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