During the 1960s and 1970s the firm popularized fashion trends such as the beatnik look, tweed suits, tight pants and tall, thigh-high boots, including the creation of arguably the most famous classic tuxedo suit for women in 1966, Le Smoking suit. He is the first to popularize ready-to-wear in an attempt to democratize fashion. He is also the first designer to use black models in his runway shows. Among his muses were Loulou de La Falaise, the daughter of a French marquis and an Anglo-Irish fashion model, Betty Catroux, the half-Brazilian daughter of an American diplomat. Source

Urban Outfitters, Inc. owns and operates three retail clothing brands: Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People. The first store opened in 1970 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focusing on "funky" fashion and household products. Today, the Urban Outfitters line has expanded from vintage, bohemian, retro, ironically humorous, kitschy, and oddly designed apparel and furniture to include many luxury brands such as Lacoste, Evisu, Diesel, True Religion and Seven for All Mankind. Currently headquartered in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Urban operates more than 140 shops in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Source

Liz Claiborne is a Belgian-born fashion designer. She immigrated to the United States in 1939, and was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She attended St. Timothy's, a boarding school then in Catonsville, Maryland. Rather than finishing high school, she went to Europe to study art. In 1949, she won the Jacques Heim National Design Contest, and then moved to New York City where she worked as a sketch artist at the sportswear house Tina Leser. She worked as a designer for Dan Keller and Youth Group Inc., before starting her own design company, Liz Claiborne Inc., in 1976. The firm grew from its origins designing affordable active sportswear for women and is now a multi billion-dollar enterprise. Source

Video: New York Fashion Week 2007 - DKNY Fall Runway Show

Simply stated, DKNY is the energy and spirit of New York. International, eclectic, fun, fast and real. DKNY addresses the real-life needs of people everywhere, from work to weekend, jeans to evening. Both fashionable and friendly, DKNY consistently delivers its unique mix of style around the world.

For any young business woman, Akris, located in Manhattan right off of Madison Avenue, is a stylish new twist on business attire. They have business ensembles with clean lines, gorgeous knit wear and double closure jackets, plus bright jackets and dresses. This New York City fashion boutique has absolutely gorgeous apparel and is perfect for any woman in the business world. You've never seen such elegant clothing gathered into one store. The store is very clean and proper, organized perfectly. The employees are sweet and helpful, very smart and they add to the professional atmosphere of the store. Even if you aren't a business woman, it is a great store for any classy party or gathering you may be going to. Swiss designer Albert Kriemler, designs for the woman’s personality to eclipse her apparel. The styles are mature and elegant representing perhaps the newest trends that will be touching down Spring-Summer 2012. If you feel the need to dress classy, with the small pop of color, and look more professional and smart, look no further. You'll look and feel very business-like and yet for those after hour affairs, you will certainly turn heads.

When shopping for the finest New York City clothing and fashions, one has to take the time to visit one of Manhattan’s most unique and culturally significant apparel stores; Fendi. Originally founded in Rome in 1925, Fendi has undergone a change from a regional fur and leather shop to one of the most sought after clothing and accessories stores in the world. Headlined by creative director Karl Lagerfeld, Fendi has branched into many different forms of fashion and personal wellbeing products, including an extensive line of perfumes and fragrances considered to be illustrious and delectable. While visiting this Manhattan fashion store, make sure you ogle the world famous Fendi baguette, which has been considered one of the finest made handbags throughout the world and is the staple for which Fendi has been founded. With celebrities such as Rihanna, Solange and Kerry Washington wearing this fab label, it is no wonder Fendi’s popularity has continued to grow, attracting thousands of fashion shoppers worldwide. Without a shadow of a doubt, Fendi’s Manhattan clothing emporium is one of the greatest fashion attractions in the world today and is worth every moment and dollar you spend.

Bikinis! Dresses! Jewelry! Oh my! Intermix in Manhattan, located on Madison Avenue, is a trendy and fun store filled to the brim with excellent, high quality clothing. A great store for those looking for the latest trends available, Intermix holds all sorts of designers. 10 Crosby, Fendi, L'Agence, and Valentino are some of the major design houses they carry. Girls all over Manhattan come to this store to either browse and relax or find the perfect piece to wear to an uptown party or event. Very conveniently located, surrounded by many of the most popular stores and right in front of a bus stop. This New York City fashion boutique makes for great walk through window shopping and browsing. A big plus is their separate shoe section! Most Intermix locations have shoes scattered around the store which make it seem cluttered, but this one is much more organized and easier to find that perfect thing you're looking for in a cinch. You'll be the envy of everyone you know if you shop here. They carry the hottest of the hot new styles that will be in and out all Summer 2012, so buy soon!

