Dries
Van Noten

Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp fashion designer Dries Van Noten clearly has fashion in his DNA. His grandfather was a tailor. His father was an upscale clothing retailer and the first ready-to-wear designer in the city. Dries’s earliest memories are steeped in the commercial, technical and design aspects of the fashion world.

In 1986 he presented his men’s collection in London under the aegis of the “Antwerp Six” – a group of six breakthrough fashion designers who studied at the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980-1981. By 1989 he had opened his 5-story landmark boutique “Het Modepaleis.,” and in 1994 debuted his women’s line in Paris. Described in 2005 by the New York Times as “one of fashion’s most cerebral designers,” Dries Van Noten is known for a deft collage of color, print, texture and – always -- breathtaking detail that remains timeless.

Marni

Milan, Italy

The prestigious Italian label Marni has been designed by Consuela Castiglioni – and named after her sister-in-law Marina – since its launch in 1994. Castiglioni’s early innovations with the design of fur readily lent themselves to fresh thinking regarding what her customers needed to wear under their fur. Today, the label appeals to the aesthetic of women dressing for women instead of for men. These elegant clothes exude a split personality: feminine yet off-beat, down-to-earth but dressy enough for a night out. Castiglioni is known for quirky yet feminine combinations of bright colors, bold graphic patterns, elaborate fantasy prints, and natural textures. Her unusual shapes include bell hemlines, gathering, asymmetry and large volumes.

Jil
Sander

Hamburg, Germany

In 1968, at the age of 24, German-born Jil Sander founded her own fashion house, and almost immediately created a minimal, sculptural aesthetic. First known for her tailored pants suits, Sander went on to create fashion for women that had what could be called a "complicated simplicity." The Jil Sander look was based on a muted palette and fabrics that fit a woman's body without ornamentation. Jil Sander's understated elegance and luxury continue with the designs of Raf Simons, whose striking combination of the serious and sensuous seems to draw inspiration from Sander's own collections.

Balenciaga

Paris, France

Championed by actual royalty and queens of café society, Cristobal Balenciaga, the son of a seamstress in a small Spanish fishing village, did nothing less than redefine the female silhouette. Throughout the mid-century years, he introduced forms that, as the eye adjusted, became the latest word in chic: the sack, the baby doll, the balloon skirt, the bracelet sleeve. Balenciaga died in 1972, and in 1987, the name was revived as a prêt-à-porter label. But it wasn't until 1997, when the youthful French designer Nicolas Ghesquière came onboard as creative director and guided the house to its former prominence. Giving concepts from the rich Balenciaga archives an intriguing rethink, the instinctively progressive Ghesquière dresses Hollywood princesses and keeps the knock-off factories churning.

Sacai

Chitose Abe, the designer behind understated Japanese label Sacai, offers looks whose genesis is "design built upon the everyday” and culminates in beautifully constructed, ultimately wearable clothing. Abe’s collection revolves around core pieces that speak for themselves with elegant individual elements and innovative detail, and have garnered a delighted underground following. Honing her craft at Comme des Garcons, Abe showed flair early on for incorporating mixed textures, something she continues to develop in her knitwear-based collections for Sacai.

Marc Jacobs

New York, New York

Marc Jacobs, America’s premiere designer, grew up on the Upper West Side with his paternal grandmother, one of his greatest influences. Even before he graduated from the Parsons School of Design, his first line of sweaters, hand-knit by her, was picked up by New York’s Charivari boutique to great acclaim and launched his career.

Jacobs launched his eponymous label in 1986. He remains the youngest recipient of the fashion industry's highest tribute, the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, and in 1992 was named Women's Designer of the Year. Since 1997, he has been the revolutionary creative director of Louis Vuitton.

Most of Marc Jacobs’s collections celebrate fashion from past decades and centuries. Explaining his clothing, he emphasizes "Curiosity about sex is much more interesting than domination. My clothes are not hot. Never."

Maison Martin
Margiela

New York, New York

Maison Martin Margiela was founded in 1989. The namesake, originally Belgian and a predecessor of the Antwerp 6, has since declared his a French fashion house. With a deconstructionist "anti- fashion" spirit, the house quickly seduced drones of loyal followers wearing the iconic four stitches on their back. Never photographed or interviewed, Mr. Margiela allows the collection to speak for itself, shrouding the maison in mystery to the frenzied allegiance of fashion insiders.

In 1997, Mr. Margiela was elected womenswear designer for Hermes. With this tenure, Maison Martin Margiela launched a second main line rooted in tradition, timelessness and luxury. The play between avante guard and traditional makes this iconoclastic house a go-to for every occasion, whether an evening at the disco or the opera.

Haider Ackermann

Paris, France

Nowhere is the new world order as beautifully embodied as it is in the collections of Haider Ackerman. Born in Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia, and adopted by French parents (his father was a cartographer), Ackerman hopscotched from homes in Morocco, Chad and Algeria. He studied at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and launched his signature collection in 2001. In 2005, he won the prestigious Swiss Textile Award.

Fashion’s most talked-about emerging star interprets Western silhouettes with Middle Eastern sartorial traditions and North African restraint for true harmony. His languid women’s ready-to-wear offers layers of wrapped, saturated color and flowing fabrics that ripple over the body, at once fragile and sensual. Like Ackerman himself, this clothing is at home anywhere on the planet. And is leading the world of fashion.