Designer Spotlight

Female Fashion Phenoms

You may not know it, but tons of your favorite labels and new rising star brands are actually designed by women. Yet it’s those men that seem to get the press, the limelight and the cash. And let’s face it, that’s more than a little ironic since these famous dudes have made their careers and fortunes literally off the backs of ladies.

These femme fatales aren’t just making pretty clothes; they are ambitious creators and savvy entrepreneurs.

“Designing Women” in the April Marie Claire reminds us of women making Fashion history. Diane Von Furstenburg’s wrap-dress revolution, the multi-generational Carolina Herrera empire or the reinvention of the pantsuit by Stella McCartney. How about Vera Wang’s bringing bridal mainstream and the reclamation of female sexuality by Donatella Versace. So maybe these women are writing the rules of Fashion more quietly than the bad boys of haute couture, but you know what they say – silence can be deadly.

Author Joyce Corrigan writes, “Women designers seem too busy making wearable clothes to play the diva – this they leave to John Galliano, Christian Siriano and Kanye West.”*

Frida Giannini, Gucci

Despite this bit of snark, it reads less anti-boy and more like an empowerment tome, at once commending the womens’ achievements while also driving readers to consider the female designer in a more complex light. These femme fatales aren’t just making pretty clothes; they are ambitious creators and savvy entrepreneurs. The Grande Dame of fashion herself, Coco Chanel, said it best, once remarking that she didn’t make clothes “to have fun…but to make a fortune.”*

After reading this piece you’re left realizing that anyone who thinks women aren’t dominating fashion needs to get schooled. Ladies are popping up at the helm of old and new brands alike, making clothes for women based on what they already know best: what they think it means to be a woman. It seems beyond obvious, but there’s something to be said for the simple concept of women creating for women.

The only rebuke of the awesome (and growing) band of lady purveyors of luxe? That these women designing for women don’t expand their creativity and ingenuity to design for the majority woman: the plus size over size 14. Maybe it’s understandable when a man doesn’t take curves into consideration. But a woman knows what all women deal with – fluctuations in weight and size, varied body proportions, feeling proud of curves one day and self-conscious of them the next. Stella McCartney has it right when she says her main goal is making women feel good, but unfortunately that goal hasn’t yet extended to all women.

Donna Karan offers the DKNYC line and Vera Wang has some larger size bridal options. But for the most part the haut-est of the haute designing women are still catering to the slim minority that their male peers are targeting, granted still a lucrative niche. For a cadre of lady entrepreneurs that are changing the design world one season at a time, what would be more empowering and enterprising than to design for all women? Of course designers will have different creative aesthetics but maybe one day the gang of chic chicks will be the first to knock down the remaining Fashion frontier with a collection that’s fit for us all.