It's 11pm on a Tuesday night, you're supposed to be asleep, and you're on the 47th tab of a Pinterest rabbit hole. You started by looking for outfit inspiration for Saturday, and now you're comparing Coco Chanel's 1925 jersey suits with what Virginie Viard sent down the runway in 2024. And then it hits you: the women who shaped fashion didn't follow trends. They created them. Then surpassed them. Then reinvented them entirely.
This isn't just a fashion retrospective. It's an analysis of how a handful of women — decade by decade — redefined what it meant to be well dressed in their era. And why each of them continues to influence what you find on the rails at ASOS and Topshop a century later. Fashion moves fast, but icons endure.
The 1920s: Chanel liberates the female silhouette
Before 1920, a respectable woman wore a corset. Not metaphorically — physically. Fashion was a cage of steel and whalebone that compressed organs and made any physical activity virtually impossible. Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, known as Coco, decided this was an absurdity. She was right.
Her weapon: jersey. This soft, comfortable fabric — previously reserved for men's undergarments — she fashioned into dresses, suits, daywear. The silhouette changed entirely: no more nipped waist, no more corset, no more boning. A straight, light line that allowed women to move. In 1926, she invented the little black dress — the LBD — which American Vogue called "the Ford of fashion": accessible, practical, universal.
Alongside her, Josephine Baker embodied a different revolution. Dancer, singer, resistance fighter: Baker imposed a liberated body, an unapologetic sensuality, a stage presence that belonged to no established canon. She wore fashion the way she sang — without asking permission. Her banana skirt at the Folies Bergère became the most reproduced image of the 1920s, but it's her way of wearing beaded fringe gowns and heavy jewellery with absolute nonchalance that remains her fashion legacy.
1920s codes we still wear:
- The little black dress (LBD) — unchanged in principle
- Long pearl necklaces worn in multiple strands
- The cloche hat (which returns to trend regularly)
- The straight, uncorseted silhouette for everyday dressing
- Jersey as the fabric of chic comfort
The 1950s: glamour in three acts
The post-war period brought a reaction: after fabric rationing, after the grey uniform of conflict, women wanted luxury, volume, affirmed femininity. Christian Dior answered in 1947 with the New Look: wasp waist, calf-length full skirt, rounded shoulders. A sculptural silhouette that redefined elegant womanhood for an entire decade.
But the 1950s gave us three icons who couldn't have been more different from each other:
Audrey Hepburn — elegance through subtraction
Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961 film, but its aesthetic is pure 1950s in spirit): black Givenchy dress, high chignon, oversized sunglasses, cigarette holder. The image is so famous we forget what makes it powerful: subtraction. No overwrought jewellery. No flashy colour. A clean, architectural silhouette that leaves all the room to the face and posture. Hepburn popularised a revolutionary idea for the era: less can be more. Her lifelong partnership with Hubert de Givenchy is one of the most enduring icon-designer collaborations in fashion history.
Grace Kelly — the quiet power of luxury
Actress, then Princess of Monaco: Grace Kelly navigated between Hollywood and royalty with disarming ease. Her style: perfectly tailored pieces in luxurious fabrics, worn with calculated restraint. Never one accessory too many. Never a colour that overstepped. And yet — or rather because of it — a magnetic presence. The Hermès bag she uses to conceal her pregnancy in 1956 becomes the Kelly, one of the most iconic bags in the world. An accidental magazine cover that creates a legend.
Marilyn Monroe — subversion through sensuality
Monroe embodies the exact opposite of Kellian sobriety. Her white dress billowing above the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch, her sheer chiffon gown embroidered with rhinestones for singing "Happy Birthday" to JFK — Monroe uses fashion as declaration. She is the most copied, most referenced figure in pop fashion. Fifty years after her death, her looks continue to appear on red carpets (Kim Kardashian wearing Monroe's actual gown to the 2022 Met Gala generated the most talked-about fashion controversy of the year).
The 1960s: Swinging London and the mini revolution
The 1960s invented the concept of youth as a cultural force. And with it, a fashion that belonged to it: short, pop, colourful, the opposite of the formal glamour of the 1950s. In Britain, Mary Quant is credited with inventing the miniskirt at her King's Road boutique Bazaar in 1964 — launching what would become known as Swinging London. André Courrèges produced a futuristic white version in Paris. Suddenly, knees existed. It was a revolution.
