Who is the greatest fashion designer of all time?
Cutters, showmen and the quiet technicians other designers quietly copy. Ranking them is how fashion arguments start.
1Coco ChanelFreed women from the corset with jersey, trousers and the little black dress, and built a house on it.1000pts
2Alexander McQueenSavile Row tailoring welded to shows that behaved like theatre and sometimes like horror.632pts
3Elsa SchiaparelliSurrealism in clothing — the lobster dress, shocking pink — and Chanel's original rival.535pts
4Paul PoiretThe pre-war Parisian who abolished the corset years before anyone thanked him for it.479pts
5Karl LagerfeldRan Chanel, Fendi and his own label at once for three decades without pausing.428pts
6Miuccia PradaTurned nylon and deliberate ugliness into the most intellectual label in Milan.428pts
7Giorgio ArmaniDeconstructed the jacket and dressed a generation of Hollywood in soft power.428pts
8Gianni VersaceColour, print and unapologetic sex, plus the supermodel era he largely cast.428pts
9Hubert de GivenchyDressed Audrey Hepburn for two decades and made restraint look like a manifesto.428pts
10Tom FordRebuilt Gucci from near-bankruptcy in the nineties, then did it again on his own name.371pts
11Christian DiorHis 1947 New Look reset the post-war silhouette in a single afternoon.371pts
12Vivienne WestwoodTook punk from a King's Road shop to the couture calendar without softening it.371pts
13Donatella VersaceHeld the house together after 1997 and kept it culturally loud for another quarter-century.371pts
14Ralph LaurenSold an entire American story — prep, western, Ivy — as a global wardrobe.306pts
15Cristóbal BalenciagaThe cutter other designers called the master; the barrel line and the cocoon coat are his.306pts
16Rei KawakuboComme des Garçons made clothes that argue with the body rather than flatter it.231pts
17Virgil AblohOff-White and Louis Vuitton menswear, and the clearest bridge streetwear ever built to couture.143pts
18Issey MiyakeEngineered pleats into a permanent material and made technology wearable.143pts
19Yves Saint LaurentPut women in the tuxedo, the safari jacket and ready-to-wear that mattered.0pts
#luxury20#fashion46#france40#designers1
Comments
Coco Chanel called the New Look upholstery; Dior never answered her in public. Both founders here, and twelve more lists where the houses meet: https://youpick.best/articles/chanel-vs-dior-ranked