Ann Taylor stores have nearly 50 years of history providing fashion with great style...feminine, updated, classic sportswear that can take a woman from day into evening. The Ann Taylor collection spans a wide spectrum of clothing and accessories from the most refined to the most casual, appropriate for special occasion, business or casual lifestyle needs

Shopping in Queens for specialty casual apparel and accessories for your teen? How about trendy clothing at competitive prices for your 7-12 year old? If you answered yes to either of these questions then you are fortunate enough to sop your heart out at Queens Aeropostale, a New York City clothing gem and an icon in youthful quality casual clothing that your teen will actually wear. Located on the middle of Queens Boulevard, Aeropostale has raised the bar for young adult fashion by offering high-quality, active-orientated clothing at compelling values. Aeopostale has been able to curb costs and control their brand by designing, sourcing, marketing and selling all of its own merchandise. Aeropostale fashions can only be purchased from their own clothing stores, giving an air of exclusivity to their trendy clothing styles and clients by being one of the few designers to be sole distributors of their own brand. Also known for its in-store atmosphere, they provide a hip ambiance that is cool for kids and enjoyable for adults. Catering to the young at heart, don’t be surprised if you end up selecting a few items for yourself. This Queens clothing store is a must while shopping in New York City.

Fashion on the Avenue of The Americas is best viewed the Old Navy way, a New York City clothing store that expresses the true value of the United States. With its Flagship in Manhattan and over 1000 stores nationwide, Old Navy focuses on the price minded fashion family while promoting a more wholesome and pure fashion clothing line with innovative differences. The Tech Vest, Flip Flops, and the Performance Fleece are all specialty items marketed by Old Navy giving them an advantage in unique fashion shopping that is also practical. In addition to clothing, Old Navy also sells a variety of accessories such as shoes, handbags, toys, hats, and sunglasses, along with a line of clothing and toys for dogs which puts it on a whole new level of shopping from many of its contemporaries. As a subsidiary of Gap Inc, Old Navy continues to strive for the principles that placed the parent company on the map with fantastic fashion, impeccable service and a knack for happy customers. Old Navy is a Manhattan clothing store rich in culture and should definitely be a part of any shopper’s itinerary when they are in the city.

Noted for its quality materials, use of color, and elegant and femininine designs, Escada successfully widened its clientele and by 1981 established a name in many categories of womenswear, specializing in formal wear and knitwear. In 1982, the company opened their first store in the United States on Fifth Avenue in New York City and opened its first store in Asia the following year in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong boutique became a worldwide landmark, marked for its use of gold in the store's design.
Though debuting in America in 1982, Escada did not gain national prominence until 1984 when the leading fashion and women's wear magazine Vogue published an entire edition devoted to promoting Escada. Its worldwide prominence led its 1986 IPO on the FSE to be highly anticipated and Escada's debut on the stock exchange marked the headlines in hundreds of major newspapers worldwide. 30 years later, Escada has established itself as one of the largest fashion houses in the world. Escada?s headquarters are based in Munich, Germany and Escada?s collections are available in nearly 500 locations in 60 countries. In the United States, the company has 16 boutiques in Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas, and Washington. Escada has opened several larger stores carrying various fashion lines including Escada, Escada Sport, and Couture and Accessories. The largest of these stores is located in Vancouver, Canada, and is 16,000 square feet.
Like many fashion houses, Escada also has a line of fragrances for both women and men. Source

Jeffrey is a one-stop, easy shopping experience. The owner, Jeffrey Kalinsky, selects the most exciting pieces that fashion has to offer while emphasizing service. The company defines service as warm, fun, friendly, and educational for the customer. Each associate is trained to be a personal shopper for his/ her client.
Jeffrey likens his store as the perfect closet for any man or woman. Every season, Jeffrey and buyer, David Rubenstein edit each collection to feature the best of the best.
The philosophy of the store, can be summarized as providing the best service and the best product in a fun, positive, upbeat environment.

