We found Business Week’s Most Powerful People in Fashion. They highlight 10 fashion innovators who are out to change the world. (They profiled two people in one, so technically 11 people.) About half the people on the list are Asian. Take a look at the list below.
Phillip Lim
High-profile designer Lim uses all-organic cotton and sustainable silk to make the gowns and coats in his Go Green Go label, bringing eco-chic to consumers and showing that high fashion can be earth-friendly, too.
Yeohlee Teng
Teng pushes the boundaries of fashion design by using high-performance materials—such as cotton blends that resist spills—in her hip, elegant clothes. But Teng doesn’t use these fabrics as a gimmick; she uses the materials as inspiration for the shapes and styles of the garments, putting function before form.
Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara
The cutting-edge Japanese designers continue to experiment with a proprietary software-driven design process that weaves entire pieces of clothing with no sewing necessary. Although not yet mainstream, their “A-POC” (an acronym for “A Piece of Clothing”) process could conceivably transform garment manufacturing.
Vivienne Tam
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) enlisted Tam as a high-fashion partner this year. The company asked the New York-based designer to help develop a small notebook computer aimed at women. Tam didn’t just pretty it up with exterior graphics; she also designed interface elements. In New York, she sent models down the runway holding the computer as a clutch bag.
Vivienne Tam talks backstage at 2009 New York Fashion Week