10 Dresses That Changed Fashion

From Princess Diana's wedding dress and Versace's safety-pin number to Jagger's Stones In The Park dress and Keira Knightley's Atonement gown, we have edited the dresses that were groundbreaking, shocking or simply captured a moment in time – THESE are the 10 dresses that really changed the fashion industry forever...





1. Alexander McQueen's No.13
The finale of McQueen's spring/summer 1999 show has already gone down in history as one of the most beautiful, innovative and high concept fashion moments of all time. The simple white dress worn by model Shalom Harlow was spray painted by two robots as she stood on a rotating platform and the robots took an entire week to programme. Pure poetry.

2. The Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian Dress

The iconic dress from YSL's autumn/winter 1965 collection was inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. The idea of a wool shift dress printed with block primary colours was quickly copied on the high street and became the look of the sixties. It's the piece the designer is still best known for. 

3. Diane Von Furstenberg's Wrap Dress

The iconic wrap dress was created in 1974. It was the dress that really launched DVF's career and by 1976 she had sold over a million of her signature dresses, causing Newsweek to label her 'the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel.' High praise, indeed. 

4. The Hervé Léger Bandage Dress
One of the sexiest dresses of all time, over 20 years have passed since the bandage dress first burst onto the fashion scene and it's now synonymous with the designer's name. Sexy, classy and incredibly flattering. A style triumph.

5. Geri Halliwell's Union Jack Dress
Love it or hate it, the image of Ginger Spice strutting her stuff at the 1997 BRIT Awards is forever burned onto our retinas. Made at the last minute from a tea towel, it's almost become more famous than the Spice Girl herself. Almost.

6. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's Narciso Rodriguez Wedding Dress
Carolyn asked pal Narciso Rodriguez (who was working at Cerruti at the time) to design the bias-cut gown she wore to marry JFK Jr. in 1996. It took two three-hour couture fittings in Paris and an estimated $40,000 but the outcome was a simple and sensuous dress that helped set the tone for the '90s.

7. Audrey Hepburn's Givenchy Dress
It may be obvious to mention Hepburn's Breakfast At Tiffany's dress, but there is no denying what an impact it had. Hubert de Givenchy had been dressing Hepburn since 1953, but it was the creation featured in the 1961 movie that went on to become the most infamous little black dress in fashion and one of the most iconic looks in the history of film.

8. The Bias-Cut Dress
The bias-cut dress was developed in 1927 by Madeleine Vionette when she developed the new technique of cutting across the grain of fabric. By 1930, Hollywood designers had fallen in love with the cut and had made it into a real trend.

9. Mary Katrantzou's 'Room' Collection
Katrantzou's spring 2011 collection was genius. Having a lampshade for a skirt? Inspired. The range of dresses also solidified the digital print trend that she helped to create.

10. Marilyn Monroe's 'Happy Birthday Mr President' Dress
The sequin-encrusted dress the Hollywood bombshell wore to sing to Happy Birthday to JFK was so tight it was said she had to be sewn into it by her assistants (although we think we can see a zip there). The white halterneck she wore in The Seven Year Itch is arguably more famous, but we think her glittering column gown was more worthy of this list... it was a shocking, sensuous tease to lover JFK and the Kennedy clan. It eventually sold at auction in New York for $1.26 million.