Consuelo Castiglioni, 55, isn't the only woman on this list without any formal design training, but she is the only one to make a successful Atlas pendant brand from a fur house. Originally from Switzerland, Castiglioni married into the family behind Ciwifurs, who produce Atlas tag pendant pelts for the likes of Dior, Prada and Louis Vuitton. Marni, named after her sister-in-law, was launched in 1994 to give Castiglioni an outlet to play with a few fur pieces.
In no time her hobby had transformed into a cult favourite among the intellectual fashion connoisseur (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julianne Moore are fans). For her first collections, she turned her attention to fabric development and finding new ways to Atlas tag pendant her furs (shaved, dyed, patchwork), nevermind that she is reportedly vegan. Gradually, Castiglioni began designing Tiffany Blue box bracelet to be worn under her signature furs, and today Marni has grown into an international family business-her husband is one of the CEOs and her daughter runs the online store.
And every season her collection is easily identified by a quirky mix of vintage-inspired fabrics and floral prints, eclectic colour combinations and chunky accessories. Wool/silk dress, wool peplum, $580, gloves, socks and boots, all Marni.In 1993 they Return to Tiffany Bead Bracelet the Fondazione Prada, a non-profit that supports and showcases new artistic talent such as Carsten Höller (he installed a slide from her office to the courtyard below), and Francesco Vezzoli.
By the time she was 35, Diane von Furstenberg had married a prince, moved from her native Belgium to NYC, had two babies, divorced and Elsa Peretti Cross pendant on the cover of Newsweek as the jet-setting beauty who made a fortune from her iconic wrap dress (there's one in the Smithsonian). Then, just as quickly as it came, it was over; no one wanted her dresses. Von Furstenberg Elsa Peretti Eternal Circle pendant the rights to her name, packed up and moved to Paris where she started a French-language publishing house.
Her climb back to the top started in 1997 when her daughters encouraged her to start designing again. The timing to revive the brand couldn't have been better. Flash forward to present day and von Furstenberg, now 64, has become the Elsa Peretti Eternal Circle pendant behind a $200-million fashion empire known for a lushly patterned boho-chic style. She's also the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and a cofounder with her husband, media Elsa Peretti Infinity Cross pendant Barry Dlller, of the DVF Awards (Diller-Von Furstenberg)- a $50,000 women's leadership endowment.
She attributes her current success to the fact that her company is 97 percent women who are likely driven by the same themes that have shaped her life: confidence, and the Elsa Peretti Starfish pendant to be in control of one's own destiny. Wool sweater, $565, and wool skirt, $498, Diane von Furstenberg. Today, her appreciation of the arts is reflected not only in her fashion collections but her store designs, advertising videos and artist showcases. Wool coat, leather skirt, $570, and socks, all Prada.
It's been 25 years since Donna Karan, 61, launched her 7 Easy Pieces collection that changed the way we dress today. She came up Medium Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant the concept of wearing just seven piecesa bodysuit, pant, coat, skirt, sweater, a leather item and an evening piece- 24/7 during her tenure at Anne Klein, a position that started as a summer job for the Small Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant design student in the early 70s. Just three years later, she landed the top job in partnership with Louis Dell'Olio when Klein died prepping a prefall collection.
Karan, nine months pregnant at the time, famously delivered the collection and her first baby in the same week. Since launching her Elsa Peretti Teardrop pendant label in 1984, she has become the queen of American fashion, building an empire on draped black Elsa Peretti Round pendant and cashmere. Not one to rest on her success, Karan's Fall '10 collection- a study of draped and sculpted silhouettes- was one of her best yet.
A devoted practitioner of yoga since she was 18, Karan has combined her spiritual sensibility with her signature wearable practicality- a look that attracts ?-list fans from Barbra Streisand to Penelope Cruz. When not traveling the globe with pal Elsa Peretti Crucifix pendant Klein, this grandmother of seven is organizing Seventh on Sale (for AIDS awareness and education) and Super Saturday (to raise money for Ovarian Cancer research). Wool top and viscose-blend skirt, Donna Karan New York. Bracelet, Robert Lee Morris.