Twiggy — when the model becomes the look
Lesley Lawson, known as Twiggy, is 16 when she's discovered in 1966. 5ft 6in, extremely slender, eyes painted on the lower lid to simulate oversized lashes. She is the antithesis of Marilyn Monroe — androgynous, youthful, almost extraterrestrial in her body. And she changes everything: the beauty ideal shifts towards youth, slenderness, the androgyne. Her way of wearing the miniskirt with opaque tights and block-heel boots invents a look you'll find in every autumn-winter collection to this day.
Mary Quant — the designer who democratised fashion
Mary Quant didn't just design clothes — she invented a philosophy. The miniskirt. Hot pants. Easy-to-wear, affordable, fun, body-positive fashion that said young women could dress for themselves and for movement. Her King's Road shop Bazaar became the epicentre of Swinging London, and the daisy logo she used became one of the most recognisable symbols of 1960s Britain. She was awarded an OBE in 1966 and remained an influence until her death in 2023. She proved that great style didn't have to come from Paris.
Jackie Kennedy — the power of consistency
Jackie Kennedy Onassis embodies a different revolution: that of the First Lady as a style icon. Her coordinated Oleg Cassini ensembles, her sleeveless shift dresses, her way of wearing white gloves and a pearl necklace even on official trips — Jackie invents the concept of the "presidential capsule wardrobe." Every appearance is considered, consistent, memorable. The pink Chanel suit she wears on the day of JFK's assassination became one of the most analysed and tragic images of the twentieth century.
The 1970s: total freedom
The 1970s are the decade when everything is permitted — and it shows. After the architectural rigour of the 1960s, fashion explodes: flares, platforms, psychedelic prints, sequins, maxi skirts, bell-bottoms. Disco imposes an aesthetic of demonstrative luxury. The hippie movement imposes one of claimed naturalism. Both coexist, sometimes on the same person.
Bianca Jagger — the tuxedo as manifesto
1974: Bianca Jagger enters New York City Hall for her birthday party on a white horse, dressed in a YSL tuxedo. The image is so powerful it summarises the jet-set aesthetic of the 1970s on its own. Bianca Jagger, ex-wife of Mick, is a permanent fixture at Studio 54, the world's most photographed venue. Her style: the masculine tuxedo reclaimed, YSL fluid suits, oversized accessories. She proves that a woman can wear menswear and be more compelling than anyone in an evening gown.
Jane Birkin — the sublime jumble
Jane Birkin never tried to be a fashion icon. Which is probably why she became one. Her look: flared jeans, basic white t-shirt (often slightly sheer), wicker basket overflowing with things, slightly dishevelled hair. Nothing matches. Nothing is planned. And yet every photo of her in Paris in the 1970s looks like a magazine spread. Her name is attached to one of the most exclusive bags in the world (the Hermès Birkin, born from a conversation with Jean-Louis Dumas on a plane in 1984), while she herself carried a basket. The ultimate paradox.
Diana Ross — the power of affirmed glamour
Diana Ross, former Motown legend, embodies the 1970s in their most dazzling form. Monumental wigs, long sequinned gowns, furs (another era), stage costumes designed by Bob Mackie that defy both gravity and common sense. Ross was never afraid of "too much" — and in the 1970s, too much became the rule. Her influence on what we now call "glam" is direct and measurable: every piece of sequin on a red carpet owes her something.
The 1980s: the decade of power
The 1980s are the decade of unapologetic excess. Power dressing — dressing to appear powerful — becomes a philosophy. Shoulder pads widen. Colours intensify. Jewellery gets bigger. Fashion reflects Reaganism and Thatcherism: everything is large, everything is bold, everything says "I'm here and I matter."
Princess Diana — the reluctant icon
Diana Spencer marries Prince Charles in 1981 in a David and Elizabeth Emanuel gown with a 25-foot train. It's the beginning of a fascinating relationship between one woman and fashion. Initially formatted in the conservative outfits the Crown expected of her (suit-dresses, smocked dresses), Diana progressively evolves towards something entirely her own. Her off-shoulder Versace black gown worn without a visible bra at a Serpentine Gallery dinner in 1994 — the very night Charles admitted his relationship with Camilla on television — is immediately dubbed the "revenge dress." Fashion as a declaration of war. Diana understood that the way she dressed was the only space she truly controlled.
