Fashion Icons

David Lee Csicsko is an award-winning artist and designer. As a young artistic child, he dreamed of traveling to Paris, illustrating books, living the artist’s life, and working on fashion projects for Chicago’s famous Marshall Fields department store. And as a young man, he did. His shopping bags for Bloomingdale’s are part of the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. He currently designs very collectible and reusable shopping bags for Mariano’s grocery stores in Chicago. David’s lively illustrations can also be seen in LGBTQ+ Icons, Science People, and Iconic Composers, the first three books of the People Series. He lives in Chicago, IL. Gillion Carrara is a Professor Adjunct in the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art institute of Chicago. In her studies, her focus is on contemporary and avant-garde fashion and dress, art, literature, and sociology. Until 2017, she was the founding Director of the Fashion Resource Center, and built a collection of contemporary and avant-garde fashion, publications and various media. She actively writes book and exhibition reviews for publication, presents lectures locally and nationally, attends costume symposiums and was on the Board of Costume Colloquium, Florence, Italy, until it's conclusion in 2020 and is a current member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). She lives in Chicago, IL.

Featured designers include Jeanne-Marie Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Paul Poiret, Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Cristobal Balenciaga, Ann Lowe, Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, Hubert de Givenchy, Sonia Rykiel, Halston, Valentino Garavani, Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Azzedine Alaia, Yves Saint-Laurent, Issey Miyake, Vivienne Westwood, Rei Kawakubo, Stephen Burrows, Yohji Yamamoto, Gianni Versace, Miuccia Prada, Franco Moschino, Jean Paul Gaultier, Martin Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana, Ann Demuelemeester, Isabel & Ruben Toledo, John Galliano, Junya Watanabe, Alber Elbaz, Tom Ford, Rick Owens, Marc Jacobs, Thom Browne, Duro Olowu, Hedi Slimane, Alexander McQueen, Viktor Horstling & Rolf Snoeren, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Stella McCartney, Rabih Kayrouz, Phoebe Philo, Kate & Laura Mulleavy, Virgil Abloh, Simone Rocha, Kerby Jean-Raymond