Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. 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 designers attempt to design clothes which are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They must consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn. They have a wide range and combinations of materials to work with and a wide range of colors, patterns and styles to choose from. Though most clothing worn for everyday wear falls within a narrow range of conventional styles, unusual garments are usually sought for special occasions, such as evening wear or party dresses.

Michael Kors (born Karl Anderson, Jr.; August 9, 1959) is an American fashion designer. He is best known for designing classic American sportswear for women.

Kors was born Karl Anderson, Jr. on Long Island, New York, the son of Joan Hamburger, a former model, and her first husband, Karl Anderson, a college student. When his mother remarried when he was five, he was told he could change his name, and he chose to become Michael David Kors. He grew up in Merrick, New York and graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York. Kors' mother is Jewish and his father was of Swedish descent. Kors currently resides in New York City and married his longtime partner Lance LePere in Southampton, New York on August 16, 2011.

Michael Kors began designing clothes at the age of 19 and studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. In 1981, Kors launched the Michael Kors womenswear line at Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Building on his success, Kors was named the first ever women's ready-to-wear designer and creative director for the French fashion house Celine in 1997. In his tenure at Celine, Kors turned the fashion house around with blockbuster accessories and a critically acclaimed ready-to-wear line. Kors left Celine in October 2003 to concentrate on his own brand. Kors launched his menswear line in 2002.

Nick Verreos (born February 13, 1967 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American fashion designer and contestant on the second season of the reality television program Project Runway.

Verreos was born in Missouri on February 13, 1967 to a Greek-American father and a Panamanian mother. Though born in St. Louis, Missouri, he spent his early childhood in Caracas, Venezuela after his father, a U.S. State Department diplomat in Panama, met his mother, whose great uncle had been the president of that country.^{[citation needed]} At age 10, Verreos and his family moved back to the United States and he finished elementary and high school in San Francisco, California. He began college at UCLA, studying Political Science and International Relations, but after graduation, turned his interest to fashion design and pursued additional work at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles. He completed the Advanced Fashion Design Program at FIDM.^{[citation needed]}

After finishing studies at FIDM, Verreos immediately found success in the fashion industry.^{[citation needed]} He won the Suisse du Jeune Talent competition, in which he represented the United States in St. Gallen, Switzerland.^{[citation needed]} He began his career in Los Angeles working for a variety of companies, before forming his own design firm, Nikolaki, with partner David Paul in 2001. Since 2003 he has also worked part-time at FIDM teaching technical sketching and draping/pattern drafting.^{[citation needed]}

Jason Wu (Chinese: 吳季剛; pinyin: Wú Jìgāngg; Wade–Giles: Wú Chì-Kāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Gô͘ Kùi-Kong; born September 27, 1982) is a Manhattan-based Taiwanese Canadian fashion designer.

Born in Taiwan, Wu moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at age nine and attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts and Loomis Chaffee, in Windsor, Connecticut. He learned how to sew by designing and sewing for dolls, and went on to study sculpture in Tokyo. Wu continued this career path at sixteen by learning to create freelance doll clothing designs for toy company Integrity Toys under the lines "Jason Wu dolls" and later "Fashion Royalty". The following year, he was named creative director of Integrity Toys. He decided to become a fashion designer while spending his senior year of high school in Rennes before graduating from The Loomis Chaffee School in 2001, and studied at the Parsons The New School for Design at The New School. He later interned with Narciso Rodriguez.

Wu launched his ready-to-wear line of clothes with earnings from his years of doll designs. His first full collection debuted in 2006 and won the Fashion Group International's Rising Star award in 2008. Jason Wu's dresses were photographed underwater by Howard Schatz for Delta Faucet Company's Brizo branded faucet campaign in 2006. In 2008 he was nominated for the Vogue Fashion Fund award.Bruce Weber shot the designer for W magazine's "Summer Camp" portfolio last July.

Akira Isogawa (五十川明, Isogawa Akira^?, b. 1964) is one of Australia's most prominent contemporary fashion designers.

Born in Japan, he immigrated to Australia in 1986, studying fashion at East Sydney Technical College drawing inspiration from contemporary Japanese design.

Isogawa opened a store in Woollahra, Sydney, in 1993. By the late 1990s, international sales and recognition established his reputation. His commercial fashion label, Akira, concentrates on women's fashion.

His clothes appear under his own label and are sold both in Australia and New Zealand. He is one of the few Australian designers to exhibit and sell his clothing in Paris, arguably the world's high fashion capital. His clothes are sold in 12 countries around the world.

Isogawa's clothes draw on a variety of inspirations, notably his experiences growing up in Japan. It's well known that Akira also works closely with, and is also influenced by the creative direction of Christiane Lehmann, a collage artist with an eccentric sense of style, who has been commonly referred to as his muse over the last decade.