WWD: The 100th Anniversary Issue

WWD chronicled labor disputes and tragedies that led to the formation of a Joint Board of Sanitary Control and the American Society of Safety Engineers.

WWD reported the opening of the Lord & Taylor store on Fifth Avenue in 1914, while the debut of Saks & Company’s Fifth Avenue location came six years later.

Considered a daringly modern designer in his time, Paul Poiret cultivated a lifestyle brand by offering furniture and fragrance with his fashions.

In covering the tragedy, WWD focused on its impact on the fashion industry, including the fate of Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s, who was onboard.

Flappers embraced a look and a sexual freedom that infiltrated the mainstream, while teens adopted a younger, aspirational version, angering parents.

Though Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel trailblazed on a number of fronts, her empire initially hinged on the use of jersey fabric, igniting the craze that followed.

WWD closely followed the fashions of tennis players and the larger trend toward more active living, which translated to sportier clothing and even eveningwear.

The Garment Center was born on New York’s Lower East Side but made a permanent move to Midtown Manhattan after controversy and aggressive organizing.

WWD covered the beginnings of the hair color industry after L’Oréal invented hair dye in 1909, with ad campaigns by Clairol appearing in the Sixties.

WWD put an optimistic spin on the Wall Street crisis of 1929, reporting on increased sales, strong demand and “splendid” retail opportunity.

WWD first reported on gender-bending trends in 1931 in Paris, which soon trickled to Hollywood, with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich leading the pack.

WWD breathlessly followed the coupling of King Edward and Bessie Wallis Simpson and the fashion industry frenzy that resulted dubbed the “Simpsonitis” epidemic.

The early influence of Hollywood on fashion, and vice versa, began when motion pictures such as Peter Pan and That Royle Girl partnered with designers.

Max Factor changed beauty rituals forever by bringing eye shadow and eye pencils to the masses in 1914, and inventing lip gloss and false eyelashes.

WWII marked an era of sartorial austerity when the enactment of Law 85 restricted the use of silk, cotton, nylon and wool and regulated business practices.

Christian Dior’s debut collection was anchored in two new skirt silhouettes, a mid-calf length for daytime and an ankle-length “for restaurant dining.”

WWD covered the inclusion and evolution of hats in women’s wear, from Diane Keaton’s boyish bowler in Annie Hall to Jacqueline Kennedy’s famous pillbox hat.

American sportswear owes much to Claire McCardell, who favored a smart approach to style and worked chic, practical pieces into day and eveningwear.

Estée Lauder transformed American fragrance in 1953 when, in a provocative advertisement, she introduced her Youth Dew—a perfume that doubled as a bath oil.

The two-piece swimsuit became more mainstream as designers Louis Réard, Jacques Heim and Rudi Gernreich continued to modernize them.

The Fendi “Baguette” made its debut in 1997, launching the “It” bag era as we know it, though Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton started the trend in the Fifties.

The prevalence of television viewing in the Fifties shed new light on TV personalities and actors, who wanted to look their best in black-and-white.

In August 1969, revelers of the counterculture gathered at Woodstock in fashions that included bell-bottoms, caftans and lots of skin.

Emboldened by women’s liberation, women ditched their brassieres in droves in the late Sixties, and the braless look became popular.

Organized crime has played a significant role in the business of Seventh Avenue. In 1977, WWD ran a series titled “The Mafia: SA’s Silent Partner.”

Seattle was home to the first suburban shopping mall in 1950, before the phenomenon took hold across the country.

In 1967, Ralph Lauren started selling ties out of borrowed showroom space. Now, the self-made billionaire sits atop an enormous global lifestyle empire.

A master of cut and construction, Cristobal Balenciaga made countless contributions to fashion—the cocoon coat, the balloon jacket, the sack dress and so on.

Christian Dior debuted a dramatic silhouette in 1947, highlighting cone-shaped busts and wasp waists—perfect for the era’s buxom babes like Marilyn Monroe.

The fashion industry discovered African-American culture and style in the Seventies, popularizing black models and looks like platform shoes.

Art has captured fashion’s every nuance, first with stylized illustrations, then with professional photography and now with images captured on digital devices.

An earlier adopter of licensing, Pierre Cardin has been adorning ties, fragrances, flatware and more with his name since the Sixties.

