50 Fun Facts About Fashion Brands

Jennifer Lopez's green Versace dress at the 2000 Grammys prompted Google to build which feature?

Image search was the answer to what Google called its most popular query to date: people hunting for photos of the plunging jungle-print gown. Google Images followed in 2001.

Which German fashion house voiced regret in 2011 for using forced labour while making Nazi uniforms?

Hugo Boss made uniforms for the SA, SS and Hitler Youth, and during the war its factory used 140 forced labourers, most of them women from Poland and the Soviet Union.

In the 2021 film House of Gucci, which singer plays Patrizia Reggiani opposite Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci?

Lady Gaga earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role, in a Ridley Scott film that the real Gucci family had dismissed from the start.

Which brand's jeans carry a patch showing two horses trying in vain to pull a pair apart?

Levi's chose the picture so that shoppers who could not read English could simply ask for the pants with the two horses. The product was even sold as the Two Horse Brand until 1928.

Which actress had an Hermès bag named after her once she used it to hide a pregnancy from paparazzi?

Grace Kelly, newly Princess of Monaco, was photographed in 1956 shielding her growing belly with the 1930s handbag, and it soon became known by her name.

René Lacoste, whose nickname put a crocodile on Lacoste shirts, was a 1920s champion in which sport?

Tennis made Lacoste famous: he won seven Grand Slam singles titles, then founded the brand in 1933 to sell the short-sleeved shirt he had designed for the court.

Which mall brand began in 1892 as an elite outdoor store that equipped Theodore Roosevelt's safari?

Abercrombie & Fitch was noted for expensive shotguns, fishing rods and tents long before it sold hoodies, and Ernest Hemingway was a regular customer.

Which shoe designer's high heels have carried shiny red-lacquered soles as a signature since the early 1990s?

Christian Louboutin made the first pair in 1992 or 1993 by brushing an assistant's nail polish over a black sole.

Nike, the sportswear giant founded as Blue Ribbon Sports, is named after the Greek goddess of what?

Victory was the domain of the winged goddess Nike, and the company took her name in 1971, the same year it first used the Swoosh.

Which Paris house designed a little black dress for Audrey Hepburn's opening scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Givenchy dressed Hepburn on and off screen for years; she called its founder Hubert her best friend, and he thought of her as a sister.

Which luxury brand was founded in Paris in 1854 by a trunk-maker who packed for Empress Eugénie?

Louis Vuitton reached the capital in 1837 as an apprentice packer and made his name with rectangular canvas trunks when rivals sold only rounded-top leather ones.

Which British brand's signature check was used mainly as a trench coat lining from the 1920s?

Burberry saw the pattern become so copied, and so tied to football hooliganism, that some venues banned it. The company later stripped it from all but a tenth of its products.

What was the real first name of Coco Chanel, said to have picked up her nickname as a cabaret singer?

Gabrielle became Coco during her nights as a cabaret singer, though she liked to say the pet name had been given to her by her father.

Which Spanish fast-fashion chain did Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera found in A Coruña in 1975?

Zara was first going to be called Zorba, after the 1964 film, until its founders learned of a bar with that name two blocks away and rearranged the letters.

H&M, founded by Erling Persson in 1947 as a womenswear shop called Hennes, comes from which country?

Sweden is where Persson opened that first shop, in Västerås. Hennes means hers, and Mauritz arrived in 1968 when he bought a hunting-gear retailer and started selling menswear.

Which American brand's 1980 jeans campaign by Richard Avedon featured a fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields?

Calvin Klein turned underwear into a status item too: boxer briefs, pioneered by its menswear head John Varvatos, were made famous by 1992 print ads featuring Mark Wahlberg.

Which brand added the signature of its salesman Chuck Taylor to the ankle patch of a canvas basketball shoe?

Converse hired Taylor, a semi-professional player, as a salesman in the early 1920s, then reworked the shoe when he asked for more support and flexibility.

Which British fashion house, then led by Sarah Burton, made Catherine Middleton's 2011 royal wedding dress?

Alexander McQueen and Burton both denied any involvement beforehand, yet bookmakers were so sure that William Hill stopped taking bets weeks before the wedding.

Which sunglasses brand began as a 1936 anti-glare prototype built to cut sky glare for pilots?

Ray-Ban's prototype had plastic frames and green lenses; a year later it gained a metal frame and was patented as the Aviator.

Which Milan house, a seller of imported English leather goods from 1913, turned to nylon backpacks in the 1970s?

Prada changed course under Miuccia, the founder's granddaughter, who took over in 1978 and began making waterproof backpacks from a nylon fabric called Pocono.

Which designer became head of the House of Dior at 21, after Christian Dior's sudden death in 1957?

Yves Saint Laurent made his debut with the wedge-shaped Trapeze line of 1958, a critical success that turned him into a celebrity of the post-war generation.

Which German designer was creative director of Chanel from 1983 until his death in 2019?

Karl Lagerfeld took on what was then considered a near-dead brand and revived it, revamping its ready-to-wear and working the interlocked CC monogram into the designs.

Guccio Gucci learned the tastes of wealthy travellers as a teenage bellhop at which London hotel?

The Savoy had the young Gucci loading and unloading its guests' luggage, and in 1921 he opened a shop of his own in Florence selling imported leather cases.

Which Rome fur and leather house designed the Baguette in 1997, a handbag often cited as the first It bag?

Fendi lent Baguettes as props to Sex and the City while the show was still new, and the series made the compact bag a hit.

Which Italian couturier is so known for vivid red dresses that the fashion industry named the shade after him?

Valentino Garavani also dressed Jacqueline Kennedy with no colour at all: she ordered six of his dresses in black and white for her year of mourning.

