Wearing clothes itself is as old as human existence. The art of modern fashion, however, can be attributed to the creative genius of certain individuals who were in their lifetimes recognised as stylistic and societal visionaries. We’ve all heard these familiar names — Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, Rei Kawakubo — the anointed heads of fashion’s intelligentsia who laid the cornerstones of contemporary style. On the heels of World Fashion Day on 21 August, we take a look at these pivotal moments in fashion history that altered the way we look at the industry today.
The creation of ready-to-wear clothing, window displays, fashion shows, branding, marketing, and even protection of intellectual property rights are a direct result of the hard work put in by certain creative polymaths. Decisions made by these revolutionaries include the liberation of corseted confines for women, the introduction of the little black dress, and even the creation of modern jeans — milestones that irrevocably altered fashion history. Consequently, the world of fashion would undergo mammoth changes to reach where it is today— in the palm of our hands.
Today, fashion has changed the way we self-express. From the infiltration of artificial intelligence and 3D printing to the body inclusivity movement, a big chunk of fashion history is seeped in cultural phenomenon, rather than the clothing itself. “The fashion landscape today revels in prints, corsets, and satins, all while advocating mindful consumption. The prevalence of sustainability is higher than ever before, which inevitably will have a long-term impact on the industry,” said Kumar Saurabh, CEO of Planet Retail Holdings.
The most important pioneers and milestones in fashion history
1. Paul Poiret (1879-1944)
The earliest influencer in this regard is often cited as Paul Poiret — a celebrated Parisian figure who dressed France’s elite in the years leading up to the First World War. “More than any other designer of the 20th century, Paul Poiret elevated fashion to the status of an art form. Dress history credits Poiret with freeing women from corsets and with inventing such startling creations as “hobble” skirts, “harem” pantaloons, and “lampshade” tunics, but these details have detracted from Poiret’s more significant achievements. Working with fabric directly on the body, Poiret pioneered a radical approach to dressmaking that relied on the skills of draping rather than tailoring and pattern making,” reads The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s official piece in the 2007 display commemorating the radical creativity of Poiret.
Poiret was early 20th-century fashion’s most revered figure — a couturier who might’ve catered to the chambered echelon of the upper class but simultaneously crafted the instruments for modern branding — from creating lookbooks, using window displays to devising the most nascent advertising strategy known to fashion history. Women begged to be dressed by Poiret, simply owing to his never-seen-before aesthetic dominated by an eclectic mix of kimonos, batik prints, and Persian influences. He claimed his offerings like the hobble and lampshade skirts liberated women from the constricted confines of the corset era and ushered in a new age of contemporary dressing.
The lightning-rod moment that changed fashion forever came in 1911 when fine-art photographer Edward Steichen shot Poiret’s designs for the Art et Décoration magazine. This is now understood to be one of the earliest fashion editorials. If the introduction of stylised magazine covers was not monumental enough, in 1914, he introduced the designer tour — travelling through Central Europe with nine models while showcasing his creations. Many still consider this the archetype of the modern fashion show. Undoubtedly, Poiret’s enduring creative legacy would remain the blueprint for the billion-dollar industry we see today.
2. Coco Chanel’s ‘Little black dress’- 1926
One of the most prominent figures in fashion history, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was an iconoclast whose reputation outstripped those of her contemporary rivals. Gifting the world its first little black dress in 1926 — unveiled through an illustration in American Vogue — Chanel’s strength lay in her ability to take cues from a nation reeling in the aftermath of war. The designer doyenne founded fashion’s most famous house and typified Chanel’s egalitarian intentions with its pioneering design. While the silhouette can be considered conservative in modern times, it rewrote the manual on feminine dressing and epitomised the liberal spirit of the Roaring Twenties.
3. Christian Dior unveils the ‘new look’ – 1947
One of the most prolific mainstays of modern sartorialism, Christian Dior’s debut collection — which launched weeks after the establishment of his atelier at 30 Avenue Montaigne, Paris — was not just titled “New Look”. It presented an entirely fresh outlook on women’s fashion. A total of 90 ensembles exited the backstages of his February 1947 show, irrevocably changing fashion history and cementing the status of one of fashion’s greatest pioneers.
