Designer Spotlight: Nina Ricci
Ricci worked intimately with each garment, pleating and pulling until she was satisfied. Although she sketched and drew patterns, she preferred to work directly on a mannequin. When she had finished perfecting her vision, she would send the prototype garment off to her seamstresses for the next step in production. Ricci was a designer who understood her clients needs and accommodated to their lifestyles without withholding style and substance.
Designer Spotlight: Hanae Mori
After graduating with a degree in Japanese Literature from Tokyo’s Woman’s Christian University, Hanae Mori married her husband Ken Mori, whose family owned a textile mill. She began taking classes at a dressmaking school, honing her skills. In 1951, at the age of 26 and shortly after delivering her first child, Mori opened her fashion house.
Designer Spotlight: Jeanne Lanvin
Jeanne Lanvin began working in fashion at a very young age, first as an errand girl at a dressmakers, then later as an apprentice milliner. In 1885, at the age of 18, she gathered her savings and opened her first store in rue du Marche Saint Honore in 1885. This small millinery workshop would be Lanvin’s first stepping stone in the creation of a fashion empire that endures till this day.