Which American preppy label has a logo built around the maritime signal flag for one of its own initials?

Tommy Hilfiger's red and white fields come from the International Code of Signals flag for H, a nod to the nautical style the brand has long traded on.

Which American designer's label first put a polo player emblem on the cuff of a women's shirt in 1971?

Ralph Lauren moved the emblem to the chest a year later, on a short-sleeved cotton shirt sold in 24 colours that became the brand's signature look.

Which Paris house, opened as a millinery shop in 1889, uses a logo of a mother and daughter in matching ball outfits?

Lanvin is the oldest French fashion house still in operation, and its logo was drawn in 1923 from a photograph taken at a costume ball in 1907.

Which brand's checkerboard slip-ons went nationwide after Sean Penn wore them in Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

Vans adopted the checkerboard pattern in the first place because it noticed skateboarders drawing it on their shoes.

Which trained architect from Rockford, Illinois, founded the Milan streetwear label Off-White in 2013?

Virgil Abloh designed T-shirts and blogged about fashion while studying for his architecture master's, and first sold streetwear under the name Pyrex Vision.

Which Italian house was founded in 1985 by designers Domenico and Stefano, who met at another label?

Dolce & Gabbana broke through with a fourth collection shaped by Domenico's Sicilian roots, advertised with black-and-white photographs in the style of 1940s Italian cinema.

Which Paris-based luxury house began in San Sebastián and moved because of the Spanish Civil War?

Balenciaga opened on Avenue George V in August 1937, and its founder's first Paris show was full of designs influenced by the Spanish Renaissance.

Which British designer shaped 1970s punk style at Sex, the King's Road boutique she ran with Malcolm McLaren?

Vivienne Westwood kept working as a teacher until 1971, then drew attention when the Sex Pistols, the band McLaren managed, wore the pair's designs.

Which British designer, a lifelong vegetarian who once led Chloé, uses no leather or fur in her label?

Stella McCartney has taken the cause beyond the catwalk: she once petitioned the Ministry of Defence to stop using black bear fur for the Guards' hats.

The North Face, founded to supply climbers, has a logo inspired by which American rock formation?

Half Dome rises more than 8,700 feet above sea level in Yosemite National Park, a landmark for the climbers the company was set up to equip.

In which Bavarian town did the feuding Dassler brothers found the rival shoe firms Adidas and Puma?

Herzogenaurach became known as the town of bent necks, because residents kept glancing at each other's shoes to see which firm they sided with.

Which New York skateboarding brand's red box logo was inspired by a book of Barbara Kruger's artwork?

Supreme opened on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan in 1994 because its founder, James Jebbia, saw few places in the area to buy skateboarding products.

Which luxury group, long led by Bernard Arnault, owns Celine, Kenzo, Loewe, Bulgari and Tiffany & Co.?

LVMH was not founded by Arnault, as is often said: he was invited in as an investor and rapidly took control from the original family owners.

Which Rome tailoring house dressed Pierce Brosnan in all his James Bond films and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale?

Brioni began in 1945 as a single menswear boutique on Via Barberini, set up by Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini.

Which American bag brand, born in a Manhattan loft in 1941, was inspired by the leather of baseball gloves?

Coach's Miles Cahn noticed that a glove's leather grew softer and suppler with wear and copied the effect. He and his wife sold the firm in 1985 to spend more time on their goat farm.

Which Italian designer studied medicine and dressed shop windows in Milan before founding his label in 1975?

Giorgio Armani's medical training got him posted to a military hospital in Verona during his army service, and he later designed menswear for Nino Cerruti before going solo.

Which Italian leather house, founded in Vicenza in 1966, made the woven Intrecciato technique its signature?

Bottega Veneta had a 1978 advert created by Andy Warhol, and one of its woven bags appeared on screen two years later in the film American Gigolo.

Which American clothier, founded in 1818, made the coat Abraham Lincoln wore to his second inauguration?

Brooks Brothers counted Lincoln as a loyal customer, and he was wearing one of its coats on the night he was shot. A myth later grew that the firm stopped making black suits out of deference.

Which hip-hop group's 1986 single My Adidas won them an endorsement deal with the sportswear brand?

Run-DMC told a Madison Square Garden crowd to hold their Adidas gear in the air while a company executive watched, and the deal followed.

Adidas bought its three-stripe trademark in 1952, for cash and two bottles of whiskey, from which Finnish brand?

Karhu parted with the mark for the equivalent of 1,600 euros plus the whiskey, and Adolf Dassler went on to describe his firm as the three stripes company.

Which American chain opened in San Francisco in 1969 selling only jeans and LP records?

The Gap took its name from the generation gap, at co-founder Doris Fisher's suggestion, and its first store stood near City College to draw in teenage customers.

Which designer produced the black turtlenecks that became part of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs's signature look?

Issey Miyake first impressed Jobs with the uniforms he designed for Sony's factory workers. Apple staff rejected a uniform of their own, so Jobs asked for about a hundred turtlenecks instead.

Which French designer, once Pierre Cardin's assistant, created Madonna's cone bra for the Blond Ambition tour?

Jean Paul Gaultier, long called fashion's enfant terrible, also designed the costumes for the 1997 film The Fifth Element and brought back the striped sailor top for men in 1983.

Which English brand, founded in South Shields in 1894, gave its name to waxed cotton country jackets?

Barbour started out importing oilcloth and has held royal warrants for waterproof and protective clothing, the first granted by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1974.

Which shoe designer took up footwear after Vogue editor Diana Vreeland admired his shoe sketches?

Manolo Blahnik grew up watching his mother make her own shoes, a craft she had picked up from a cobbler in the Canary Islands.