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Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. The term fashion refers to a distinctive and often habitual trend in the style with which a person dresses, as well as to prevailing styles in behaviour. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories. Some work alone or as part of a team. They attempt to satisfy consumer desire for aesthetically designed clothing; and, because of the time required to bring a garment onto the market, must at times anticipate changing consumer tastes.

Fashion design is generally considered to have started in the 19th century with Charles Frederick Worth who was the first designer to have his label sewn into the garments that he created. Before the former draper set up his maison couture (fashion house) in Paris, clothing design and creation was handled by largely anonymous seamstresses, and high fashion descended from that worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done. The term couturier was in fact first created in order to describe him. While all articles of clothing from any time period are studied by academics as costume design, only clothing created after 1858 could be considered as fashion design.

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The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset Company, licensed the trademark for the Canadian market in 1939. By the 1960s the Canadian Lady brand had become known in Canada as "Wonderbra, the company." In 1961 the company introduced the Model 1300 plunge push-up bra. This bra became one of the best-selling Canadian styles and is virtually identical to today's Wonderbra. In 1968, Canadian Lady changed its name to Canadian Lady-Canadelle Inc., was sold to Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee Corporation), and later became Canadelle Inc. During the 1970s Wonderbra was repositioned as the company's fashionable and sexy brand, and became the Canadian market leader. In 1991, the push-up Wonderbra became a sensation in the UK, although it had been sold there since 1964 under license by the Gossard division of Courtaulds Textiles. Sara Lee Corporation did not renew Gossard's license and redesigned the push-up style for the reintroduction of the Wonderbra to the U.S. market in 1994.

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Credit: Daniel Schwen

A pair of lotus shoes, which are shoes that were worn by women in China who had bound feet. They were delicately constructed from cotton or silk, and small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. They are cone or sheath-shaped, intended to resemble a lotus bud. Though foot binding is no longer practiced, many lotus shoes survive as artifacts in museums or private collections.

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Susannah Caroline Constantine (born 3 June 1962) is an English fashion journalist, advisor, television presenter, author and designer. Her second book, entitled What Not to Wear, has won her a prestigious British Book Award and sold 670,000 copies. Constantine was born into a wealthy family; her father was successful in property and shipping sectors. She was privately educated as a child and went on to date British royalty, David, Viscount Linley, during the 1980s. Constantine has been involved in fashion for a long period, originally working in America for Giorgio Armani and then John Galliano in London. She met Trinny Woodall in 1994 who both proceeded to write a weekly fashion column, Ready to Wear. They founded Ready2shop.com, a dot-com fashion advice business, and wrote their first fashion advice book in 2000, Ready 2 Dress, both of which failed. From there they were commissioned to BBC Two to host the style series, What Not to Wear, from 2001 to 2005. She made regular appearances as a style advisor on The Oprah Winfrey Show and following her success on the shows, she went on to co-host Trinny & Susannah Undress... on ITV in 2006 and Undress the Nation in 2007. Constantine and Woodall have now dressed over 5,000 women.

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Did you know...

... that dressmakers working on Kate Middleton's wedding gown (pictured) changed needles every three hours, and washed their hands every half hour?
... that Audrey Withers, who edited the British Vogue for twenty years, lacked a personal interest in fashion and joined the London Fire Brigade?
...that influential makeup artist Pat McGrath takes between 30 and 50 bags of tools, materials, and reference books whenever she travels to fashion shows?