Grace Jones — androgyny as performance
Grace Jones doesn't wear clothes. She constructs characters. The Jamaican singer-actress and her collaborations with Jean-Paul Goude produced images that look more like sculpture than fashion. The flat-top haircut, the architectural shoulder pads, the monochrome bodysuits, the geometric makeup — Jones invents what we now call "high fashion androgyne" long before the term existed. Her influence on Thierry Mugler's aesthetic is direct. Her influence on what we now call "genderfluid fashion" is immeasurable.
Vivienne Westwood — punk turned couture
No discussion of British 1980s fashion icons is complete without Vivienne Westwood. From her King's Road shop SEX (later Worlds End) to the Savile Row suits she deconstructed and rebuilt — Westwood took punk's anarchist energy and redirected it into genuine fashion provocation. Her tartans, her corsets worn as outerwear, her platform shoes that made models fall over (Naomi Campbell's 1993 tumble in her Westwood platforms became the most famous fashion show fall in history) — she proved that British fashion wasn't just following Paris. It was doing something entirely its own.
The 1990s: radical minimalism
After the excess of the 1980s, the reaction is brutal. 1990s minimalism is radical, almost aggressive in its restraint. Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander: collections pared back to the bone. No unnecessary decoration. No superfluous colour. The right fabric, the right cut, and that's it. It's in this context that three icons emerge who still define what we call "elegance" today.
Kate Moss — chaos as style
Kate Moss isn't tall. She doesn't have the body of an 1980s supermodel. She doesn't fit any established canon. And that's precisely why she revolutionises modelling. Her Calvin Klein campaign in 1992, photographed by Corinne Day, shows a 17-year-old with a vaguely exhausted air in a spartan room — the exact opposite of Studio 54 glamour. It's called "heroin chic" (a controversial term, medically criticised, but one that sticks). What's undeniable: Moss invents a relationship with beauty that isn't smooth perfection but something rawer, more real, more liveable.
Off the catwalk, her personal style navigates between silk slip dresses, vintage found in charity shops, ripped jeans and well-tailored tuxedos — always with that characteristic nonchalance that makes nothing look like it required effort. She's probably the most copied fashion icon of the past thirty years, with a capacity to reinvent her own look (heroin chic → boho 2000s → rock'n'roll minimalism → now a certain English classicism) that keeps her relevant thirty years on.
Naomi Campbell — presence as weapon
Naomi Campbell walks a runway like no one else. Even falling — her 1993 tumble off Westwood's 10-inch platforms became the most famous fall in runway history, and she took it with a smile — she occupies space in a way that transcends the clothes. Her influence on the representation of Black women in luxury fashion is documented and significant: she opened doors that some houses kept firmly shut, often by forcing them.
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy — luxury in the obvious
Carolyn Bessette marries JFK Jr. in 1996 in a white Narciso Rodriguez gown, minimalist, perfect. She immediately becomes one of the most photographed women in the world. Her style: exclusively monochrome (white, black, beige), impeccable cuts, complete absence of unnecessary accessories. She never speaks to the press. She never does advertising campaigns. She's simply there, in her perfect clothes, and it's enough. Her aesthetic is so precise there's an entire community on Pinterest and Instagram documenting every known photograph of her. Killed at 33 in 1999, she remains one of the most influential women in fashion history without ever having sought to be.
The 2000s: the era of excess
The 2000s are perhaps the most maligned fashion decade in recent history — and simultaneously the most plundered since 2018. Low-rise jeans, micro bags, rampant logomania, athleisure, Juicy Couture velour: everything we mocked has come back. It's the cyclical law of fashion: what's ridiculous becomes vintage, then vintage becomes iconic.
