Ricardo Tisci is known for bringing romance to his collections for Givenchy, but spirituality is never far from his designs. "Religion is a big part of my DNA and this collection was about my Catholicism and every other religion in a way," he said of his Fall/Winter 2010-11 menswear collection. The 35-year-old hails from the Italian village of Taranto, where, growing up with eight sisters, he was instilled with an early compassion. "I love romanticism and sensuality," he has said. "I'm also a person who is very emotional." Tisci has designed several pieces for Madonna, including many costumes featured on her 2008 "Sticky and Sweet" tour. He has also been a pioneer in bending fashion's gender stereotypes—most recently making headlines for casting his transgender personal assistant, Lea T, as the face of his Fall 2010 campaign. Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images She's the rocker spawn with flame-red hair, a thriving international business, and a full pout: Stella McCartney has pioneered British cool-girl style with her perfect tailoring, mix of textures, and subtle palette. And she's green: 38-year-old McCartney comes from a long line of vegetarians, and subscribes to the Meat Free Mondays campaign. She's a mother of three and married to Alasdhair Willis, the former publisher of Wallpaper* Magazine. The family splits their time between their London home and Georgian country home in Gloucestershire. And she's still as humble as ever: "I used to get embarrassed about the fact I liked fashion," she recently told British Vogue. "I still get a bit cringy. I'd sit at dinner parties and people would say to me, 'So what do you do?' and I'd be like, oh design! When I fill passport forms I put 'design'. I don't say fashion. But don't get me wrong, I love my job!" Dave M. Benett / Getty Images There's something to be said for high cheek bones, a head of curls, and a paper-thin T-shirt that hangs so low it leaves little to the imagination. You can find them all on Alexander Wang, the 26-year-old fashion wunderkind who supercharged women's fashion when he came onto the scene in 2007. Wang's sportswear is casual and comfortable, yet modern and super-cool, and is most commonly described as "model off-duty" style. He won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion's Fund in 2008, and the Swarovski Award for Womenswear in 2009. Now that everyone's favorite new-kid has been around the block, he's most often found hanging out with his posse at the top of the Standard Hotel in New York. Jeff Gentner / Getty Images With rosy cheeks and perfect blond bangs, Erin Fetherston looks like she's straight off the slopes of the Swiss Alps. In reality, she's a Bay Area native with a powerful brand behind her name. Fetherston moved to Paris after graduating from U.C. Berkeley in 2002, and debuted her eponymous collection there in 2005. Fetherston collaborated with Target in 2007, and has recently become a creative consultant and guest designer for Juicy Couture. But even the sexiest designers are slaves to beauty: Fetherston recently admitted that she carries around a comb and hairspray—and even cuts her own bangs. Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images Nicolas Ghesquiere came to the house of Balenciaga in 2001, the son of a golf-course manager in the French town of Loudun. He made his way to Paris to intern at Agnes B. at age 15—by 21 he was working for Jean Paul Gaultier. He was then hired in a small design job by Balenciaga, and instantly promoted. As Time magazine put it, Ghesquiere, now 39, has a "relentless sense of innovation. He knows what you're going to want to wear before you do." Chris Moore, Catwalking / Getty Images Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the design team behind Proenza Schouler, aren't only business partners; they're also best friends. They met at Parsons their junior year, and instantly connected—so much so they were allowed to team up on their senior thesis (the resulting products were instantly bought by Barneys). Though there has been speculation about whether they're romantically linked (they used to share an apartment) Jack and Laz nonetheless are a powerhouse of a creative team. And they've worked the terms of their collaboration into an art form: both designers search for inspirations separately, using the Condé Nast library liberally as a resource for inspiration on images and concepts. They then sketch separately for a few weeks, and finally come together to unite their ideas. "It's hard separating work from personal life," McCullough has said. "We'll get into an argument about a button at work and then when we leave it's like, ‘Don't talk to me. I'm still mad at you about that button.'" Newscom With soft blond curls and a slight frame, Frida Giannini looks like a perfectly coifed front-row staple. But she's the woman running the show at Gucci, where she has been creative director since 2006. Born in Rome, Giannini rose quickly through the ranks of Italian fashion houses. After a brief stint at Fendi, she was a handbag designer at Gucci before being promoted to creative designer of all accessories after Tom Ford left the brand in 2004. (She claims her favorite movie of 2009 was Ford's A Single Man.) Giannini, 38, recently separated from her husband and found a place of her own, though she's playing coy about whether or not she's dating anyone new. "I don't want to be indiscreet, but I am in a very different