Designer Of The Week

Louis Vuitton

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Louis Vuitton was born in August 1821 in Eastern France. His ancestors were joiners, carpenters, farmers and milliners and both of his parents had passed away by the time Louis was 10 years old. In 1835, at age 13, the orphaned Vuitton left home alone and on foot, bound for Paris. He took 2 years to travel the 500-kilometer trek, taking odd jobs to feed himself along the way.   When he arrived in Paris aged 16 he encountered widespread poverty but also a transformation taking place due to the Industrial Revolution. Vuitton was taken on as an apprentice at the workshop of a...

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Gucci

Gucci is an Italian luxury brand of fashion and leather goods and was founded by Guccio Gucci in Florence in 1921.  As an immigrant hotel worker in Paris and later London, young Guccio Gucci was impressed with the luxurious luggage he saw urbane guests bring with them. Upon returning to his birthplace of Florence, a city distinguished for high-quality materials and skilled artisans, he established a shop in 1920 that sold fine leather goods with classic styling. Together with three of his sons, Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo Gucci, Gucci expanded the company to include stores in Milan and Rome as well...

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Prada

designer prada

Prada is an Italian luxury fashion house, specialising in leather handbags, shoes, ready-to-wear and fashion accessories. The company was started in 1913 by Mario Prada and his brother Martino as a leather goods shop – Fratelli Prada – in Milan, Italy. Mario Prada did not believe that women should have a role in business, and so he prevented female family members from entering into his company. Ironically, Mario's son harboured no interest in the business, so it was his daughter Luisa Prada who took the helm of Prada as his successor, and ran it for almost twenty years. Her own daughter,...

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YSL

designer saint laurent ysl yves saint laurent

Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008) was a French fashion designer, and is regarded as one of the greatest names in fashion history. When he was 17, Saint Laurent who was born in Algeria, moved to Paris and enrolled at the Chamber Syndicale de la Haute Couture, where his designs quickly gained notice. He met designer Christian Dior, a giant in the fashion world, who hired him on the spot and under his tutelage, Saint Laurent's style continued to mature and become popular.   At first Saint Laurent was only decorating the studio at the House of Dior but eventually he was allowed...

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Chanel

cc chanel coco chanel designer

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (1883 –1971), the founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. She is credited with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularised a sporty, casual style. TIME magazine listed her as the only fashion designer as one of the most influential people of the 20th century.Her mother died when Gabrielle was 12 and her father sent his three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage that cared for “poor, rejected and orphaned girls". Despite the tragedy of this, being placed in the orphanage...

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