Since the Sixties, WWD’s photographers have captured the well-dressed socialites who meet for a midday excuse to show off their latest fashions.

Richard Gere dresses in a sharp Giorgio Armani suit for his role as a male prostitute in American Gigolo, helping to catapult the Italian designer to fame.

Five years before astronauts reached the moon, designers were getting into the Space Age groove by creating cheeky interpretations of outer-space chic.

Truman Capote hosted his famous Black and White Ball in November 1966, and the gala remains famous still for its ultra-exclusive guest list.

Season after season, Saint Laurent treated the fashion world to his imagination, most notably his collection in April 1977, which WWD rewarded with five stars.

Jacqueline Kennedy elevated the nation’s capital to an international epicenter of chic and later popularized the still-trendy oversize sunglasses.

WWD first reported on fashion inspired by punk rock music in December 1977, a look heavy with safety pins and?studs that remains fashionable today.

A 1973 tête-à-tête among five American and five French designers at the famous palace led to a rethinking of fashion stereotypes.

The Seventies saw the rise of pricy designer denim, with labels like Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt and even Studio 54 cashing in on the trend.

Founded in 1976, Liz Claiborne’s sportswear company was among the most successful apparel firms in the world, boasting quality and affordability.

Discotheques were the place to revel the night away for stars in the late Seventies. The energy was universal, and the famous clubs became hotbeds of style.

The trend of women wearing sneakers for commutes originated with the NYC transit strike in April 1980, when the city’s professional women hoofed it.

From Love Story to The Getaway, actress Ali MacGraw was one of the style icons of the Seventies with her fresh-faced bohemian beauty, knit cap and all.

Halston truly owned the Seventies. Despite his spare, straightforward style, he was synonymous with all things glamorous in the Disco Age.

Starting in 1983, Karl Lagerfeld redefined all notions of the role of the employee designer, clocking 16-hour days and reinvigorating the classic brand.

Beginning with monogrammed Vuitton and Gucci bags in the Seventies, the status-driven logo craze among shoppers was ignited by exterior brand labels.

The infamous 1980 jean campaign starring a young Brooke Shields kicked off a long career of provocation for Calvin Klein.

WWD editors were fascinated by the collections shown by avant-garde Japanese designers to Paris in 1981, though their reviews were not always kind.

Dubbed by WWD in 1986 as the “twerps,” a radical wave of designers including Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten emerged out of Antwerp, Belgium.

Madonna’s look has transformed faster than fans can keep up—not that they really stood a chance once she donned Jean Paul Gaultier’s infamous cone bra.

Millard “Mickey” Drexler has a knack for creative brand building and is credited with transforming both Gap and J. Crew into hot, innovative labels.

Former First Lady Nancy Regan was something of a fashion icon in the years before and during her turn in the White House, but she was not without controversy.

For 22 years, Kelly Gray served as the face of her parent’s luxury brand, St. John, a tradition of glamorous ad campaigns that earned her a fierce following.

Headbands, legwarmers and off-the-shoulder tops became fashion classics in the Eighties thanks to Jane Fonda, Olivia Newton-John and Jennifer Beals.

With help from designers Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana, exaggerated shoulders and an itty-bitty waist defined the look of the Eighties power woman.

The Eighties came to be known as the bad hair decade thanks to everyone who teased, twisted and generally tortured their hair into gravity-defying styles.

Yves Saint Laurent’s launch of Opium in 1977 was a watershed moment for the fragrance industry, and the tide of designer fragrance has risen ever since.

WWD came up with the moniker the Nouvelle Society era to describe the infamous Eighties social scene dominated by financial titans and their clotheshorse wives.

The opening of Ralph Lauren’s Rhinelander flagship paved the way for other American designers to adopt the European tradition of freestanding stores.

After creating the pouf dress that dazzled the fashion world in the mid-Eighties, Christian Lacroix now has no part in the licensing group that bears his name.

Hip-hop-influenced fashion ruled the runways in the early Nineties, with Chanel’s Nouveau Rapper collection and the DKNY fly girls both exemplifying the trend.

The Fendis, Missonis and Ferragamos are only a few of the Italian families that have passed their companies down from generation to generation.

Since 1988, Miuccia Prada has reinvented herself time and time again—often changing course 180 degrees from one season to the next.

