ANTOINE (Hairdresser)

Josephine Baker was one of Antoine's many famous clients _she wore his wigs like skullcaps for her stage performances. Born in Russian Poland, Antoine moved to work in the Parisian salon of hairdresser Monsieur Decoux. He acquired a following and, cannily, Decoux took his star stylist to the fashionable seaside town of Deauville; there Antoine was introduced to the society he would coif for decades. On his return to Paris, Antoine set up his own salon, selling his own haircare and cosmetics range _the first to do so. Although he is famed for his "Eton crop", he always maintained he could not claim it as his own. At the time he said he was simply carrying out the orders of a client who returned three times to have her short bobbed hair cut progressively shorter to suit the increasingly sporty lifestyle enjoyed by women of that era. The peak of Antoine's career was the coronation of George VI, when he supervised 400 coiffures in one night. 

Also look up for Alexandre, G. Jones, Kenneth, De Meyer, Talbot

AMIES Sir Hardy

Her Majesty the Queen is photographed during the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977. She wears an eye-catching pink silk crepe dress, coat and stole by Sir Hardy Amies, dressmaker to Her Majesty sine 1955 and the architect of her vivid, feminine and simple style. Amies, knighted in 1989, was designer and manager at Lachasse, a traditional British haute couture house, from 1934 to 1939. As well as being lieutenant-colonel in charge of special forces in Belgium, he designed clothes under the Utility rationing scheme. In 1946 he founded his own dressmaking business, designing for Princess Elizabeth and eventually holding the royal warrant. In 1950, Amies started ladies’ ready-to-wear and in 1961 began working with menswear chain Hepworths. His remark “A man should look as if he bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, then forgot all about them” defines the Englishman’s approach to fashion.

Also look up for Ribeiro, Hartnell, Morton, Rayne, Stiebel

ALFARO Victor (Designer)

Victor Alfaro’s first collection, launched in 1991, was dubbed by Cosmopolitan magazine “a series of heatseeking glamour missiles”. Reputedly the heir to Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass, Alfaro has never sought to philosophize through his offerings; on the contrary, his mission is as simple as making the wearer look beautiful. This image shows a quintessential Alfaro creation in which vulgarity is proscribed, leaving room for bare simplicity skillfully counterbalanced by sexy, luxurious silk. The combination of a ball skirt and strapless top is typical of Alfaro’s use of separates for cocktail and evening wear, acquired while working for American ready-to-wear designer Joseph Abboud. He uses slub silk as others use cotton, in keeping with the American sportswear tradition of evening clothes that quietly forgot decoration for practical statements, even on a ball gown. In 2008 he introduced his Victor by Victor Alfaro brand.

Also look up for Abboud, Blass, De la Renta, Tyler

ALEXANDRE (Hairdresser)

Alexandre de Paris, or “Monsieur Alexandre”, as he liked to be known, attends to Elizabeth Taylor’s hair in 1962. Many legends surrounded the hairdresser, whose clients included the Duchess of Windsor, Coco Chanel and Grace Kelly. His parents, it is said, had wanted him to study medicine, but after a fortune teller predicted that “the wife of a king will do everything for you”, they relented and let him pursue his ambition. He was apprenticed to Antoine, the Parisian stylish who invented the urchin cut. Alexandre took on his mantle and became the hairdresser of the European social jet. Jean Cocteau designed his motif, a sphinx, for him in gratitude for the perm that restored to him “the curly hair of a true poet”. In 1997, Jean Paul Gaultier persuaded Alexandre out of retirement to design the hair for his first couture show, as he had done for Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent.

