Fashion is usually told through collections and runway moments, just as much as the personalities behind them. But away from the bright show lights and buzzy front rows, many of its most influential designers were just as defined by what they did off-duty.
Some collected obsessively, others escaped into unlikely sports, books, or landscapes, and a few simply cultivated habits that quietly fed back into their work. These are the private obsessions behind fashion’s most public icons.
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel
Perhaps the most unexpected hobby belonged to Chanel, who developed a love of fly-fishing during her years with the Duke of Westminster in Scotland. The designer spent part of the 1920s dressed in tweeds beside Highland rivers, embracing country sports typically associated with aristocratic men. The influence of those years would go on to filter directly into Chanel’s wardrobe vocabulary.
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Ralph Lauren
Outside of fashion, Lauren developed a serious reputation in the automotive world, thanks to his hobby of collecting. He amassed exceptionally rare Ferraris, Bugattis, and Bentleys which have since been exhibited at institutions including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. And during his Fall 2017 fashion show in New York, he designed the setting based on his own automotive garage.
Karl Lagerfeld
For Lagerfeld, his great passion beyond fashion was books. He reportedly owned a personal library of more than 300,000 volumes and is rumoured to have once claimed he preferred reading to almost anything else. His Paris bookstore, 7L Bookstore, specialized in photography, architecture, design and rare art publications. He also became an accomplished photographer himself, regularly shooting campaigns for Chanel and Fendi.
Christian Dior
Dior’s hobby was a simple one: gardening. The designer grew up at Villa Les Rhumbs in Normandy, surrounded by the elaborate gardens cultivated by his mother Madeleine Dior, and he frequently credited flowers as one of the defining inspirations of his work. In his memoir, Dior wrote that after women, flowers were ‘the most divine creations.’
Diane von Furstenberg
Born into a wealthy European family and later marrying Prince Egon von Fürstenberg, DVF developed a reputation for constant movement – sailing, traveling, and immersing herself in different cultures. She was known to spend long periods aboard her yacht, moving between New York, Venice, the Greek islands, and Aspen, naturally. In interviews and her memoir The Woman I Wanted to Be, she framed independence and adventure as personal values she liked to live by.
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Alexander McQueen
McQueen’s interests outside fashion was notably his fascination with nature – especially birds and taxidermy. As such, feathers, wings, and animal silhouettes often appeared on his work throughout his career, from the raven imagery in his collections to the famous ‘Widows of Culloden’ show.
Dries Van Noten
Van Noten is one of the clearest examples of a designer whose personal hobby directly informs his aesthetic language. Outside fashion, he’s known to be an obsessive gardener and horticultural enthusiast, once telling Esquire: “I’m a gardener. I love flowers, and I’m really attached to them, really personally.” His gardens at his home near Antwerp have become almost as famous as his collections.
