Designer Profile
The studio in the 11th arrondissement smells of steam and wool
The studio in the 11th arrondissement smells of steam and wool. Zuzanna Walczak stands at the cutting table, pinning a sleeve head into a coat that will not be photographed for another six months. She is talking about her grandmother, a sea...
The fitting took place in Via Gesù, three days before the autumn/winter 1991 show
The fitting took place in Via Gesù, three days before the autumn/winter 1991 show. Gianni Versace stood behind Linda Evangelista, pinning a column of gold mesh that moved when she breathed. Naomi Campbell waited on the banquette, already dr...
The fitting room at Valentino's Via Condotti atelier in 1967 held three women, two mirrors, and a rail of red silk
The fitting room at Valentino's Via Condotti atelier in 1967 held three women, two mirrors, and a rail of red silk. Valentino Garavani stood back while his assistant pinned a bodice on a model whose name the press would not record. The clie...
The fitting room at the old Gucci headquarters in Florence, sometime in 1996
The fitting room at the old Gucci headquarters in Florence, sometime in 1996. Tom Ford leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching a model circle in a white jersey dress cut so low at the back it barely exists. He doesn't speak. The mode...
The fitting room at 5 Avenue Marceau, 1966
The fitting room at 5 Avenue Marceau, 1966. Yves Saint Laurent pins a black wool smoking jacket to the shoulders of a woman who has just walked off a plane from New York. She is not a model. She is a client, a friend, and — though neither o...
Off-White's Muses: Three Women Who Defined the House
Backstage at OffWhite's Spring 2019 show, Bella Hadid stood in a yellow industrial belt cinched over a white shirtdress, waiting for her cue. Virgil Abloh adjusted the strap himself, pulling it tighter, then stepped back. The gesture wasn't...
## The Fitting Room
The Fitting Room Miuccia Prada stands in a Milan fitting room, pins between her lips, adjusting a hem on a skirt so short it barely qualifies as one. The model shifts her weight. Prada steps back, considers, then takes the hem up another...
## The Fitting Room
The Fitting Room Martin Margiela never appeared for his own bow. When the lights came up at the end of his shows, the models walked alone. Backstage, assistants took the applause. The designer remained invisible, a deliberate absence that...
Louis Vuitton's muses
The fitting room on the second floor of 2 rue du Pont Neuf — the address Louis Vuitton occupied from 1859 until 1914 — no longer exists. What does remain, in the archive, is a handwritten ledger from 1896 listing the names of women who comm...
The fitting room at Loewe's Casa de Madrid headquarters smells faintly of leather and bergamot
The fitting room at Loewe's Casa de Madrid headquarters smells faintly of leather and bergamot. On the table: a basket bag in progress, its woven strips halfassembled, and three photographs pinned to the wall. The women in them span decades...
The fitting took place in a bright room above rue Saint-Honoré, mid-afternoon light pooling on white oak
The fitting took place in a bright room above rue SaintHonoré, midafternoon light pooling on white oak. Simon Porte Jacquemus stood behind a young woman in a cream linen dress, pinching fabric at the small of her back. "Moins," he said. Les...
The fitting room at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré runs narrow
The fitting room at 24 Faubourg SaintHonoré runs narrow. There is space for a mirror, a stool, and two people standing close enough to discuss the fall of a sleeve. In 1967, Catherine de Karolyi stood in that room adjusting the armhole on a...
The fitting room at Gucci's Via Borgonuovo atelier in Milan, circa 1995
The fitting room at Gucci's Via Borgonuovo atelier in Milan, circa 1995. A woman stands in a biascut silk jersey gown, its neckline plunging to the sternum. Tom Ford adjusts the drape at her hip. She is not a model. She is a muse — the firs...
The fitting room at 3 Avenue George V, 1953
The fitting room at 3 Avenue George V, 1953. Hubert de Givenchy stands behind a woman in a black satin sheath, pinning the back seam tighter. She is not yet famous. He is twentysix, two years into running his own house, and already exhauste...
The fitting room at Via del Corso, sometime in the early Seventies
The fitting room at Via del Corso, sometime in the early Seventies. Lagerfeld adjusts a sleeve, tugs at a hem, and turns to the woman in the mirror. She is not a model. She is Anna Magnani, the actress, and she has come to Fendi not for a c...
