Fashion Designers: E

The fashion designer directory in this section is set up in alphabetical order, and the designers are listed by their first name. On this page you will find designers whose first name starts with the letter E — a short letter with an outsized record, running from two of the most original women in fashion history to the founders of major Italian houses. Use the directory list directly below to reach each designer's guide pages.

This section does not contain every fashion designer in the world. The designers here are some of the more famous ones, selected because they are believed to be the developers of famous brands; other clothing designers may be better, but these are the names this letter of the directory follows. Additional designers can be found in the Designer Directory, linked in the references.

Illustrative image created for this guide — an artistic impression, not this designer's own garments.

The E Designers at a Glance

Two of this letter's designers have multi-page records in this part of the guide, and both are named Elsa. Elsa Peretti, the Florence-born jewelry designer who moved to New York in 1968, designed jewelry for Halston, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo and Tiffany & Co. before her sculptural sterling silver designs — necklaces, cuffs and pendants in organic, fluid forms — made her one of the defining jewelers of her time; her series here runs to five pages across a fashion main page, a jewelry main page, collections, news and profiles. Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973), the Italian couturier regarded with her great rival Coco Chanel as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars, built her Paris house on knitwear and surrealist collaboration with Salvador Dalí and Alberto Giacometti; her series runs to eight pages, with the runway and spring pages completing it.

The letter's other three names lead major Italian houses and follow in this guide's later pages. Emanuel Ungaro carries the Paris couture tradition of vivid color and print. Emilio Pucci built a Florentine house on swirling printed jersey that became a byword for resort elegance. Ermenegildo Zegna founded the house that turned a family's textile mill into one of the world's leading menswear names. Each is linked from the directory list at the top of this page to their guide pages.

How This Directory Works

Listing designers by first name is this directory's standing convention, and it produces instructive accidents: the two Elsas sit side by side here although half a century and an entire design philosophy separate a surrealist couturier from a minimalist jeweler, while houses better known by a surname — Pucci, Zegna, Ungaro — are filed under the Christian names their founders actually answered to. Readers looking for a house rather than a person should follow the directory list links, which lead to each designer's own pages regardless of the name they searched by.

Every letter of the alphabet has a list page like this one, linked in the directory list and in the references below, so the full directory can be browsed letter by letter. For the complete designer directory — including designers filed under other conventions — the Designer Directory and the designers-by-name index are linked in the references as well.