International Women's Day is celebrated every year on 8 March, a holiday established to celebrate the important contributions and achievements of women in the economic, political and social fields.
On this special day, Zhiyi Technology would like to share with you some female designers who have created "her power" in the apparel industry.
It is they who continue to break the deep-rooted "male gaze" of the apparel industry from the perspective of women, gradually increase the voice of women in the design industry, and bring more inclusive and diverse creativity, which still shines on us today.
CoCo Chanel
She is the first designer in the world to start from a woman's point of view and not take male preferences as the standard; He is also the only fashion designer among the 100 most influential people of the 20th century selected by Time Magazine.
Before Chanel, European women's clothing has always emphasized the curvaceous beauty of thin waists and fat buttocks in order to please men, whether it is a corset, or a floor-length skirt with a skeleton and skirt support, which is not convenient for daily life and sports.
In order to dress women in fashionable and loose clothes, CoCo Chanel borrowed the style of men's uniforms, and modified the traditional white shirt, jacket and men's breeches into modified trousers that fit the female body. The skirt length and waist were also cut short, and the corset was replaced with the knitted fabric of men's sportswear; Even at the age of 70, she introduced tweed fabric into her clothing design for the first time and made it into a Chanel suit that has been passed down to this day...
There is no doubt that Chanel redefined women in terms of dress, and gave women an unprecedented modern attitude in clothing design - women's fashion serves women, and should be based on women's own aesthetics and comfort, rather than being a vassal of men.
Claire McCardell
She is the "mother of sportswear" and the first person in the history of American fashion to have a title brand; He was also the third fashion designer in history to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and was inducted into the Coty Hall of Fame after his death.
In Claire's fashion design career, she pioneered the use of commonly used fabrics and designs on men's clothing or workwear, such as denim, woolen wool, grey fabrics, metal hardware and buckles, ties that can be adjusted according to the user's body, and asymmetrical button arrangement, etc., in women's clothing and evening wear design, constantly challenging the shackles of women's clothing design, liberating women's bodies, and opening up the American athleisure style.
Rei Kawakubo
In the world of fashion design, Rei Kawakubo has always been regarded as a revolutionary who has never been seen before or since, and together with Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake, he is known as the "troika of Japanese fashion design", and has an extraordinary influence on fashion design in the contemporary world, which can be compared to an extremely noble artistic belief.
Her fashion design is characterized by unconventional and indefinable creative concepts and mindsets, which is a challenging and subversive performance art that moves between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. In Rei Kawakubo's design world, "Clothes are not meant to be worn by others, nor are they meant to attract and please others, they are a gift from yourself to yourself." ”
In 1973, she founded the Comme des Garçons brand, and since then she has embarked on a path of revolutionizing the way she dresses, and at Paris Fashion Week in 1981, she shocked the world with the release of the "beggar's outfit", which led the trend of loose, deliberately three-dimensional, fragmented, asymmetrical, and non-revealing clothing design in the early 80s.
After her debut at Paris Fashion Week in 1982, Rei Kawakubo began to gradually attract the attention of the mainstream of the West, reinventing the concept of traditional Western clothing with monochromatic, wide silhouettes and three-dimensional clothing, and was hailed as one of the greatest fashion designers of the 20th century.
In 1999, Rei Kawakubo teamed up with Polish artist Flip Pagowski to launch CdG Play, a young collection under the Comme des Garçons brand, featuring a red heart and a pair of big black eyes as the signature design, which is very eye-catching.
Phoebe Philo
Born in 1973 and graduated from Central Saint Martins in London, Phoebe Philo became creative director of Chloé in 2001 before joining the LVMH brand Celine in October 2008, where he helped the brand grow exponentially, from €200 million in 2008 to more than €700 million in 2017.
During his tenure at Celine, Phoebe Philo spent ten years creating the myth of Céline's minimalism, redefining the classic modern minimalist style with simple silhouettes, high-end color schemes, delicate textures, and clean looks.
