CODDINGTON Grace (Editor / Stylist)

"Grace Coddington is the eye _ the eye... I never saw a wrong dress she chose... Grace was without a doubt the fashion editor", says Manolo Blahnik. Coddington has influenced fashion in many different ways. In 1959 "The Cod", photographed here wearing all-over prints by Jacques Heim, was spotted by Norman Parkinson. She constantly reinvented her image by changing her distinctive red hair from a chunky Vidal Sassoon bob to a halo of frizzy curls _ a formula that would later be used by Linda Evangelista. In 1968 she moved to British Vogue, taking Calvin Klein's modern aesthetic to a 1970s European audience. Her style inspired designers such as Kenzo and Pablo & Delia and she later championed the talents of Azzedine Alaïa and Zoran. Coddington moved to American Vogue in 1987. She said of her time there, "You're either having dinner with 300 people or grovelling on the floor with pins in your mouth".  

COCTEAU Jean (Illustrator)

The legend on this fashion drawing reads, "Paris 1937". Schiaparelli made this tapering sheath dress for dining and dancing; Jean Cocteau drew it for Harper's Bazaar. Cocteau was a writer, film-maker, painter, print-maker, stage-, fabric- and jewellery-designer and fashion illustrator. His entrée into the world of fashion came through the theatre. Cocteau met Diaghilev when the Ballets Russes came to Paris in 1910 and he designed posters for him. Some of Cocteau's most important work for the theatre and fashion included his collaborations with Chanel. Between 1922 and 1937 she designed costumes for a whole cycle of his plays, including Le Train Bleu of 1924. He often sketched her and her fashions in his characteristic form of outline drawing with its sharp line and elegant simplicity. Cocteau was also closely associated with Surrealism and fashion. For Schiaparelli he designed fabrics, embroideries and jewellery. 

Also look up for Bérard, Chanel, Dessès, Horst, Rochas, Schiaparelli 

COBAIN Kurt (Icon)

Cobain was to grunge what Johnny Rotten was to punk. His greasy, bleached hair, pale waif-like body and thrift-shop clothes created the image of a strung-out, moody adolescent. The garments of grunge bands such as Cobain's Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were cheap and casual; washed-out jeans and rock T-shirts. It started as an anti-fashion formula that dressed a generation of disaffected youth known as Generation X, but, predictably, was "cleaned up" to become a mainstream movement known as "Heroin Chic": an affected representation of an addict's wardrobe. Rebelling against his upbringing among homophobic lumberjacks in his home town, Cobain would sometimes try harder by wearing his partner's flowery dress and painting his nails in red. That partner, Courtney Love, came to personify a feminized version of the look that inspired Marc Jacobs to create his "grunge" collection of 1993. 

Also look up for Dell'Acqua, Jacobs, McLaren, Rotten

CLEMENTS Suzanne & RIBEIRO Inacio (Clements Ribeiro) (Designers)

Clements Ribeiro's graphically patterned cashmere has become its trademark: from rainbow stripes to this striking Union Jack insignia, which symbolized the 1990s upswing in British fashion fortunes known as "Cool Britannia". Ribeiro said, "We do simple cuts with strong fabrics; we call it clumsy couture". Bright prints define the themes of each collection; from traditional tartans and windowpane checks to bohemian paisleys and mottled florals. Luxurious materials are used for daywear _ dusty-coloured suedes, cashmere, silk taffeta and sequins. They met at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, married and moved to Brazil after graduating. They designed their first joint collection in London in 1993. The success of their womenswear collections led in the late 1990s to the launch of a cashmere menswear line. In 2000 they revived the house of Cacharel in Paris where they were creative directors until 2007. 

Also look up for Amies, Cacharel, Campbell, Chalayan, Van Noten

CLARKE Henry (Photographer)

The citrus colours of summer are given a fresh, literal interpretation. Photographer Henry Clarke was first drawn to fashion photography by watching Cecil Beaton photograph Dorian Leigh. He created animated photographs, but Clarke was also naturally inclined to elegance, and his images of French fashion in the 1950s, in particular, exemplify the balance he sought between the formal, almost statuesque, dress of the epoch and the casual effect of snapshot instantaneity. Artful and artless at the same time, Clarke's photographs benefited from the licence given him by Diana Vreeland at Vogue and the exotic locations they used for photo shoots. Skilfully moving from 1950s high style to the dazzling colours and layering of the 1960s, he made the flamboyant and ethnographic clothes come alive in the context of Mayan archaeological sites and various settings in India, Sicily and around the world. 

Also look up for Campbell-Walter, Goalen, Pertegaz, Vreeland 

CLARK Ossie (Designer)

In this wild scene photographed at London's Chelsea Town Hall in 1970, Ossie Clark shows his clothes under the name Quorum, a company set up by Alice Pollock. It was, according to Vogue, "more a spring dance than a show". The spaced-out models wear Clark's chiffon dresses (each with a secret pocket into which a key and a £5 note would fit _ his trademark), both printed by his wife, textile designer Celia Birtwell. The couple were immortalized in a portrait entitled Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by their friend, painter David Hockney, who can be seen on the far right of this picture. "I'm a master cutter. It's all in my brain and fingers", Clark had said, and that talent became one of the most sought-after in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Singer Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg, then the girlfriend of the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, shared an "Ossie" snakeskin suit, now one of the most precious reminders of the age. 

Also look up for Birtwell, Fratini, Hulanicki, Pollock, Sarne

CHOW Tina (Icon)

Tina Chow strikes an elegant, demure pose. A supreme model in the 1970s, she went on to become one of the great fashion connoisseur-collectors of the twentieth century. An Asian-American, Chow represented the new diversity and universalism of modern beauty, but her fashion intelligence was even greater than her beauty. One of the most important collectors of couture clothing, Chow's practiced eye is still regarded as the paradigm of collecting and connoisseurship. Chow knew the great designers of her time, but demonstrated her interest in the past by choosing works by Madeleine Vionnet, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Christian Dior for her astute collection. Her initial collecting interest was Mariano Fortuny, whose "Delphos" dresses, capes and mantles were a syncretist interpretation of East and West. 

Also look up for Antonio, Balenciaga, Fortuny, Vionnet