DESIGN LANGUAGE
Karl Lagerfeld is mobbed by adoring fans in Japan. Tom Ford is treated like a silver-screen idol. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren have both been the subject of scandalous tell-all biographies. Those on our list of the 10 most influential designers of our time do not only dress celebrities; they’ve become celebrities. It takes a lot more than making an “it” bag or dressing a legion of Oscar winners to make fashion history. It’s been proven time and again that a great designer must be a magnet of all things modern. He or she must mirror the era they live in and reflect the future they want to see in their designs. This is on top of cultivating a razor-sharp business sense while continuously capturing media attention worldwide. It was a tall order to come up with such a short list of the most influential designers of the past 30 years. Names such as Halston, Stella McCartney and Giorgio Armani were debated, but the end result is this rarefied group who have built their empires not by following fashion but by creating it.