Carrie Bradshaw — fiction as real influence
Carrie Bradshaw doesn't exist. And yet her influence on 2000s fashion is as real as any living celebrity's. Patricia Field, Sex and the City's costume designer, created a character whose 94 episodes constitute one of the most consulted fashion archives of the twentieth century. The Manolo Blahniks, the name necklace, tutus worn in the street, the delirious luxury-vintage-charity shop mix — Carrie Bradshaw taught an entire generation that fashion could be a way to play, experiment, construct an identity. And that rules were there to be broken — with grace.
Victoria Beckham — from pop to minimalism
Victoria Beckham begins the 2000s as Posh Spice: miniskirts, vertiginous heels, matching outfits with David, a Birkin bag at every appearance (she reportedly owned over a hundred). She ends the decade building a ready-to-wear label that receives a British Fashion Award nomination. The trajectory is remarkable: from pop excess to refined minimalism, through every intermediate stage. She is probably the most documented style transformation in celebrity history.
Kate Middleton — a new kind of royal style
From her early relationship with Prince William to her wedding in 2011 in Alexander McQueen, Kate Middleton (now Princess of Wales) represents something new in British royal fashion: a woman who understood the power of repetition (wearing outfits multiple times, explicitly to signal accessibility), of supporting British designers, and of using fashion diplomatically without letting it define her entirely. The "Kate effect" on any piece she wears — entire collections selling out within hours — became one of the most studied phenomena in fashion economics.
2010s to now: the era of broken rules
The 2010s bring the internet — really the internet, the iPhone and Instagram internet — into fashion. And it changes everything. Before, a fashion icon was built over decades, through magazines and street photographs. Now, an outfit can become iconic in 48 hours. And an icon can lose their credibility in the same amount of time. Fashion accelerates, fragments, democratises and hierarchises simultaneously.
Rihanna — the icon without rules
Rihanna wears a yellow ball gown cape by Guo Pei to a gala: the internet explodes, thousands of memes, and the dress enters fashion history. She performs at the Super Bowl Halftime Show visibly pregnant in Fenty: the image is everywhere. Her gift is transforming every public appearance into an event. But her real influence is Fenty Beauty (2017) — her makeup brand that launched with 40 foundation shades, forcing the entire cosmetics industry to rethink its approach to diversity. She proves that a fashion icon can change an industry well beyond fashion itself.
Zendaya — the red carpet as art
Zendaya Coleman has the most sophisticated relationship with the red carpet of her generation. With stylist Law Roach, she builds thematic looks that tell stories: the robot Cinderella in Mugler for the premiere (2021, mechanical gown with motor-operated wings), the gold Valentino bodysuit for Dune that looks like sand, the tennis dresses for Challengers. Each look extends the work she's there to promote. It's perhaps the most sophisticated form of celebrity style we've ever seen.
Hailey Bieber — quiet luxury on Instagram
Hailey Baldwin Bieber embodies what's called "quiet luxury" or "stealth wealth": expensive clothes that don't look expensive. No visible logo. No garish colour. Cashmere, Italian leather, perfect cuts in absolute neutrals. Her "glazed donut" aesthetic (luminous skin, cream and nude tones) has generated millions of Google searches and sold industrial quantities of blush and highlighter. She's proof that in an era of visual oversaturation, sobriety can be the most radical provocation.
Bella Hadid — vintage archive as language
Bella Hadid is the most stylistically complex figure of her generation. She can wear Coperni (the dress spray-painted directly onto her at the 2022 show, another "instant iconic" moment of the decade) and 1990s vintage archive with equal ease. Her interest in fashion archives — old Thierry Mugler pieces, Versace from the 90s, Jean Paul Gaultier archive — has contributed to exploding high-end vintage prices and making archive culture accessible to a wider audience.
What these icons actually teach us
After a century of fashion icons, what are the laws that seem to hold through time?
Consistency beats perfection
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy wasn't perfect. But she was consistent. Jackie Kennedy wasn't always at her peak. But she was predictable in the right sense — you knew what to expect, and it was reassuring. Icons who endure have a clear stylistic point of view. They don't follow trends — they have a visual language that belongs to them, and they translate trends through it when they choose to.
Style as storytelling
Diana, the revenge dress. Audrey, the Givenchy. Madonna, the Gaultier corset. In each case, the garment tells a story that goes beyond fabric and cut. Fashion icons understood before anyone else that style is a medium. What you wear speaks before you open your mouth.