Also look up for Antoine, Cocteau, Gaultier, Recine, Windsor, Winston

ALBINI Walter (Designer)

Two women striking disco poses wear the Walter Albini hallmarks: fast, glamorous clothes that recall shapes from the 1930s. Albini started his luxury sportswear business in 1965 and became known for his fundamental allegiance to the early styles of Chanel and Patou, which were counterpointed by the global influences of the 1970s. Bold colours from Asian and African art, as well as bright tartans, were employed on the jackets, skirts and other basic silhouettes. As much as any 1970s designer, Albini energized anti-establishment hippie layering and ethnicity and mixed it with the sophistication of the urbane sportswear pedigree. Albini’s motto was “Enjoy today and leave unpleasant things for tomorrow”. Ironically, premature death obviated any tomorrows, but Albini’s exuberant, aggressive and youthful sportswear was a significant contribution to the 1970s.

Also look up for Barnett, Bates, Chanel, Ozbek, Patou

ALAÏA Azzedine (Designer)

Amazonian models in skintight dresses and high-heeled shoes embody the slick sex appeal of the dress-to-kill 1980s. Each wears an outfit from Azzedine Alaïa's 1987 spring/summer collection.“The base of all beauty is the body,” says Alaïa, who, inspired by Madeleine Vionnet, states “there is nothing more beautiful than a healthy body dressed in wonderful clothes.” The “King of Kling” is an expert manipulator of the female form, having studied sculpture when he was younger. He moved to Paris and worked briefly for Dior and Guy Laroche, and by the end of the 1960s has his own couture business on the Left Bank. In the early 1980s, his stretchy dresses and bodysuits, constructed from thick knitted panels, came to define the Lycra revolution. In 2008 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and presented his autumn/winter 2011 haute couture collection in Paris after a long absence from the catwalk. 

Also look up for Audit, Dior, G. Jones, Laroche, Léger, Vionnet

AGNÈS Madame (Milliner)

During the 1930s, hats were literally the pinnacle of fashion, and a lady would no sooner go out without her hat than she would without her dress. In France millinery was an exclusively female occupation and Madame Agnès was the most popular milliner, famous cutting her elegant brims while her clients were wearing them. Trained under Caroline Reboux, she established her own salon in 1917 on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris among all the great couturiers. She worked in the same understated manner and combined this discrimination with an awareness of art and of the artistic trends of the  1930s. The remarkable designs shown here reflect the milliner's flair for the dramatic and surreal. The crown for each black suede hat is theatrically tweaked to a high point and, on the left, a tassel of fringes is looped elegantly around the neck.

Also look up for Barthet, Hayningen-Huene, Reboux, Rouff, Talbot

AGHION Gaby (Chloé) (Designer)

Chloé, a name synonymous with feminine modernity, was conceived by Egyptian-born designer Gaby Aghion, who established the label in 1952 with her business partner Jacques Lenoir. With a free-spirited and independent heroine in mind, Aghion rejected the structured silhouette of the time, approaching ready-to-wear with the finesse and detail of haute couture. Since then Chloé has seen a number of designers but has always retained an ethereal, free-flowing style. Karl Lagerfeld, at the helm from 1965 to 1983, brought his “Woodstock Couture” that evoked the flower-child mood of the era. Stella McCartney, as head designer from 1997, offered a similarly playful femininity in her design approach. Chloé is now an international brand owned by Richemont with a diffusion line and perfume ranges. With Clare Waight Keller joining in 2011 as creative director, the brand continues to grow.

Also look up for Bailly, Lagerfeld, McCartney, Paulin, Sitbon, Steiger  

ADRIAN Gilbert (Designer)

Joan Crawford wears Adrian's famed “coat hanger look”: a suit with padded shoulders and slim skirt producing an “inverted triangle” silhouette that has since intermittently returned to fashion - not least in the 1980s. Here that shape is exaggerated further by triangular lapels that reach over the shoulders and taper, pointing at the waist. As Adrian told Life magazine in 1947, “American women's clothes should be streamlined in the daytime.” He is also known for long, elegantly draped dinner gowns, like those he designed for Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel (1932), and for his silver satin bias-cut dresses for starlet Jean Harlow. As a costume designer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1930s and 1940s, Adrian - born Adolphus Greenburg - found a vast audience for his work and became an influential fashion designer. In 1942 he retired as a costume designer to open his own fashion house, continuing to create his trademark suits and gowns.