In 1998, Helmut Lang bumped up the date of his upcoming spring show, prompting the rescheduling of New York’s Fashion Week from last to first.

Though not the first celebrity with a perfume, Elizabeth Taylor wrote the rule book for the celebrity fragrances genre following her 1987 launch, Passion.

By the time “AIDS” entered the lexicon, the fashion world was already fighting against the disease. Here, Perry Ellis, whose death was a call to action.

From his breakout collection for fall 1995 to his final, breathtaking Gucci outing in fall 2004, Tom Ford held the fashion world in thrall.

Long before he became a pop culture phenomenon, Marc Jacobs’ most notorious moment came from his watershed grunge collection for Perry Ellis.

Stephen Sprouse became downtown Manhattan’s “It” boy, merging New York punk and high fashion and kick-starting trends that defined much of the Eighties.

The spring 1997 couture season proved a milestone moment after the Chambre Syndicale opened up the couture ranks to ready-to-wear designers.

The shocking murder of Gianni Versace, who was gunned down in front of his home in South Beach in 1997, reverberated around the globe.

Since its launch in 1985, Donna Karan’s signature line of jersey bodysuits and mix-and-match pieces has fit her lifelong “woman-to-woman” mantra.

With Diane von Furstenberg paving the way in the Seventies, American women designers took aim at a new customer: a working, professional female.

Though they offered very different takes on chic, Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass became linked in the communal fashion psyche in the extravagant Eighties.

The Nineties ushered in the era of the supermodel, who dominated not only fashion runways but magazines and print and TV ad campaigns.

Investors went crazy over initial public offerings from marquee fashion brands in the mid-Nineties.

MTV, launched in 1981, promised a 24-hour diet of music television, feeding the nation’s living rooms a constant stream of fashionable stars in stylish videos.

Hunger for acquisitions sent Robert Campeau, a developer with grand plans for malls, on a department store buying spree, a move that soon went bust.

From Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli to Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, the fashion industry is no stranger to the occasional dispute.

Designers of a sportswear mind-set, like Michael Kors and Christophe Decarnin, redefined the luxury market in the Nineties and Aughts.

Demi Moore’s 1989 Oscar gown fiasco inspired starlets who came after her to bet on pretty-but-safe numbers.

Before her rise to pop diva, Lady Gaga was just another aspiring artist. WWD put her on the front page of the August 13, 2007, issue.

After an extravagant 45th anniversary celebration in 2007, Valentino offered his final famous runway wave at his fall 2008 couture show in Paris.

In the modeling world, what constitutes “thin” has fluctuated; curvier models were phased out after Kate Moss triggered the waif trend—and a media backlash.

The pace of economic globalization has accelerated since the Nineties, with fashion houses taking their first big steps in emerging markets.

Sometime around 2005, designers turned sadistic into sartorial chic. Spikes, studs and impossibly high heels became the go-to in runway footwear.

Fashion Week celebrity gawking took over runway admiring. The circus-like pandering became such that it took away from the real focus: the clothes.

From J. Crew to Jason Wu, First Lady Michelle Obama established herself as a woman who wanted to use fashion to make an impact.

Since taking the reins at American Vogue in 1988, Anna Wintour has drastically transformed the fashion industry and the parameters of a magazine editor.

The past decade saw an explosion of talented newcomers. The likes of Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and Alexander Wang offer a glimpse of what the future holds.

Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani ignited a craze of celebrity designers in the fashion scene in 2003, with many others following their lead.

Designers Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin became household names after the Sex and the City cast catapulted them to cultlike status.

High-end designers capitalized on public demand by putting their names on accessibly priced fashion.

Pair the right designer with the right house and sparks can fly, as Alber Elbaz, Nicolas Ghesqiuère, Riccardo Tisci, Phoebe Philo and Tomas Maier have proven.

In 2000, Dior’s John Galliano presented one of the most controversial shows ever staged: a haute couture collection inspired by Paris’ homeless population.

Instead of covering what should have been the third day of New York Fashion Week, reporters immersed themselves in the terrorist attacks.

Social media sped up the fashion world and made it more democratic. Now it was possible for anyone to publish a blog and develop an audience.

Alexander McQueen is remembered as showman, storyteller and designer who made his entire career a fashion moment.