## The Fitting Room
The Fitting Room Domenico Dolce pins a black lace bodice to a mannequin in the Milan atelier, adjusting the fall across the bust with the sort of concentration usually reserved for surgery. Stefano Gabbana stands behind him, arms folded,...
The fitting room on Avenue Montaigne, 1947
The fitting room on Avenue Montaigne, 1947. Christian Dior circles a woman in grey wool, tugging at the waist, eyeing the hem. He does not speak. His première d'atelier, Marguerite Carré, kneels with pins. The model — not yet called a muse,...
The fitting room at 31 rue Cambon smelled of Shalimar and cigarette smoke
The fitting room at 31 rue Cambon smelled of Shalimar and cigarette smoke. Gabrielle Chanel stood in the centre, scissors in hand, unpicking a sleeve she had sewn that morning. The client—a Russian émigré who had fled St. Petersburg with tw...
## The Fitting Room, Upstairs
The Fitting Room, Upstairs The secondfloor atelier at 16 rue Vivienne holds three dress forms, each draped in a different decade's silhouette. The first wears a 1960s shift in camel wool, cut close to the body but not against it. The seco...
The fitting room on Via Fogazzaro smells faintly of steam and sizing
The fitting room on Via Fogazzaro smells faintly of steam and sizing. Miuccia Prada stands to one side, arms crossed, watching a model turn in a navy polyester dress that cost perhaps forty lire to produce and will retail, come September 19...
The photograph is black and white, shot in 1961, and shows a woman in a trench coat standing beside a Jaguar E-Type
The photograph is black and white, shot in 1961, and shows a woman in a trench coat standing beside a Jaguar EType. Her name was Jean Shrimpton. She was twenty, already bored of posing, and the coat she wore would become more famous than th...
The fitting room at Solomeo overlooks the valley
The fitting room at Solomeo overlooks the valley. Late afternoon light, September. Brunello Cucinelli stands beside a dressmaker's form draped in camel cashmere, adjusting the drape at the shoulder with his thumb and forefinger. He steps ba...
## The Women Who Made Bottega
The Women Who Made Bottega Lauren Hutton stood in a studio in Vicenza in 1980, watching a craftsman weave strips of leather through his fingers like ribbon. She was there to shoot a campaign, but the brief was loose. Bottega Veneta didn't...
The fitting room at 10 avenue George V, sometime in 1955
The fitting room at 10 avenue George V, sometime in 1955. Cristóbal Balenciaga pins a length of gazar around a woman's shoulders, steps back, unpins it, and begins again. He does not speak. The woman — Mona von Bismarck, American by birth,...
Isabella Blow arrived at the 1992 Central Saint Martins graduate show wearing a pheasant
Isabella Blow arrived at the 1992 Central Saint Martins graduate show wearing a pheasant. Not a feather — the entire bird, mounted to a Philip Treacy hat. She bought Lee Alexander McQueen's entire collection for £5,000, paid in instalments...
The fitting room at Acne Studios, circa 2009, was not designed for sentiment
The fitting room at Acne Studios, circa 2009, was not designed for sentiment. White walls, concrete floor, a single mirror leaned against the plaster. Jonny Johansson stood to one side, arms crossed, watching a model named Anna Ewers turn i...
## The Hands Behind the Coat
The Hands Behind the Coat Josephine Ndlovu sits at a cutting table in Bulawayo, working through twelve metres of heavyweight cotton drill. She has been with ZUZWA for seven years. Before that, she trained at a polytechnic outside Harare,...
Versace's artisans, named
The atelier sits on the fourth floor of Via Gesù 12, above the showrooms and the archive vault, in a room that still smells faintly of sizing and steam. On a Tuesday morning in late September, three women are bent over a single dress — ivor...
The workroom on the fifth floor of Palazzo Mignanelli runs silent except for the sound of chalk on silk
The workroom on the fifth floor of Palazzo Mignanelli runs silent except for the sound of chalk on silk. Giovanna Battaglia — not the stylist, the première d'atelier — marks the bodice of a gown with two fingers' width of ease at the waist,...
