Designer Ratings

[Faust]

I thought this could be a fun exercise and guaranteed send sparks flying.

Method: tiered ratings - tear 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Criteria: Meritocracy!!! What do I mean by that? A maybe somewhat vague combination of talent, creativity, fantasy, and the overall impact on fashion (I would put less weight on the latter).
NOT criteria: shit that makes you look good and all goth ninja. Let's make this serious. I wouldn't want to see 100 Poell/Rick Owens posts.
Feel free to post random reasons why you think so and so should where you put him/her.

Tier 1

Alexander McQueen (sheer force of his imagination and supreme cutting skills gets him a tier of his own)

Tier 2

Junya Watanabe (master engineer)
Hussein Chalayan (the biggest brain in fashion)

These two used to share Tier 1 in my mind with McQueen, but I think they have slipped into a kind of funk in the past year or two.

Tier 3

Yohji Yamamoto (would've been tier 2 two years ago, feel like he's slipping lately)
Ann Demeulemeester (the Queen of her own universe, a true visionary)
Olivier Theyskens (incredible talent hampered by big business)
Martin Margiela (more for his legacy rather than recent work)
Rei Kawakubo (same as the above)
Issey Miyake (same as the above)

Tier 4

Rick Owens (definitely rocks the world hardcore, but too soon to tell whether he will go down in history as one of the greats)
Dries van Noten (beautiful stuff, but somehow feels less relevant than those in tier 3)
Maurizio Altieri (talented, but not influential in the big scheme of things. no biggie)
Carol Christian Poell (same as the above)

Tier 5 (a.ka. various hopefuls)

Jun Takahashi
Bruno Pieters
Anne-Valerie Hash
Haider Ackermann
A.F. Vandevorst

I was most uncomfortable with Altieri and Poell - since they are more artisans, can't quite fit them in anywhere...

[merkuri]

^shit, are we talking men's, women's, all around?

those square-toed dell'aqua looking square toed shoes should have knocked AQ down a half tier maybe.

well, anyway:

tier 1:
MMM
Dries
Junya
mcqueen

tier 2:
rick (who has a more cohesive vision, really?)
raf (am willing to go on history here, and jil women's is stellar)
hussein
yy
ann d
ccp

tier 3:
rei
issey
pieters
zuchelli (use of fabrics might actually make him tier 2)
takahashi
ackerman
altieri

[zamb]

Iwas afraid of this thread because i knew you would put Mcqueen at the top, but only for this season..................

Surely the great Chalayan will rebound!!!!!!

I will edit with my list later.........

[Fade to Black]

this could be a cool exercise...i may have to brood on this a bit before i submit, if i do at all...not sure if my breadth of exposure to each designer is wide enough to put down a well thought out list...interesting to see responses and their variation though.

[lowrey]

aak, I can't do this, theres too many factors and too many ways of viewing it. Raf is a good example, historically he'd rank quite high, but with recent years taken into consideration he wouldn't make it at all because selling out is among the worst offenses. fiddling between consistency/impact and individual achievements / innovation is impossible.

= headexprode

[LupinTheFourth]

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

I tried, can't do it.

The good guys are good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys.
Is it all-time or is it current?
Too much collections and too much history involved.
I'd say new good, older good and old good (+old couture)
(old good = pre-eighties, older good = eighties to mid-nineties, new good = mid-nineties to present)
Fuck there's a lot of great designers.
I will get back to this, when I'm bored.

[zamb]

aak, I can't do this, theres too many factors and too many ways of viewing it. Raf is a good example, historically he'd rank quite high, but with recent years taken into consideration he wouldn't make it at all because selling out is among the worst offenses. fiddling between consistency/impact and individual achievements / innovation is impossible.

= headexprode

thats the beauty of it
trying to place a value on the different aspects of the designers work over the years............what you know, how you felt years ago, and how the work is perceived now.
and when its all done, really asking yourself, if someone should rank lower or higher on the list.................only to realize that one of the more important designers (in Faust case, Ghesquire) is not on the list at all.....................
I am still thinking about mine, will definitely post it later today.

[Fuuma]

We don't include dead people, do we? I mean Chanel or YSL would be alone at the top...

[gerry]

^ Well, if we're even vaguely considering technical ability, YSL wouldn't even be on the list, no?

I think we need to define our criteria more.

To me it's important that the designer in question can do more than smoke pot in Marrakech and appropriate whatever he found there.

I do think influence is important but only if it is related to cultural impact.

I kind of feel like there are categories of designer...

Stylists = Marc, Hedi (feel free to disagree), Karl
Theorists = Margiela, Raf, Rei, Issey
Artists = YSL, Lacroix, Valentino (pretty much everyone who is retired now, I guess...) Poiret
Lifestyle Makers (I really had no idea how to explain this... It's like the clothes they make are just an extension of themselves.) = Yohji, Ann, Chanel
Creators = Junya, McQueen, Vionnet, Gres

I threw in some dead ones because they're easier to categorize.

Just general examples. Again, feel free to disagree.

[zamb]

We don't include dead people, do we? I mean Chanel or YSL would be alone at the top...

Well, the great Cristobal Balenciga would be alone at the top because Chanel, Dior YSL, the all did obeisance to him...............

[merkuri]

i think this is a pretty salient way of looking at this.

^ Well, if we're even vaguely considering technical ability, YSL wouldn't even be on the list, no?

I think we need to define our criteria more.

To me it's important that the designer in question can do more than smoke pot in Marrakech and appropriate whatever he found there.

I do think influence is important but only if it is related to cultural impact.

I kind of feel like there are categories of designer...

Stylists = Marc, Hedi (feel free to disagree), Karl
Theorists = Margiela, Raf, Rei, Issey
Artists = YSL, Lacroix, Valentino (pretty much everyone who is retired now, I guess...) Poiret
Lifestyle Makers (I really had no idea how to explain this... It's like the clothes they make are just an extension of themselves.) = Yohji, Ann, Chanel
Creators = Junya, McQueen, Vionnet, Gres

I threw in some dead ones because they're easier to categorize.

Just general examples. Again, feel free to disagree.

[Heirloom]

HOUSE OF HOLLAND

[lowrey]

I kind of feel like there are categories of designer...

Stylists = Marc, Hedi (feel free to disagree), Karl
Theorists = Margiela, Raf, Rei, Issey
Artists = YSL, Lacroix, Valentino (pretty much everyone who is retired now, I guess...) Poiret
Lifestyle Makers (I really had no idea how to explain this... It's like the clothes they make are just an extension of themselves.) = Yohji, Ann, Chanel
Creators = Junya, McQueen, Vionnet, Gres

much easier if categories are considered

mad scientist = Carol
artisans = the Maurizios, Luca, Geoffrey B. Small

[gerry]

i think this is a pretty salient way of looking at this.

It is, but you have to remember we're also rating designers here...

Well, the great Cristobal Balenciga would be alone at the top because Chanel, Dior YSL, the all did obeisance to him...............

No Charles James?

[merkuri]

if anyone wants a retarded, small minded but reasonably accurate way of looking at things, the top tiers belong in a place where from 10 yeards, they couldn;t be mistaken for a particularly strong h&m collection/lookbook.

immediately eliminates bailey, barrett and quite a few others.