ARAI Junichi (Textile designer)

Junichi Arai has been described as the "truly enfant terrible of Japanese textiles... a naughty boy playing with high-tech toys". His favoured toys are the jacquard loom an digital computer. The fabric illustrated here is typical of his work, which commonly uses metallic fibres and turns them into exquisite works of art destined only to be admired. The son and nephew of weavers, Arai was born in Kiryu, a historic centre for textiles. He initially worked with his father on kimono and obi cloths, which he developed, eventually acquiring three-dozen patents for new fabrics. From 1970 Arai worked experimentally and began long-standing collaborations with Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake, who would suggest phrases such as "like clouds", "like stone" or "driving rain" for Arai to magic into a representative fabric by using his idiosyncratic weaving techniques.

Also look up for Hishinuma, Isogawa, Jinteok, Kawakubo, Miyake 

APFEL Iris (Icon)

"Rare Bird", the title of the popular 2005 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition featuring Iris Apfel's couture collection, summarizes the style icon's character perfectly. The Queens (New York) native, textile entrepreneur and former Women's Wear Daily staffer has become a figure in pop culture revered for her honest intelligence and witty style. The only child of a clothing boutique owner and mirror manufacturer, Apfel possessed an affinity for fashion at an early age. Her lauded wardrobe, assembled with care over the course of her life, is a rare combination of haute couture and flea-market gems, showcasing her eclectic taste and individuality. Seen here modelling Rei Kawakubo's designs for Comme des Garçons for the cover of Dazed & Confused magazine in 2012, her irreverent personality and distinctive sense of style is ever apparent. Apfel has stated "the worst fashion faux pas is looking in the mirror and seeing somebody else".

Also look up for Blow, Cunningham, Guinness, Kawakubo, Wintour

ANTONIO (Illustrator)

Antonio's watercolour model embraces a deconstructed mannequin for Italian Vogue in 1981. This surreal element, a tradition created by Dalí, Cocteau and Bérard in the 1930s, was a theme used by Antonio throughout his career. Texan Jerry Hall was painted with Lone Star emblems and cacti growing from her Stetson, while Pat Cleveland was metamorphosed into a stiletto boot. Despite this visual play, Antonio worked from life, building sets as a photographer would. Antonio was inspired by the drawings of Boldini and Ingres, which becomes clear when looking at the fine finish on his pencil drawings. His work dominated fashion illustration for a decade, encouraging a discipline that had diminished throughout the 1950s. Antonio worked with a clique of international models and high-profile friends who converged on Paris in the 1970s. Tina Chow, Grace Jones and Paloma Picasso were regular sitters.

Also look up for Chow, Dalí, G. Jones, Khanh, Versace

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