The Most Famous

FASHION DESIGNERS from France

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This page contains a list of the greatest French Fashion Designers. The pantheon dataset contains 51 Fashion Designers, 12 of which were born in France. This makes France the birth place of the most number of Fashion Designers.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary French Fashion Designers of all time. This list of famous French Fashion Designers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of French Fashion Designers.

Photo of Coco Chanel

1. Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971)

With an HPI of 79.31, Coco Chanel is the most famous French Fashion Designer.  Her biography has been translated into 87 different languages on wikipedia.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( shə-NEL, French: [ɡabʁijɛl bɔnœʁ kɔko ʃanɛl] ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularising a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing into jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s. Her couture house closed in 1939, with the outbreak of World War II. Chanel stayed in France during the Nazi German occupation and collaborated with the occupiers and the Vichy puppet regime. Declassified documents revealed that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst. One plan in late 1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to Churchill to end the war. Chanel began a liaison with a German diplomat/spy she had known before the war, Baron (Freiherr) Hans Günther von Dincklage. After the end of the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due to intervention by her friend—British prime minister Winston Churchill. When the war ended, Chanel moved to Switzerland before returning to Paris in 1954 to revive her fashion house.

Photo of Christian Dior

2. Christian Dior (1905 - 1957)

With an HPI of 72.91, Christian Dior is the 2nd most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 65 different languages.

Christian Ernest Dior (French: [kʁistjɑ̃ djɔʁ]; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade." Dior's skills led to his employment and design for various fashion icons in attempts to preserve the fashion industry during World War II. After the war, he founded and established the Dior fashion house, with his collection of the "New Look". In 1947, the collection debuted featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and very full skirt. The New Look celebrated ultra-femininity and opulence in women's fashion. Throughout his lifetime, he won numerous awards for Best Costume Design. He died in 1957.

Photo of Hubert de Givenchy

3. Hubert de Givenchy (1927 - 2018)

With an HPI of 65.89, Hubert de Givenchy is the 3rd most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy (pronounced [ybɛʁ də ʒivɑ̃ʃi]; 20 February 1927 – 10 March 2018) was a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded the luxury fashion and perfume house of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn and clothing for Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1970.

Photo of Jean-Paul Gaultier

4. Jean-Paul Gaultier (b. 1952)

With an HPI of 62.11, Jean-Paul Gaultier is the 4th most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Jean Paul Gaultier (French: [ʒɑ̃ pɔl ɡotje]; born 24 June 1952) is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, marinières, and tin cans. Gaultier founded his eponymous fashion label in 1982, and expanded with a line of fragrances in 1993. He was the creative director for French luxury house Hermès from 2003 to 2010, and retired following his 50th-anniversary haute couture show during Paris Fashion Week in January 2020. As a costume designer, Gaultier created Madonna's cone bra for the 1990 Blond Ambition World, and the costumes for the movies The City of Lost Children (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Bad Education (2004) and The Skin I Live In(2011).

Photo of Paul Poiret

5. Paul Poiret (1879 - 1944)

With an HPI of 59.88, Paul Poiret is the 5th most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Paul Poiret (20 April 1879 – 30 April 1944, Paris, France) was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house.

Photo of Rose Bertin

6. Rose Bertin (1747 - 1813)

With an HPI of 59.64, Rose Bertin is the 6th most famous French Fashion Designer.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Marie-Jeanne "Rose" Bertin (2 July 1747, Abbeville, Picardy, France – 22 September 1813, Épinay-sur-Seine) was a French fashion merchant. She was particularly noted for her work with Queen Marie Antoinette. Bertin was the first celebrated French fashion designer and is widely credited with having brought fashion and haute couture to the forefront of popular culture.

Photo of Thierry Mugler

7. Thierry Mugler (1948 - 2022)

With an HPI of 58.54, Thierry Mugler is the 7th most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Manfred Thierry Mugler (French pronunciation: [manfʁɛd tjɛʁi myɡlɛʁ]; 21 December 1948 – 23 January 2022) was a French fashion designer, creative director and creative adviser of Mugler. In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the following decades for his avant-garde, architectural, hyperfeminine and theatrical approach to haute couture. He was one of the first designers to champion diversity in his runway shows, which often tackled racism and ageism, and incorporated non-traditional models such as drag queens, porn stars, and transgender women. In 2002, he retired from the brand, and returned in 2013 as the creative adviser. At the beginning of his career he designed signature looks for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Grace Jones, Duran Duran, Viktor Lazlo, David Bowie and Diana Ross; most notably Demi Moore's dress from the 1993 movie Indecent Proposal, which was once coined "the most famous dress of the 1990s". In 1992, he directed and designed the outfits for George Michael's "Too Funky" music video; also that year he launched the perfume Angel, which became one of the best-selling perfumes of the 20th century. Mugler's fall 1995 haute couture collection, marking the 20th anniversary of his brand, was staged at the Cirque d'hiver venue in Paris; and has been referred to as the "Woodstock of Fashion", for having over 300 designed looks, an elaborate set design, dozens of high-profile supermodels and a performance from James Brown. He also designed costumes for Beyoncé's I Am... World Tour, and created a one-off design for Kim Kardashian to wear to the 2019 Met Gala.

Photo of Christian Lacroix

8. Christian Lacroix (b. 1951)

With an HPI of 57.02, Christian Lacroix is the 8th most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Christian Marie Marc Lacroix (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ lakʁwa]; born 16 May 1951) is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded. Lacroix's designs combine luxury and insouciance. He prefers artisanal trades, fringe, bead, and embroidery. He's characterized by a strong sense of colour, and patterns mix.

Photo of Emanuel Ungaro

9. Emanuel Ungaro (1933 - 2019)

With an HPI of 56.47, Emanuel Ungaro is the 9th most famous French Fashion Designer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Emanuel Ungaro (13 February 1933 – 21 December 2019) was a French fashion designer who founded the fashion house called the House of Emanuel Ungaro in 1965.

Photo of Madeleine Vionnet

10. Madeleine Vionnet (1876 - 1975)

With an HPI of 55.53, Madeleine Vionnet is the 10th most famous French Fashion Designer.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Madeleine Vionnet (pronounced [ma.də.lɛn vjɔ.ne]; June 22, 1876, Loiret, France – March 2, 1975) was a French fashion designer best known for being the “pioneer of the bias cut dress”, Vionnet trained in London before returning to France to establish her first fashion house in Paris in 1912. Although it was forced to close in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, it re-opened after the war and Vionnet became one of the leading designers of 1920s-30s Paris. Vionnet was forced to close her house again in 1939 at the start of the Second World War and she retired in 1940. Called "perhaps the greatest geometrician among all French couturiers" in 1925 British Vogue, Vionnet is best known today for her elegant Grecian-style dresses and for popularising the bias cut within the fashion world and is credited with inspiring a number of recent designers.

People

Pantheon has 13 people classified as French fashion designers born between 1747 and 1964. Of these 13, 3 (23.08%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living French fashion designers include Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, and Christian Louboutin. The most famous deceased French fashion designers include Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Hubert de Givenchy. As of April 2024, 1 new French fashion designers have been added to Pantheon including Rose Bertin.

Living French Fashion Designers

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Deceased French Fashion Designers

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Newly Added French Fashion Designers (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Fashion Designers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 10 most globally memorable Fashion Designers since 1700.