The studio on Via Morimondo sits behind a door you could walk past twice
The studio on Via Morimondo sits behind a door you could walk past twice. Inside, Giuliana Marchetti adjusts the collar of a tuxedo jacket for the third time in twenty minutes. The silk grosgrain band rests a hair's width too high. She unpi...
The Hands Behind the Le Smoking
The atelier on Avenue Marceau runs quiet most mornings. By nine, the cutters are already at their tables, pattern pieces pinned to navy gabardine, chalk lines tracing the rake of a lapel that hasn't changed meaningfully since 1966. The jack...
Prada's artisans, named
The Galleria bag, in its canonical form — saffiano leather pulled taut over a steel frame, twin handles, that enamelled triangle — passes through eleven pairs of hands before it leaves the Scandicci atelier outside Florence. One of those pa...
The Hands Behind the Arrows
Paola Ricci threads a needle through industrial webbing at a cutting table in Orio al Serio, thirty kilometres from Milan. The material is stiffer than grosgrain, softer than seatbelt nylon. She has been sewing it for OffWhite since 2016, w...
The fitting room on the fourth floor of Miu Miu's Milanese headquarters smells faintly of steam and sizing
The fitting room on the fourth floor of Miu Miu's Milanese headquarters smells faintly of steam and sizing. Carla Benedetti, sixtytwo, kneels beside a halfdressed mannequin, pinning a wool panel that will become the back yoke of a coat sche...
The Hands Behind the Tabi
The atelier sits above rue SaintMaur, three floors up in the 11th arrondissement. Sunlight cuts through tall windows onto a cutting table where Sylvie Dupont has been working the same pattern for twentytwo years. Her hands move across a she...
Louis Vuitton's artisans, named
The workbench sits at the far end of a corridor in Asnières, northwest of Paris, where the light comes in low through tall windows and the air smells faintly of beeswax and leather dust. On it: a halffinished Capucines bag, its flap still u...
## The Hands That Make the Puzzle
The Hands That Make the Puzzle Javier Delgado holds a piece of calfskin no larger than a playing card. He turns it over twice, runs his thumb along the grain, then sets it down on the cutting table. Around him, twentythree other pieces wa...
Jacquemus's artisans, named
The atelier sits above a cobbled street in the Marais, three flights up, windows open to the sound of delivery trucks and café chatter. Inside, Nadège VanhéeCybulski is seated at a cutting table, a halffinished Le Chiquito in her hands. She...
Hermès's artisans, named
The Birkin bag you see photographed on a wrist in Mayfair was assembled, over eighteen hours, by a single artisan whose name you will never know. Hermès does not publish them. The maison stamps each bag with a code — a letter, a year, a pro...
Gucci's artisans, named
The atelier sits on the third floor of a nineteenthcentury palazzo in Florence, windows open to the Arno, and inside, at a table lit by task lamps and daylight in equal measure, a woman named Carla Benucci is stitching the gusset of a Diony...
The Hands Behind Givenchy's Atelier Coat
The fitting room on the second floor of Avenue George V runs narrow and tall. MarieClaude Benoît stands at the centre, one hand steadying a halffinished coat on a dress form, the other pinning the collar stand with the kind of speed that co...
Fendi's artisans, named
The atelier sits on the fourth floor of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Rome's squaredoff monument to Fascist geometry. Inside, Carla Venturini has been working the same stretch of bench for nineteen years. Her hands move in the rhythm...
## The Hands
The Hands Giuseppina Gallo threads a needle under a ceiling lamp in Legnano, twenty kilometres northwest of Milan. She is sixtythree. The corset in front of her is halfbuilt: silk coutil over steel boning, black lace appliqué waiting on t...
Dior's artisans, named
The Bar jacket that left Avenue Montaigne on Thursday morning — bound for a private client in Geneva — required one hundred and fourteen hours of labour. Sixtyeight of those belong to Marguerite Vasseur, première d'atelier in the tailleur w...
## The Hands Behind the Jacket
The Hands Behind the Jacket Jacqueline Mercier has been setting sleeves at Chanel for thirtyone years. She works on the fourth floor of 31 rue Cambon, in a workshop with northfacing windows and a cutting table that predates her tenure. Th...
