The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion

Book excerpt: Celebrated and hidden figures from First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln's seamstress to Elsa Schiaparelli and Chromat revealed through their stories and most compelling works. Diane Von Furstenberg, Vivienne Westwood, Sarah Burton, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, Donna Karan, and Iris van Herpen are among the great women designers to emerge in the last few decades. We now live in an age when no one would dare call them "that little seamstress," as Paul Poiret disdainfully referred to Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel more than a century ago. The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion highlights early innovative and contemporary designers working in a variety of materials and genres. This unique volume profiles widely-known early fashion vanguards such as Jeanne Lanvin, Callot Soeurs, and Madeleine Vionnet, as well as underrepresented women who revolutionized fashion from the mid-1700s to the present. More than one hundred works--including street fashion, ready-to-wear, traditional, and haute couture--celebrate women designers' concepts of dress and beauty. Through the work of more than fifty individual style makers, The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion illuminates issues of representation, creativity, and distinctiveness, as well as the labor challenges surrounding fashion today.