At a time when the sartorial landscape comprised of years of military and civilian uniforms, restrictions, and shortages, Dior offered an unparalleled approach with his cinched skirts, his notched collars, and the history-inciting “Bar” suit. The celebration of womanly proportions and the green signalling of a new era of luxuriated femininity resonated with the generation and inevitably took a mantle position in the history of fashion.
As hemlines began rising above the knee in the roaring ’20s, it was not until 1958 that British designer Mary Quaint christened the first official “miniskirt”. With its rebellious underpinnings, the miniskirt was a natural celebration of London’s emerging street style — one that gravitated away from formal lines and structured silhouettes. Although miniskirts eventually hit runways in Paris, London, Milan, and New York, a parallel debate raged on about who gets to take home the credit for its creation. Fashion designer André Courrèges is the designer on the flip side of the miniskirt debate. It was his 1964 runway collections that featured space-age dresses with higher hemlines than ever seen before. During the ‘70s, miniskirts got bolder and more colourful.
“It wasn’t me or Courrèges who invented the miniskirt anyway. It was the girls in the street who did it,” she articulated in one interview. Although the miniskirt was certainly a riveting creation, it was never intended to be sexy. The point was not to display a woman’s bare legs but to liberate them from the hassle of long skirts, stockings, garters, and other complicated adornments of the 1950s. As Quant put it in her autobiography, a woman should be able to run to catch a bus. The mini was always paired with flats rather than heels in pursuit of this utility. In the anarchic spirit of the time, Quaint’s ideas broke all the rules and changed the way women perceived sartorial freedom.
5. Yves Saint Laurent blurs fashion’s gender lines – 1966
At a time when style-conscious twenty-somethings were embracing Quaint’s miniskirts, you would think the first women-centric tuxedo would be long in production. But, it only debuted as the star look of YSL’s autumn/winter 1966 collection, ‘Le Smoking’ — a design influenced by the men’s black-tie suiting worn by artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The name found its origins courtesy of the jacket’s silk lapels that allowed ash from after-dinner cigarettes to be easily dusted off.
The tuxedo was not the only traditionally masculine garment Saint Laurent included in his womenswear collections. Pieces like the pea coat, trench coat, and safari jacket which were all deemed classically masculine garments saw a direct shift when Saint Laurent put them on the female body in the 1960s. Most notable, however, was Saint Laurent’s feminisation of the pantsuit in the spring of 1967. “American women are going to want to burn all the clothes they have when they see this … Saint Laurent’s new Vastsuits in men’s wear fabrics are the sensation of the Paris season … What a show — it could have come right off Broadway,” read the Women’s Wear Daily review in the days after the launch.
6. Beverly Johnson is the first black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue – 1974
“Shifts significant enough to challenge the status quo don’t come around often, but in 1974, when Beverly Johnson appeared on the cover of [American] Vogue’s [August issue], it was a landmark moment. It had taken more than eight decades, but finally, a person of colour was fronting the world’s foremost fashion magazine,” Vogue’s Janelle Okwodu wrote in 2016.
To say that Johnson’s career was marred by rejections from an industry where racial discrimination was visibly rife is an understatement — an experience that would propel her toward a life of activism and championing of civil rights. “Every model’s dream [is] to be on the cover of Vogue,” Johnson told CNN. “You have arrived when you [make] the cover of Vogue. And then when I found out I was the first person of colour on the cover and what that meant, I was like, ‘Wow, this is really a big deal.” In the seasons after this historic endorsement, other publications followed suit, heralding a new era of inclusivity and change in modern fashion history.
7. Calvin Klein is the first designer to show jeans on the runway – 1976
You know a creative genius is at the cusp of a major revolution when we read about Calvin Klein’s career trajectory. Although the trousered bottoms had already made its presence with the ’80s brand, Rag City Blues, it only reached a sartorial crescendo with Klein’s runway insertion. In 1976, the then 34-year-old couturier launched the brand’s denim line, widely heralded as the first designer denim. To promote the collection, Klein tapped 15-year-old model Brooke Shields, who suggestively danced to photographer Richard Avedon’s lens while whispering, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” The ads were soon pulled from both ABC and NBC in New York. Klein, in response, declared, “Jeans are sex. The tighter they are, the better they sell.”
Notable women in fashion history
The history of fashion is incomplete without the mention of the following women who not only became flag-bearers of unconventional design, but also inspired millions with their pathbreaking ways.
