CANDY WASHINGTON

WRITER | PRODUCER | ACTOR | MANIFESTATION + SELF-LOVE MUSE

From Beckham to Loren, Our Favorite “Fashion Week Fashion Icons” of All Time!

Candy WashingtonComment

Hi lovelies,

From New York Fashion Week to Paris and Milan, the almighty Fashion Week has inspired and thrilled in equal measure and with so many celebrities turning up throughout the years, we've decided it is time to list some of our favorites; who are the most stylish, who has made the biggest impact, and who has transcended style and time to be the most stylish bystanders of fashion weeks across the globe? 

Lady Gaga
Is she the style icon of Our Time? Maybe. Lady Gaga has never been afraid to mix fashion with a statement. While we can always talk about her choices on the red carpets, in fact, when it comes to fashion events, jewelry worn by Lady Gaga has always been the subtle talking point. But that's not to say she hasn't made the biggest impact. Back in 2011, she was dressed in latex, and premiered her song “Government Hooker” at stylist Nicola Formichetti’s Mugler womenswear debut. 

Madonna
We can't do this list without the natural precursor to Lady Gaga. Madonna has never been short of controversy in her time, and back in September 1992, she was making headlines for all the right and wrong reasons. During John Paul Gaultier’s Paris runway, Madonna made a cameo that brought even more attention, wearing an LBD and boots combo, but topless. One of the pivotal fashion show moments of all time!

Audrey Hepburn
The notion of titillation is far easier to talk about, especially as the bar continues to be raised, but we've got to go back to the style icons before shock and awe came into play. Audrey Hepburn is one of the biggest style icons of all time. And in April 1983, when she joined Hubert de Givenchy on the runway of his 30th-anniversary fashion show, this was the first instance of designer and muse making their appearance on the catwalk. This set an impossibly high standard for the subsequent duos down the years. And at the age of 53, Hepburn looked absolutely stunning.

Victoria Beckham
The amount of designers she has inspired in her wake goes on forever, but if we have to trace it back to one pivotal moment in the fashion world, it was in February 2000 when she strode on to the stage at the Maria Grachvogel show in London, wearing the green hotpants and high-neck top with knee-high boots that marked her debut and left the biggest impression on us all. And when she made her transition from Posh Spice to fashion designer, in September 2008, when she sent her first collection of dresses down the New York Fashion Week runway, highlighted her as a force to be reckoned with. With a sophisticated cut and fix, Victoria Beckham grew her dress capsule into a collection that has been hard to beat.

Gwen Stefani
Is there anything she can't do? Cast your mind back to September 2005, when she made her mark on Fashion Week with her L.A.M.B. line of clothing. This is when she truly made her leap from indie girl to cross-over fashion icon! Her style incorporated a lot of the classical elements, with a tiny amount of bling for good show!

Beth Ditto
It's so easy to focus on the traditional and more svelte fashion icons, but for Marc Jacobs's spring 2016 fashion show, in September 2015, he enlisted the frontwoman of The Gossip to close the show, which sparked a whole heap of conversation about body diversity within the fashion industry. The moment where plus-size fashion went overground was right here!

Paris and Nicky Hilton
Before anybody talks about the Kardashians as the first reality fashion icons, we've got to go all the way back to February 2001. Of the many celebrity guests at Sean “Puffy” Combs Sean John fashion show, the seeds of fashion and reality show stars being intertwined were right here. In matching dresses, the future reality stars were the talk of the event. This certainly paved the way for bolder and braver reality stars to flaunt their stuff, but this was where it all began!

Sophia Loren
Before the Hiltons made their first appearance at the front row of Fashion Week, the seeds were sown for stars and their pet dogs with this starlet. In February 1963, Sophia Loren brought her little pup along to Christian Dior’s Paris show, causing a whole slew of imitators decades later.

Fashion week inspires a whole stream of imitators, fosters relationships between designer and muse, and has been the place for anybody to make their mark. Are these the most iconic? Maybe, maybe not. But these are certainly moments that have been talked about!