On February 9, 2023, the 6th year after Phoebe Philo left Celine, he announced on his official Instagram account that the Phoebe Philo brand will be officially launched in September 2023, and has gained 144,000 followers in just two days.
Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood is a famous British fashion designer, who led the punk fashion of the 70s of the 20th century, known as the "mother of punk", was named one of the six designers of the year by WWD in 1989 and British Designer of the Year in 1990.
At the end of December 2022, Vivienne Westwood passed away peacefully in the company of her family at the age of 81.
Over the course of her career spanning more than 50 years, Vivienne Westwood has created many iconic designs: lingerie in the early 80s, ripped T-shirts, zippers, skinny rubber suits and metal lanyards that have become influential punk fashion elements to this day.
An iconic maverick in the fashion industry, her radical urban streetwear took the world by storm and played a key role in the punk movement, ultimately transcending the boundaries of fashion and influencing millions of young people.
Andrew Bolton, director of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, said Vivienne Westwood "gave the punk movement a look, a style, and it was so radical that it broke with the past." Tattered shirts, pins, defiant slogans. She introduced the world to postmodernism. The punk movement has never gone away – it's been part of our fashion vocabulary and is now mainstream."
In 1989, John Fairchild, then editor-in-chief of Women's Wear Daily, called Vivienne Westwood one of the six most influential designers of the 20th century, alongside Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Christian Lacroix and Emanuel Ungaro. Of these, Vivienne Westwood is the only woman and the only British.
Maria Grazia Chiuri
Maria Grazia Chiuri was born in an Italian family that advocated women's rights, and was deeply influenced by the feminist movement in the 70s when she was a teenager.
During the Spring/Summer 2017 Fashion Week, Maria Grazia Chiuri officially declared herself the first female design director in the history of Dior, a 71-year-old fashion house, with a tee with the words "We should all be feminists".
Talking about the original intention of designing this feminist T-shirt, Chiuri said: "Because the definition of women in society used to be very frustrating for women, but now women are different, they redefine themselves and have new ideas. I think designers should make their point of view clear and have their clear position. Especially when you're a woman designing clothes for women, fashion isn't just about how you look, it's about how you feel and what you think. ”
Miuccia Prada
Miuccia Prada, the granddaughter of Prada founder Mario Prada, is currently the CEO of the Prada Group and the founder of the MiuMiu brand, and was named one of the 30 most influential women in Europe by the Wall Street Journal in 2003 and the 100 greatest living business thinkers in the world by Forbes in 2017.
Since joining the Prada Group in 1978, she has brought the Prada fashion empire back to life as one of the world's leading brands: not only has she given the "inverted triangle" a low-key luxury texture; With his PhD in Political Science from the University of Milan, he has also brought a deep humanistic perspective to Prada and Miu Miu.
Influenced by the European women's movement of the 70s, Miuccia was also actively involved in the feminist movement while studying at the University of Milan, and can still be seen in Prada designs today.
According to Miuccia, "In the context of fashion, feminism does not mean that women have to be like men, nor does it mean that the so-called classic, feminine, elegant and old-fashioned image is the only one. It's understandable that women want to look good, but they don't have to look like dolls. ”
In 1992, Miuccia founded Miu Miu, the antithesis of Prada, for the experimental, avant-garde creations of fashion. The Miu Miu girls are quirky and rebellious, elegant and wild, and unconventional.
In the late 90s, Miuccia also invented the "Ugly Chic" style,—— which looks indescribably ugly, but the upper body is modern and stylish, that is, deliberately challenging the inherent connection between "fashion" and "desire" with designs that have nothing to do with sexiness.
Since then, she has been recognized as the smartest conceptual fashion designer in the fashion industry. Nowadays, when people talk about Miuccia Prada, they can't avoid the topic of "Ugly Chic".
The above is all the inventory of female fashion designers, and finally I wish you all a happy Women's Day~