1. Marilyn Monroe
Standing over New York City’s subway grate, little did Marilyn know that an upward breeze would go on to change the history of pop culture. Dressed in a pleated white dress with her hair in signature curls, Monroe playfully worked the breeze armed with the warmest of smiles for the premiere of her 1955 Billy Wilder-directed film, The Seven Year Itch. Both the film and the photo went on to smash records and are still considered iconic today. Monroe’s contribution to the world of fashion is additionally, a well-documented one. Outfits from her several classic films — Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, There’s No Business Like Show Business, and Some Like It Hot quickly caught on among fashion-conscious youth, and catapulted Monroe to becoming a timeless figure in fashion history.
2. Audrey Hepburn
The moment Audrey Hepburn graced the screen in her black Givenchy gown, accentuated with pearls, her iconic top-knot, and opera-style gloves, the look became an instant classic. Although the Breakfast at Tiffany‘s star wore many noteworthy outfits in the film, it’s this sophisticated combination that garnered maximum recall value. Additionally, Hepburn’s screen outfits came to embody an elegance that was unseen before — from her strapless monochromatic evening gown in Sabrina (1954) or the voluminous skirt in Roman Holiday (1953).
3. Jackie Kennedy
The White House had never been privy to a woman with such impeccable sartorial precision as Jackie O — bonafide fashion icon and former first lady who inspired millions with her chic wardrobe and effortless style. Apart from popularising the pillbox hat which continued to be a regular feature of her many outfit changes, Mrs Kennedy was a beacon of experimentalism with her animal print coats, colourful headscarves, silk evening gowns, and a love for structured dresses.
4. Gloria Steinem
If fighting for female empowerment was American journalist and political activist Gloria Steinem’s day job, she ensured her choice of clothing reverberated the powerful cause she championed. During her heyday in the ’70s, Steinem was most often photographed in a polo-neck and flares, accessorised with a low-slung belt, waist-grazing pendant, and any number of slogan badges. In 2015, Steinem confirmed in an interview with Lena Dunham that this remains her “power outfit”. Yet, the matriarch of modern feminism often strayed from her signature aesthetic — donning the occasional miniskirt and dress for her many televised TV interviews, and political meetings.
5. Madonna
The pink conical bra that Madonna wore for the opening night of the Blond Ambition tour in 1990 is so embedded within the canon of both pop music and fashion that it now requires little introduction. Designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, the historical lingerie piece took many months of collaboration, with fittings taking place both in New York and at Gaultier’s ateliers in Paris.
“When Madonna first called me in 1989, it was two days before my ready-to-wear show, and I thought my assistant was joking,” said Gaultier in a 2001 interview with the New York Times. “I was a big fan. She knew what she wanted — a pinstripe suit, the feminine corsetry. Madonna likes my clothes because they combine the masculine and the feminine.”
In the decades after making its onstage debut, the cone bra is more than just an artefact of fashion history. Its legacy lies in the way it encouraged generations of female pop performers in Madonna’s wake to channel their sexuality through the outfits they choose to wear without shame, and on their own terms.
6. Princess Diana
Giving the world a taste of modern-day Princess, the late Diana in her years as British royalty, cultivated a contemporary wardrobe that always honoured protocol but still reflected her personal penchant for prints and pops of colour. Whether it was the collection of diaphanous dresses by Catherine Walker, or her love for sweaters styled with cycling shorts, the princess’s sartorial legacy is rich in trendy styles that still see relevance today. However, in the years after her exit from the royal machinery, Princess Diana blossomed into a confident city maven with a wealth of new options and designers to dress from.
Frequently Asked Questions:
– Which country started fashion?
Although the history of fashion is as old as the history of people itself, it is often touted that France was the inception point of a formalised fashion industry.
– What date did fashion start?
Historians have noted that clothing has existed since the existence of humans, however, the start of modern fashion historiographically is attributed to Paul Poiret.
– What does World Fashion Day stand for?
The event is marked yearly to celebrate the art and spirit of fashion, which is understood as a popular style of clothing, hair, decoration, and more.
(Main and featured image: Mario De Biasi / Mondadori / Getty; Bettmann Pictures/Getty)
This article was first published in PrestigeOnline Malaysia.