Salvatore Ferragamo was a 20th century Italian footwear designer, providing Hollywood's glitterati and many others with unique hand-made designs and spawning an emporium of luxury consumer goods for men and women, with stores in some of the most important cities of the world. Ferragamo started his career in California during the 1920s, initially creating specific designs for Hollywood productions. One of his most celebrated pieces are Dorothy's ruby slippers for the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz.
The Company, Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A., founded in 1927, is one of the most prestigious and internationally known luxury brands, with more than 450 stores in over 55 countries. Footwear, handbags and small leather goods, scarves and ties, men's and women's ready to wear, bijoux, watches, fragrances and eyewear are the products created and marketed by Salvatore Ferragamo. Source

The first store was located in Hingham, Massachusetts. During the following year, they established a direct mail service which would originate their catalog service. In 1973, General Mills acquired Talbots. Talbots was listed on the New York Stock Exchange beginning in 1993. Arnold Zetcher is the CEO of Talbots.
At the end of 2005, there were 1,083 stores in the United States, Canada, and the UK, as well as 4 stores in Japan. The company operates a product development office in New York City, a computer center in Tampa, Florida, that changed facilities and moved into its new building on September 5, 2006, and a call center in Knoxville, Tennessee. The corporate headquarters is still in Hingham.
Talbots has an unusually liberal guarantee; the company allows returns of merchandise, for any reason, with no time limit. (Refer to the website talbots.com or any catalogue for statement of the guarantee.)
Talbots has shops, but relies primarily on internet and phone orders. Source

Oscar de la Renta opened its first international stores in Athens and Madrid, and has continued its expansion with the opening of Dubai in 2009. The company plans to open a boutique in Moscow in 2010.

Filene's Basement was founded in Boston in 1908 by Edward A. Filene as a way to sell off excess merchandise from his father's department store upstairs. Before long, other retailers and manufacturers were bringing their unsold goods to him to sell, and the concept of the "off price" store was born.

Ralph J. Lauren was born in the New York City borough of The Bronx to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants Fraydl and Frank Lifshitz, his father was a house painter.
From a very young age, he started working after school to earn money to buy stylish, expensive suits with an early preference for quality over quantity. His attire soon gave him a trendy reputation among his peers. The well-known Calvin Klein, a younger contemporary also lived in the same Bronx neighbourhood. Source

Our very own Kenneth Cole, born in Brooklyn with all the inherent street smarts of a genius New Yorker, this All American designer sold 40,000 pairs of shoes in 2.5 days from a tractor trailer parked in Central Manhattan. All his ingenuity, resourcefulness and innovative thinking has created the Kenneth Cole leather and fashion clothing sensation of today. Using the finest leathers and designing for quality first, trend second, the Cole brand is rapidly becoming a standard by which other designers are measured. His success over 30 years is legendary and his Spring Summer 2012 collection is as fresh as ever. Luxuriant leathers, sleek clothing and trend-setting casuals for men and women, if you want to turn heads, make sure you reserve a handsome portion of your personal and corporate budget for for styling yourself for success with scrumptious purses, laptop bags and briefcases and fun with his full line of quality footwear and clothing. No longer selling out of the back of a truck, his designs and quality have only improved over the years as he has gathered his international clientele. Sales associates are discreet, polite, attentive and well trained – a pleasure to shop in his elegant Soho store.

After traveling to India in the early '70s, Ferré dove into fashion, first with accessories, and later, launching his own label, Baila, in 1974. Signature women's and men's collections soon followed, and Ferré stepped onto the field of high fashion with the debut of his couture line in 1986. He took his philosophy to the house of Christian Dior, where he was stylistic director from 1989 to 1997. Still influenced by his first trips to Asia, Ferré's designs display an East-meets-West aesthetic that vehemently rejects trends and gimmicks, concentrating instead on a relaxed sophistication and casual elegance.

If you ever find yourself in Manhattan, looking for something unique and different to wear for Spring-Summer 2012, stop into Etro right off of Madison Avenue. Probably the most interesting clothing store you'll find yourself in with their colorful, visually daring dresses. If you really want to stand out in a crowd, this would be the perfect place to go. From formal attire with a beautiful Italian twist to almost spunky men's accessories, they have a grand selection. You truly have to have a need to stand out if you shop here. The employees mirror the interesting and colorful style of the store, some of them dressing in bright red corduroy trousers with rainbow striped shirts. Don't let their colorful clothing scare you off, however. The employees are some of the most friendly and are exceptionally helpful. The store holds a great reputation as a fashion destination for jet-setters and celebrities alike. If you feel as though you're getting lost in a sea of colors and bold patterns, worry not. The colorful and trendy accessories will lead you all the way up to the register and leave you wanting to come back again and again.

