Isabel Marant (born 12 April 1967) is a French fashion designer, owner of the eponymous fashion brand. She won the Award de la Mode (1997), the Whirlpool Award for best female designer (1998), Fashion Designer of the Year at British Glamour's Women of the Year Awards (2012). She was named Contemporary Designer of the Year at the Elle Style Awards in 2014. Her collaboration with H&M in 2013 was so successful that company's website crashed under the demand and the collection was sold out within 45 minutes. Celebrities wearing Marant's designs include Alexa Chung, Katie Holmes, Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Kate Bosworth, and Rachel Weisz. Life Isabel Marant was born on 12 April 1967 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a French father and German mother. Her parents divorced when Marant was six and she lived with her father who had remarried. In childhood, Marant didn't want to be a designer, she dreamt of becoming a veterinarian when she grew up. She was raised in the Hauts-de-Seine suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine, refusing to wear dresses and carrying alternative outfits to school in plastic bags. At the age of 14, Marant had a haircut like Patti Smith's and wore customised menswear. In 1982, she asked her father to buy her a sewing machine and she started making clothes out of discarded clothing and fabric, and very soon, her friends asked her to design clothing for them. At 15, Marant was crazy about Vivienne Westwood and she did babysitting to be able to buy something at Westwood's Paris shop. Between 16 and 18, Marant dated Christophe Lemaire, creative director at Hermès and designer of his own line. Together they designed clothing under the brand Allée Simple and dropped it off to a Le Depot shop in Paris that paid when clothes were sold. The clothing sold well enough to make her reconsider her plans to study economics. From 1985 to 1987, Marant studied fashion at Studio Berçot, a Paris fashion college. Marant is married to a designer Jérôme Dreyfuss. Their son, Tal, was born in 2003. The family lives in Belleville, Paris. They spend most of their weekends in a countryside cabin with no electricity or hot water in Fontainebleau, 50 km away from Paris. Career Early career In 1987, after her studies, Marant worked with Parisian designer Michel Klein. Later she also collaborated with Bridget Yorke working on two collections and assisted art director