## The Saddle Maker Who Stitched Celine's Restraint
The Saddle Maker Who Stitched Celine's Restraint Martine Leroy sits at a workbench in the third arrondissement, not far from the Marais workshops that once housed Hermès overflow. She is sixtyone. Her hands move without pause. The leather...
## The Hands That Hold the Needle
The Hands That Hold the Needle The trench coat hanging on the form in Castleford has no buttons yet. Just welt pockets, a storm shield tacked in place, and sleeve heads that want setting. It will leave this room in six weeks, cross three...
The fitting room in Solomeo smells of wool and stone dust
The fitting room in Solomeo smells of wool and stone dust. Brunello Cucinelli stands beside a trestle table, one hand resting on a length of cashmere that has been stretched, steamed, and pinned into what will become — after another forty h...
## The Hands That Plait
The Hands That Plait The workshop sits on the third floor of a nondescript building in Montebello Vicentino, twenty minutes outside Vicenza. No signage. The windows face a car park. Inside, Lucia Maran has been plaiting leather for thirty...
The fitting room on Avenue George V runs narrow and tall, lit from above by a bank of daylight LEDs that flatten shadow
The fitting room on Avenue George V runs narrow and tall, lit from above by a bank of daylight LEDs that flatten shadow. A toile hangs from the shoulders of a house model — cream cotton calico, pinned at the waist, the sleeve head still uns...
## The Hands That Built the Horn of Plenty
The Hands That Built the Horn of Plenty Simon Ungless sits at a corner table in a Shoreditch café, tracing the outline of a feather headdress on a napkin. He is not sketching for a new collection. He is reconstructing, from memory, the fi...
The leather jacket hanging on the dress form in Stockholm's Floragatan studio is not yet finished
The leather jacket hanging on the dress form in Stockholm's Floragatan studio is not yet finished. One sleeve sits half an inch longer than the other. The collar, pinned but not sewn, refuses to lie flat. Karin Lundqvist, head of leather de...
The fitting room at ZUZWA's Paris atelier smells faintly of cedar and steam
The fitting room at ZUZWA's Paris atelier smells faintly of cedar and steam. Zofia Kowalska adjusts the sleeve head on a navy wool coat while her business partner, Wanda Nowak, watches from a stool near the window. The coat is unfinished—ba...
## A House Built on Glitter and Grief
A House Built on Glitter and Grief The fitting room on Via Gesù, late 1981. Gianni Versace stands behind a model, pinning a column of gold mesh that moves like chain mail. His sister Donatella watches from a gilt chair, smoking. Their old...
## The Red Room
The Red Room Valentino Garavani stood in a fitting room on Via Condotti in 1960, pinning silk to a mannequin that would not cooperate. He had opened his first atelier three months earlier with money borrowed from his father and a single a...
## The fitting room, 1994
The fitting room, 1994 Tom Ford stood in a Milanese fitting room with a black silk jersey dress that clung like wet paint. The model shifted. Ford adjusted a seam at the hip, pulled the neckline lower, then lower again. Maurizio Gucci, wa...
## The Fitting Room on Rue Spontini
The Fitting Room on Rue Spontini Yves Saint Laurent stood in the fitting room of Christian Dior's atelier in January 1958, twentyone years old, pinning the hem of a trapeze dress that would save the house. Dior had died four months earlie...
## The Leather-Goods Concern That Learned to Think
The LeatherGoods Concern That Learned to Think In the autumn of 1913, Mario Prada opened a shop at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a vaulted arcade in central Milan. The trade was leather goods and imported novelties — steamer trunks, vali...
## The Fitting Room on Rue de Rivoli
The Fitting Room on Rue de Rivoli Virgil Abloh stood in a whitewalled room in Paris in 2013, pinning a diagonal stripe of black tape across the sleeve of a flannel shirt. The stripe ran from shoulder to cuff at precisely fortyfive degrees...
## The Basement Office
The Basement Office In the spring of 1993, Miuccia Prada stood in a small room beneath the Via Sant'Andrea flagship and watched a model turn in a short skirt made from a fabric most people would use to line a coat. The collection had no n...