The Missoni boutique, located in Manhattan off of Madison Avenue, is a rather popular store, garnering plenty of attention with their vivid colors and unmistakable prints. Shocking blue dresses with strong brown compliments, bright yellows gently calmed with clean whites, even their most creative combinations seem to blend and contrast to create a gorgeous color pallet on their selections. The Summer 2012 collection is a perfect example of the uniqueness of the store. The brilliantly sophisticated collection is a massive favorite amongst the women of New York, as they rush to buy the dresses. For those interested in a little something for those summer getaways or parties, Missoni has an impressive swim suit collection that doesn't skip out on the fabulous summer fun color choices. The quality of the clothing is superb, all that we have come to expect in the best Italian designers. This vastly unique store is well put together, clean and alive with happy, helpful employees. The location is grand, in the middle of so many other top fashion houses, but still standing out amongst the crowd. A truly unique shopping experience that will keep you coming back again and again for more.

Victoria's secret is a specialty retailer of women's intimate apparel. It has about 1,000 Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and 100 stand-alone Victoria's Secret Beauty Stores in the US, mostly mall-based. It sells bras, panties, hosiery, beauty products, sleepwear, and more. Victoria's Secret mails more than 400 million of its catalogs per year.
Victoria's Secret decidedly built its image with a fairly conservative, middle-class shopper in mind and avoided any connotations of sleaziness which lingerie might carry.
The company gained notoriety in the early 1990s after it began to use supermodels in its advertising and fashion shows. Throughout the past decade, it refused to follow the celebrity trend, turning down at least one celebrity a month begging to model the brand. Source

In addition to its heritage as a leather goods firm, Longchamp has cultivated a devoted following and brand that is now known for its designs. Venturing into partnerships with notable designers, artists and celebrities has seen the likes of Thomas Heatherwick design Longchamp's SoHo boutique, and Tracey Emin and model Kate Moss create special collections. Moss has also appeared in a number of Lonchamp advertising campaigns. Source: en.wikipedia.org

Founded by Donald and Doris Fisher as a small San Francisco based clothing store with just a handful of employees, Gap has turned into one of the world’s most recognizable and prestigious clothing store brands. A visit to New York City’s Gap is like a visit to Starbucks – just say when. With its Manhattan clothing store, The Gap has solidified itself as a staple of the New York fashion scene and offers a vast selection of must-have uptown apparel . Along with the Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta are all labels available through Gap retailers and covers all ages and styles of fashion, clothing and accessories. Celebrity endorsements from Whoopi Goldberg, Spike Lee and Lorraine Bracco, to name a few, have brought The Gap to the masses and has forever made it part of Americana. Even today, Gap continues its dominance of the fashion industry as it continues to be recognized as the US’s largest specialty apparel retailer and keeps its hand on the pulse of the fashion world. For awesome gifts, family friendly atmospheres and an overall great shopping experience make Manhattan’s Gap one of the stores you visit in the New York fashion scene.

From the beaches of California to the busy streets of New York, Pacsun has established itself as a distinctive and innovative New York City clothing store that embraces its west coast roots and shares it with an East Coast lifestyle. Located in Elhurst, Pacsun is far more than a traditional Queens clothing store; it is a status symbol of a lifestyle not readily available in the New York clothing scene. Offering much more than surfboards and board wax, Pacsun’s reached out into the entire youth culture and now offers a full line of casual and active sport apparel. Men’s wear, women’s wear, swimsuits, shoes, denim and of course surf shorts are all part of Pacsun’s unique designer collections that give you quality clothing in a variety of up-to-date fashions. Another interest of note is Pacsun’s dedication to employees by providing extraordinary training and services to ensure that you, the customer, receive the very best NYC shopping experience. Pacsun’s desire is to stay true to their roots in youth culture and offer what’s new now. With their store in Queens they continue to succeed with that mentality and offer a welcome change from the mundane in the fashion world.

Simply elegant. Barbara Bui, combines the simplicity of good design sense with the elegance of her native Paris and catapulted into the hottest fashion markets of the world. Manhattan, Milan, Rodeo Dr, Frand, Italy, Monaco, Lebanon and Russia, just stroll down Prince in Greenwich Village and save the price of jet fuel by shopping in America. White is her basic color palate with ebony incorporated for drama. She excels at adding the jeweled colors of the season. Her Spring Summer 2012 collections radiate with this year’s sunburst yellow and ripe tangerine. Cooling with a bit of fresh live green, Bui designs to enhance a woman’s beauty by making the deceptive simple elegance a canvass for a woman’s natural grace. In fact, if Grace Kelly were alive today, she would be all over Barbara Bui’s clean and flowing garb, especially the gorgeous gowns that fall to the floor in perfect symmetry. Gowns, suits, tops , skirts, pants, knitwear, casual, formal, bags to make you whimper and shoes to incite passion, browse through all her accessories and shop wisely. Once you wear a Barbara Bui original, New York City shopping will have a whole new meaning for you.