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