Pioneers of Fashion Design

Lesson card: pioneers of fashion design

• Charles Frederick Worth: opened his house in Paris in 1858, is credited with being the first to sew his name into garments as a label, showed gowns on live models, and is known as the father of haute couture.
• Paul Poiret: claimed to have freed women from the corset in the early 1900s, then introduced the hobble skirt, narrow at the ankle, around 1911.
• Madeleine Vionnet: did not invent the bias cut but mastered and developed it, designing by draping fabric on a small wooden mannequin instead of sketching.
• Gabrielle Chanel: used jersey, then a fabric for men's underwear, and American Vogue compared her little black dress to a Ford car in 1926.
• Elsa Schiaparelli: brought Surrealism into fashion, including the 1937 Lobster Dress made in collaboration with Salvador Dalí.
• Christian Dior: showed his first collection on 12 February 1947 (the Corolle and En 8 lines), which Carmel Snow, editor of Harper's Bazaar, called the "New Look".
• Cristóbal Balenciaga: his 1957 sack dress paved the way for the shapes of the 1960s, and Dior is said to have called him the conductor of the haute couture orchestra.
• Yves Saint Laurent, Mary Quant and Issey Miyake: the 1965 Mondrian dress and the 1966 Le Smoking tuxedo for women; popularising the miniskirt in 1960s London; and the Pleats Please line in 1993.