Vera Wang

In 1989, Vera Wang was searching for the perfect wedding dress. None of the pouf-skirted, lace frocks and modest styles with high necks and long sleeves she came across were her speed, so she sketched her own—a slinky, beaded slip dress—and brought it to a tailor to be made. A year and one walk down the aisle later, Wang’s bridal business was born.

From her boutique at the Carlyle Hotel, Wang single-handedly changed what women in America wear to say “I do.” She empowered her clients to try sexy wedding gown silhouettes, sheer backs, tightly fitted bodices, and low-cut necklines, and she sometimes whipped them up in unconventional colors like black, blue, and pink. Wang’s bridal collections brought her instant success, not only with the allure of her non-traditional, yet romantic gowns, but also via celebrity endorsements. Over the years, the former Vogue editor and design director of accessories for Ralph Lauren dressed the likes of Chelsea Clinton, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariah Carey (in a 27-foot train, no less) for their weddings.

After a decade spent transforming the bridal market, Wang launched her ready-to-wear business in 2000. Now, as she celebrates her company’s 30th anniversary, Wang is one of the world’s most recognized designers. Her contribution to fashion is simple: freedom of expression, whether for a walk down the aisle or a walk down the street. — Brooke Bobb

Vivenne Westwood

Since she arrived in London in the late 1960s, the always irreverent, sometimes thorny, frequently surprising Vivienne Westwood has captured the many ways in which a woman expresses herself through clothes—and her fashions have often been as irreverent, thorny, and surprising as their creator.

Westwood first became famous when she teamed up with Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, and together they launched the garments that the world would come to know as punk: “… punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles,” she once declared. If these artfully distressed, finger-in-your eye fashions were all she had done, it would have been thrilling enough—but Westwood went on in the ensuing decades to offer clothes that relied on brilliant tailoring even as they made their rebellious points—collections with names like Savages (shown late 1981), Buffalo/Nostalgia Of Mud (shown spring 1982), Punkature (shown late 1982), and Worlds End (1984). Subsequent catwalks went on to channel young romantics, mock Sloane Rangers, and offer a twisted homage to the mini-crinis of Christian Lacroix.