Women's Fashion Brands L

Welcome to the L section of the Women's Fashion Brands directory. In this area of the fashion brand directory you will find women's fashion brands from leading apparel companies and fashion designers that begin with the letter L: 22 brand profiles in all, gathered in the grid below, from L.A. Gear to Lucky Brand. L is one of the directory's heavyweight letters - it holds the inventor of blue jeans, the French house of the crocodile and its American tiger challenger, a trunk maker that became the world's defining luxury house, the first woman-founded Fortune 500 company, and the Maine boot that has not changed since 1912.

If you know of an important women's fashion brand that begins with the letter L and is not listed in this section, please let us know. And if you prefer to search by clothing category rather than by a specific clothing brand, the Clothes Guide linked from this page organises the same wardrobe by garment instead of by name. Every profile in this letter gives the brand's facts directly - founding dates, ownership changes and the founders' own words - with shopping guidance built around them. Two profiles are short by nature: LaCrosse, for which no brand history is given, and Lauren Moffatt, a brand for girls filed in this section in error - both stated plainly.

Twenty-Two Brands: Sneakers, Polos, Denim, Trunks and Duck Boots

The letter opens on the sneaker court: L.A. Gear, founded by Robert Greenberg in Los Angeles in 1979, endorsed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Belinda Carlisle, bankrupt in 1998 and returning in comeback attempts under ACI International. Lacoste follows - René Lacoste and André Gillier, 1933, the crocodile that was the founder's nickname, the Izod years and separation, and the November 2012 Maus Frères buyout - and its challenger Le Tigre arrives later in the letter with a leaping tiger from 1977. Between them sit LaCrosse, the directory's footwear name with no recorded brand history, and Lady Enyce, the women's line of the New York hip hop label founded in March 1996 and later held by Liz Claiborne and Sean Combs. Lands' End brings the sailor Gary Comer's Dodgeville casual classics, Lane Bryant the plus-size leadership of fashion and fit with its Cacique intimates exclusive inside the Ascena family, and La Perla the Bologna corsetry of Ada Masotti, the 1954 'golden scissors' whose house Silvio Scaglia's Pacific Global Management bought at auction in June 2013.

The middle of the letter is tailored and technical: Larry Levine's 1951 coat-and-suit label, sold in virtually every American clothing store by the mid-sixties; Lauren Moffatt, a girls' brand filed here in error, pointing to the Spring 2015 Pepin collaboration; L'eggs, Hanes' 1969 pantyhose in the famous egg, with its six lines from Everyday to Silken Mist; and the denim pair - Lee, first produced in Salina, Kansas in 1889 and now VF Corporation's fit-breadth womenswear line, and Levi's, where Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis combined copper rivets with tough denim in 1873 and the world learned the words blue jeans. Life is Good spreads Boston optimism, Lilly Pulitzer's Palm Beach shift invents American Resort Wear under the Queen of Prep, and the Liz pair divides by life stage: Liz Claiborne, founded 1976, first woman-founded Fortune 500 company in 1986, JCPenney-exclusive from 2009 and renamed away to Kate Spade & Company by 2014; Liz Lange, whose 1997 one-room office pioneered maternity chic and licensed with Nike and Target.

L closes outdoors and at the summit of luxury. L.L. Bean's duck boots - Leon Leonwood Bean's 1911 answer to cold, damp feet, sewn in Maine one pair at a time - anchor a century timeline running through the 1924 Field Coat, the 1934 Zipper Duffle, the 1951 Ladies' Department and the 1965 Norwegian Sweater. London Fog, founded as Londontown in 1923 by Israel Myers, brings the DuPont water-repellent partnership, the first removable liner and a World War II record making waterproof clothing for the United States Navy. Louis Garneau, the 1984 Olympic cyclist's Quebec company, is the oldest custom cycling clothing maker in North America; Louis Vuitton, founded 1854 with its Asnières atelier still crafting since 1859 and Georges Vuitton's 1886 Tumbler Lock, is the letter's luxury summit; and Lucky Brand, hand-wringing vintage-inspired jeans in Los Angeles since 1990 with two four-leaf clovers and a LUCKY YOU! on every fly shield, closes the letter in bohemian denim.

The profiles link onward - to the brands' official sites in each profile's references, to the Levi's study details of Big E tabs and arcuate stitching, to the Liz Claiborne company's news, financial and careers coverage, to the LaCrosse brand news file, and across the directory to popular brands, designers, retail and wholesale guides - woven into the copy or listed under More to Explore. Twenty-two brands spanning 1853 to 1996, a crocodile and a tiger, an egg and a duck boot, a trunk lock and a pair of four-leaf clovers make L the fullest single letter in the women's brands directory so far.