Helmut Lang

Helmut Lang, a self-taught Austrian, set up a made-to-measure studio in Vienna in 1977 and showed his label in Paris from 1986, and his razor-sharp minimalism of the 1990s, slim black tailoring, bondage straps and reflective strips, made him one of the decade's defining designers. In 1998 he became the first to show a collection online rather than on a runway. Lang left the company in 2005 to work as an artist; the label, owned by Uniqlo's parent Fast Retailing since 2009, has since had a series of designers, most recently Peter Do.