moment from my life a year ago," she recently said. And, because one great item of clothing is worth a thousand words, Giannini recently told W Magazine that if she could be any piece of clothing, she'd be "a bomber jacket: tough and tanned." Newscom Everything that Phoebe Philo touches turns to gold—or, at least, to camel. Philo climbed the ranks at Chloé, where she began as Stella McCartney's design assistant in 1997 and eventually succeeded her as creative director in 2001. She ushered in an era of high-waisted pants, clunky shoes, and it-bags like the big-buckled Paddington. Philo left the brand in 2006 and two years later took the helm of the LVMH-backed Céline, since turning the line into a critical darling. Philo, 36, has developed a cult following and her Fall/Winter 2010 collection for Céline received wide praise (The New York Times noted everything was "impeccably cut and refreshingly unfussy.") "There's this incredible mystique about Phoebe," the Times of London's Fashion Editor Lisa Armstrong has said. "She's this cool London girl who always did the right thing at the right time at Chloe and walked away from it at the absolute height. Everyone talked about her first Celine show as if it was the second coming. The atmosphere in that room was electric. We were all waiting to see what she would do." Belgian-born Dries Van Noten has been called "fashion's consummate nice guy." And it may be true: he reportedly bakes his retail buyers cakes every year on their birthdays. Van Noten, 52, who won the CFDA's International Award in 2008, is known for his laid-back Belgian-cool aesthetic with distinctly tribal influences. He famously flies beneath the radar—showing two women's collections a year and keeping his hat largely out of the celebrity-dressing circus. As he once told The New York Times of his estate outside Antwerp: "I show so much of my private life in my collection, I really want to keep this for myself." Thierry Chomel Marc Jacobs loves his body—and it's not hard to see why. His transformation is, perhaps, the most remarkable in the fashion industry. Jacobs went from a chubby and schlubby guy in baggy sweaters in the 1990s to a tan, chiseled fashion God (with 28 tattoos) by the late aughties. His career has followed this aesthetic arc: Jacobs pioneered the early ‘90s grunge look as head of womenswear at Perry Ellis. Now, as the creative director for Louis Vuitton for over a decade, he's quadrupled the fashion house's sales. He has steered his Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc Jacobs lines into profitable global juggernauts. "Somewhere along this nutrition-gym thing, I started to develop a sense of, I don't know, a sense of confidence," he told The New Yorker's Ariel Levy in 2008. "I'm really happy with the way I look when I look at myself in the mirror. I spend hours in the bathroom now. I used to spend five minutes! But I like taking a shower. I like shampooing my hair. I like putting on moisturizer. I like wearing jewelry." And luckily for all the single men out there, 47-year-old Jacobs recently called it off with longtime boyfriend Lorenzo Martone. AP Photo Georgina Chapman, the (very beautiful) face of Marchesa, has made one of the industry's most difficult transitions: from model to designer. She reportedly began as a model for Head & Shoulders shampoo, and officially launched Marchesa with fellow Brit Keren Craig in 2004. The line, which features romantic flourishes such as beads and flowers, has become a staple at every major red carpet event (think Sandra Bullock's mermaid Oscar dress last year). And the 34-year-old, who married Harvey Weinstein in 2007 and just gave birth to their new daughter India Pearl, is equally at home on the red carpet. Billy Farrell, PatrickMcMullan.com / Newscom When a sleek bob and one-word nickname define you for a decade, it's hard to rebrand. But 36-year-old Victoria Beckham—a.k.a. Posh Spice—transitioned from one fifth of the Spice Girls to a top designer with ease. Though the fashion world raised a collective eyebrow when she launched a denim label in 2006, she relaunched the successful label, Victoria Beckham Denim last year—and has reportedly persuaded her husband, David Beckham, to design a line for men. The petite Brit's high-end line, VBH, which launched in 2008, has been a critical darling and red-carpet staple. She has said: "I think about [what I'm going to wear] before I go to bed at night…. I'm not a supermodel. I make the best of what I've got. I work out to look the best that I can, but I'm no Gisele." AP Photo Known for his unbuttoned dress shirts and looks that could kill, Tom "The Most Handsome Man in the World" Ford has parlayed his skills from fashion to beauty to the big screen. As Gucci's creative director, he helped boost the company from a value of $4.3 billion in 1994 to $10 billion in 2004. After he left the brand, Ford developed his own eponymous label and has been busy expanding his own empire of menswear and accessories, five signature fragrances, and a beauty collection. Ford, 48, is currently at work on a women's collection. Ford made his directorial debut in 2009 with A Single Man, based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood. The film, starring Colin Firth, earned him several nominations, including the Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. "I wanted to make something that really meant something to me," he told The Daily Beast's Tina Brown. AP Photo