Cathy Horyn (born September 11, 1956) is an American fashion journalist, working as the fashion critic for The New York Times where she also keeps a highly noted and provocative blog called ("On The Runway"). She is only the second NYT fashion critic, succeeding Amy Spindler when Spindler retired in November 2003.

Raised in Coshocton, Ohio, she began her career in fashion journalism in Detroit in 1986, writing for The Detroit News, then moved to Washington, DC after four years, reviewing fashion design for The Washington Post. She joined The New York Times in 1998. Magazines and newspapers to which she contributes include: Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, International Herald Tribune and others. She is known for her unflinchingly acerbic reviews, which got her banned from numerous designer shows, most notably Giorgio Armani.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, she received the Eugenia Sheppard Award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. She questioned the work and exposed the deal-making of Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.

Lee Alexander McQueen, CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier best known for his in-depth knowledge of bespoke British tailoring, his tendency to juxtapose strength with fragility in his collections, as well as the emotional power and raw energy of his provocative fashion shows.^[opinion] He is also known for having worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and for founding his own Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003.

Born on 17 March 1969 in Lewisham, London, to Scottishtaxi driver Ronald and social science teacher Joyce, McQueen was the youngest of six children. He grew up in a council flat in a tower block in Stratford. He attended Carpenters Road Primary School, started making dresses for his three sisters at a young age, and announced his intention to become a fashion designer.

Sarah Burton (née Heard, born 1974) is an English fashion designer, currently creative director of fashion brand Alexander McQueen. She designed Catherine Middleton's wedding dress for her wedding to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in April 2011.

Burton was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, one of five children of Anthony and Diana Heard. She attended Withington Girls' School in Manchester. After completing an art foundation course at Manchester Polytechnic, and opting to pursue fashion over studies in fine art, she studied Print Fashion at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. During her third year she was interviewed for a year's placement at Alexander McQueen at the suggestion of her tutor Simon Ungless, a friend of McQueen's. She joined the company for a year as an intern, when the company was based in a tiny studio in Hoxton Square.

On graduation in 1997, she joined the company full-time as McQueen's personal assistant. Burton was appointed Head of Womenswear in 2000, during which time she created dresses for Michelle Obama, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga and Gwyneth Paltrow. Following McQueen's death in February 2010, and after company owner Gucci confirmed that the brand would continue, Burton was named as the new creative director of Alexander McQueen in May 2010. In September 2010, Burton presented the first McQueen womenswear collection she had wholly created in Paris.

Christian Dior (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ djɔːʁ]) (21 January 1905 – 23 October 1957) was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.

Christian Dior was born in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, France, the second of the five children of Maurice Dior, a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer (the family firm was Dior Frères), and his wife, the former Isabelle Cardamone. He had four siblings: Raymond (father of Françoise Dior), Jacqueline, Bernard, and Ginette (aka Catherine). When Christian was about five years old, the family moved to Paris, France, but still returned to the Normandy coast for summer vacations.

Dior's family had hopes he would become a diplomat, but Dior was artistic and wished to be involved in fashion. To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about 10 cents each. In 1928, Dior left school and received money from his father to finance a small art gallery, where he and a friend sold art by the likes of Pablo Picasso. Three years later, after the death of Dior's mother and brother and a financial disaster in the family’s fertilizer business, during the Great Depression, that resulted in his father losing control of Dior Frères, the gallery had to be closed. From then until about 1940 he worked with fashion designer Robert Piguet, when he was called up for military service.

Hilary Ann Swank (born July 30, 1974) is an American film actress. She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, as Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry (1999) and as struggling waitress-turned-boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby (2004). She also put in a notable performance in Insomnia, working alongside Al Pacino. Since 2003, Swank has also worked as an executive producer.

Swank was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her mother, Judy Kay (née Clough), was a secretary and dancer, and her father, Stephen Michael Swank, was an officer in the Air National Guard and later a traveling salesman. She has a brother, Daniel, who is eight years her senior. Her surname, originally Schwenk, is of German origin. Many of Swank's family members hail from Ringgold County, Iowa, and her maternal grandmother was of Spanish and Shoshone (Native American) ancestry. After having lived in Spokane, Washington, Swank's family moved to a trailer park near Lake Samish in Bellingham, Washington, when Swank was six.