Also look up for Garbo, Irene, Orry-Kelly, Platt Lynes

ADOLFO (Designer)

This impromptu snap of society figures Mr and Mrs Wyatt Cooper is one of Adolfo's favourite pictures, and not just because both are wearing his refined clothes. He says, “Getting dressed and going out is fun only because we don't do it often - it's good to feel glamorous once in a while.” But his glamour never strays into the realms of vulgarity. Adolfo worked first as a milliner, then trained at Chanel and Balenciaga, before setting up his New York salon. There, Adolfo provided his famous knitted suits, one of which is worn here by Gloria Vanderbilt). Inspired by Coco Chanel's jersey sportswear and iconic suits, they were bought by New York's old society. When his salon closed in 1993 his clientele were distraught, not least Nancy Reagan, who had worn Adolfo's clothes for two decades. She, perhaps more than anyone, embodied his assertion that, “An Adolfo lady should look simple, classic and comfortable.

Also look up for Balenciaga, Chanel, Galanos, Vanderbilt

ACKERMANN Haider (Designer)

Reclining like a languorous odalisque in a Lord Leighton tableau, the model in this photograph exudes a dissolute air of exotic luxury, very much in  keeping with the mood of Haider Ackermann's spring/summer 2011 collection presented at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. A Silk-Road fantasy seen through a pipe-smoke haze, male and female silhouettes alike featured in rich silks and satins, dhoti pants and kimono collars. Born in Colombia, Ackermann had a peripatetic childhood, growing up in cities across Europe and Africa. Now based in Antwerp, his collections are often informed by a strong sense of place and what the designer describes as errance - a kind of wandering sensibility. His garments for women are prized for their expert draping in soft leather and suede, heavy satins, jersey and silk, and for the sensual androgyny of his silhouettes, beautifully typified by the actress Tilda Swinton with whom the designer's style is strongly associated.

Also look up for Demeulemeester, Margiela, Owens, Swinton

ABBOUD Joseph (Designer)

A Mao jacket cut from rough linen is worn over a hand-knitted waistcoat and collarless shirt. The buttons on each garment have a natural, artisanal quality that defies the urban slant used by most American designers. Of Lebanese descent, Joseph Abboud makes clothes for men and women that are unusual combination of American sportswear and North African colours and textures. In the 1960s Abboud collected Turkish kilims and these have inspired his natural palette and the stylized symbols that recur in his work. He began his career as a buyer and in 1981 joined Ralph Lauren, later to become associate director of menswear design. He emerged four years later with a similar philosophy to Lauren. That clothing is as much about lifestyle as it is about design. In 1986 Abboud launched his own label and found a niche for his understated clothes with their rich colours and unusually crafted textures.

Also look up for Alfaro, Armani, Lauren, Ozbek

ABBE James (Photographer)

James Abbe's choice of a simple, uncluttered backdrop and soft use of lighting accentuates the seductiveness of Gilda Gray, a dancer in Ziegfeld Follies and other Broadway revues. Like many fashion photographs of its time, it promotes a feeling that we are privy to something intimate - as if Gray has been captured unawares, dreamly caught up in her own thoughts with her eyes turned away from the lens. Taken in Paris in 1924, the photograph seizes the essence of mid-1920s eveningwear - a plumb line dress, possibly by Lanvin or Patou, in filmy, sensuous fabric trimmed with fringed tiers. In the early twentieth century, American photographer James Abbe favoured taking portraits of stage and screen actresses. His well-mannered work for American Vogue represented what Alexander Liberman called "...an underlying dream of a world where people act and behave in a civilized manner".

Also look up for: Lanvin, Liberman, Patou