Category: Fashion History

Born Betty Joan Perske, Lauren Bacall was named the 20th greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the America Film Institute and recieved an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009. Known for her alluring, sultry presence and distinctive, husky voice, Lauren Bacall began her career as a model before embarking on her film career. Early life of Lauren Bacall Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on the 16th September 1924 in The Bronx, New York City. Both her mother and father were Jewish who divorced when she was five – …

Born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17 1918, Rita Hayworth was born into a family of dancers in Brooklyn, New York. The world would worship her as a sex symbol and star of movies like Gilda, You were Never Lovelier, and Separate Tables. But what happened to her as a child would scar Rita Hayworth for the rest of her life. Rita Hayworth achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the era – appearing in 61 films over 37 years. Rita Hayworth was a top glamour girl in the 1940s, a pin-up girl for the …

Hubert de Givenchy is known for introducing the world to the “Little Black Dress” and dressing Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, but just who is he? And how did his journey to greatness begin? What makes his everlasting legacy fashion house still the epitome of style. Discover the man behind the style with me. The little black dress is the hardest thing to realise because you must keep it simple Hubert Givenchy, Independent Interview in 2010 Where it all began Hubert James Taffin de Givenchy was born in Beauvais, Oise on the 20th February 1927 into a protestant family. The …

Born in 1895 to his fisherman father and seamstress mother in Getaria the province of Gipizkoa in the Basque Country of Spain Cristóbal Balenciaga had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as “the master of us all” by none other than Christian Dior. Dressmaking and clothing design was in his blood, and as a child Balenciaga often spent time with his mother as she worked. At the age of twelve, he began work as a tailor’s apprentice and when he was a teenager, the foremost noblewoman in his town the Marchioness de Casa Torres, …