Fashion is cyclical, but icons aren't
Trends return. The 1960s miniskirt returns. The 2000s low-rise jean returns. The 1980s shoulder pad returns. But Twiggy doesn't return — there will be other Twiggys, women who capture a cultural moment with the same intensity, but they'll create their own iconography. What returns is the aesthetic. What stays unique is the person who wore it first.
The street took control of couture
For decades, fashion trickled down: couturiers decided, magazines relayed, women adopted. Since the 2010s, it's the reverse. Streetwear influences luxury. Influencers create trends that houses then adopt. TikTok archives of girls in 1990s vintage make the prices of similar pieces explode. The hierarchy is abolished — or at least, profoundly questioned. It may be the deepest change in all of fashion history since Chanel.
Sources and references
- British Vogue — Historical fashion archives and decade-by-decade style analyses: vogue.co.uk
- Victoria and Albert Museum — Fashion collection and online educational resources: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion
- i-D Magazine — British fashion culture, icon profiles and style retrospectives: i-d.vice.com
- The Guardian Fashion — Fashion history features and icon analyses: theguardian.com/fashion
- Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) — Fashion history academic resources: fitnyc.edu/museum
Frequently asked questions about fashion icons' style evolution
Which fashion icon has had the most lasting influence on modern style?
It's difficult to reduce it to one, but Coco Chanel remains the one whose influence is most directly measurable. She changed the relationship to the body (end of the corset), created pieces that are still in every wardrobe (the little black dress, the tweed suit, costume jewellery worn like the real thing), and established a philosophy of style (elegance through subtraction) that remains the reference point of contemporary luxury. Every collection that advocates "quiet luxury" cites Chanel, consciously or not.
Why do 1990s and 2000s trends keep coming back?
Fashion works in cycles of approximately 20–30 years — the time it takes for a generation to grow up seeing images of an era, nostalgia to set in, and designers (themselves born in that era) to start drawing on it. The 1990s have been returning since around 2015–2020, and the 2000s since 2020–2022, exactly within these windows. Added to this is an Instagram effect: visual archives are now accessible to everyone, and younger generations discover these images for the first time as something new and exciting.
How can I identify current trends that come from historical icons?
Next time you see a trend, look for who wore it first. The silk slip dress? Kate Moss and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in the 1990s. The oversized blazer? Bianca Jagger and Annie Hall in the 70s. The total-look minimalism? Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy again, and Helmut Lang. Most trends you see today have a specific icon behind them. Knowing fashion history means understanding where what you're wearing comes from — and having the tools to style it with more intention.
Was Princess Diana genuinely a fashion icon or mainly a media phenomenon?
Both — and that's precisely what makes her unique. Diana understood very early that how she dressed was the only space of true freedom her status allowed. She used this lever with increasing sophistication — outfits chosen for their political message (the Versace "revenge dress"), for diplomatic purposes (local designers on official visits), for symbolic accessibility (High Street pieces mixed with luxury). Fashion historians such as Amber Butchart and Eleri Lynn at the V&A have documented these choices in detail. Diana wasn't just a media phenomenon — she was strategic.
How do today's fashion icons differ from those of the past?
The fundamental difference is speed and multiplicity. A 1960s icon was built over decades through dozens of photographs in monthly fashion magazines. A 2024 icon can create an "iconic" moment within 48 hours on Instagram, and by the next day be criticised for wearing the same thing twice. The pressure is incomparable. What also changes: today's icons often have a direct voice (social media) and complex commercial interests (fashion lines, collaborations, own brands) that make it difficult to separate stylistic authenticity from business. It's ambivalent — more diversity of icons, but less serendipity in how they're constructed.
Which museums are best for understanding the history of fashion icons?
In the UK, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the definitive reference — its fashion collection covers several centuries and the temporary exhibitions are often exceptional. The Fashion Museum in Bath is also worth a visit for historical British dress. Internationally: the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the annual exhibitions are major cultural events), the Musée Galliera in Paris (recently renovated, extraordinary collections), and the Museum at FIT in New York for twentieth-century fashion history. Most offer extensive digital resources online if you can't visit in person.