well as elongated diamond quilting. The patterns were originally inspired by French Provençal country fabrics and have limited seasonal releases each year. In September 2022, the company named Jacqueline Ardrey as their new CEO.
Anne Klein was an American fashion designer and businesswoman, a founder and namesake of Anne Klein & Company.
Steve & Barry's was an American retail clothing chain, featuring casual clothing, footwear and accessories. Headquartered in Port Washington, New York, the chain operated 276 stores in 39 states before liquidating throughout 2008 and 2009.
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.
Lanvin is a French luxury fashion house founded in 1889 by Jeanne Lanvin in Paris. It is the oldest French fashion house still in operation. Since 2018, it has been a subsidiary of Shanghai-based Lanvin Group.
Ashley Blazer Biden is an American social worker, activist, and fashion designer. She served as the executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice from 2014 to 2019. Before her administrative role at the center, Biden worked in the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families. She founded the fashion company Livelihood, which partners with the online retailer Gilt Groupe to raise money for community programs focused on eliminating income inequality in the United States, launching it at New York Fashion Week in 2017. Biden's parents are President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.
Rent the Runway is an e-commerce platform that allows users to rent, subscribe, or buy designer apparel and accessories. It was founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, who launched the company in November 2009.
Isabel Marant is a French fashion designer, owner of the eponymous fashion brand. She won the Award de la Mode (1997), the Whirlpool Award for best female designer (1998), Fashion Designer of the Year at British Glamour's Women of the Year Awards (2012). She was named Contemporary Designer of the Year at the Elle Style Awards in 2014. Her collaboration with H&M in 2013 was so successful that company's website crashed under the demand and the collection was sold out within 45 minutes. Celebrities wearing Marant's designs include Alexa Chung, Katie Holmes, Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Kate Bosworth, and Rachel Weisz.
Athleisure is a hybrid style of athletic clothing typically worn as everyday wear. The word is a portmanteau combining the words 'athletic' and 'leisure'. Athleisure outfits can include tracksuits, sports jackets, hoodies, yoga pants, tights, sneakers, flats, Birkenstocks, uggs, leggings and shorts that look like athletic wear or pair well with it. Characterized as "fashionable, dressed-up sweats and exercise clothing," athleisure grew during the mid-2010s, from the popularity of yoga pants that emerged throughout the mid to late 2000s. The athleisure trend entails casual clothing options that give North American women the option to incorporate athletic clothing as part of their everyday attire, irrespective of their actual engagement in physical activities.
Emma Miyazawa is a Japanese television personality and actress. Her former stage name is Emma Miyazawa La Fleur.
Myriam Chalek is a French fashion designer, entrepreneur, and diversity and inclusion advocate. She is known for putting on alternative fashion shows meant to challenge the idea of beauty and empower people living with disabilities.
Afua Osei is an entrepreneur, investor and public speaker who co-founded She Leads Africa, a media company for millennial African women.
Fleur du Mal is a lingerie and ready-to-wear brand that sells at retailers including Shopbop, Barneys, and Net-a-porter. The company was founded in 2012 by Jennifer Zuccarini.
Coqueline Courrèges is a French dressmaker and co-founder of the Courrèges fashion company.
Skims is an American shapewear and clothing brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian, Emma Grede and Jens Grede. Skims has a focus on body positivity and inclusivity across the brand and practices inclusive sizing. The company was valued at over $4 billion in July 2023.