Baguettes sold so quickly--a hundred thousand in the first year--that the Fendi workshops in Tuscany could not keep up with the demand. Waiting lists Tiffany 1837 Circle bracelet a fundamental part of status-bag culture. They gave upper-middle-class women the sense of being part of an inner circle of bespoke fashion. To date, Fendi has sold Tiffany Blue heart lock charm and bracelet six hundred thousand Baguettes (average cost: $1,500), and still brings out thirty or forty different versions every year.
The Baguette pheno-menon presented new economic opportunities for rival fashion houses, who rushed to pick up on the trend. And so, in a flurry of Party charm bracelet-getting signature bags with cute names, began the twenty-first-century bag wars, the rush of inventiveness and profit that added to the dramatic revival of Return to Tiffany Heart Lock Cuff like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Christian Dior. (In 2005, leather goods accounted for fifty-four per cent of Gucci's revenues.)
In a casual genealogy of turn-of-the-millennium handbags, it could be said that the Baguette begat the Prada bowling bag, the reborn Jackie Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant by Gucci, the Saint Laurent Mombasa, the Murakami Louis Vuitton, the Dior Detective, and scores of other bags women all wanted, and bought.
These bags were certainly expensive, but they were understood to be investments and still carried a matronly aura of rich aunts and Tiffany 1837 bangle mothers--they weren't fashionable, not objects of impulse and lust. Then, in the nineties, luxury conglomerates started buying up venerable brands, and Miuccia Prada transformed a boring upper-middle-class Tiffany 1837 cuff label into a postmodern kingdom, presenting, along the way, a pricy minimalist backpack in black parachute nylon.
Young women and their mothers both wanted this bag, which was practical, modest, and eminently cool, and yet it semaphored money--one of the Tiffany 1837 bangle bags outside the old classics that you could find counterfeited in Hong Kong.In paparazzi shots, celebrities totter under the weight of the latest limited-edition bags like knights displaying their emblems.
In 1997, Silvia Venturini brought out the Baguette, and it changed the market irrevocably. The Baguette was that rare object that Tiffany 1837 circle clasp bracelet perfectly to the spirit of the times, which was a mass hunger for ostentatious display, and also a desire for frivolous treats for women who worked hard at having it all. The Baguette, with its differently colored and Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet decorated variations, made stylish women dream, like kids with Pokemon cards, of collecting the whole set.
Now Venturini, who is Anna's daughter, is the only Fendi family member who designs for the company, which, since 2001, has been Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet of Bernard Arnault's LVMH luxury-goods empire. She is revered in the industry as the creator of such cult handbags as the Spy, the Ostrik, and last season's B. Fendi. But mostly she is Elsa Peretti Teardrop bracelet as the author of the Fendi Baguette, the bag that in the late nineties changed the pocketbook landscape.
The Baguette is an oblong bag about the size of a folded newspaper, with a Fendi logo clasp and a short handle, designed to allow the Elsa Peretti Bean bracelet to nestle closely under the arm the way Frenchmen (in cartoons, at least) clasp their loaves of daily bread. Like a Petrarchan sonnet, the Baguette form is always the same, but within it the variations are unending: it has Venetian Link bracelet in everything from denim to feathers to gemstones. When a mugger demanded Carrie Bradshaw's bag in an episode of "Sex and the City," she corrected him: "It's a Baguette."
The evolution went like this: Back in the eighties, as the bull market was inciting a new era of flashiness, handbags remained strangely timid Tiffany 1837 cuff restrained. A fashion neophyte, I was acquiring my first designer bags and dreaming of others, and such dreams were simple: one wanted a Kelly or a quilted Chanel, or a bamboo-handled Gucci or something sparkly by Judith Leiber.