The proof is in. The rigorous lifestyle and demands of all the drama associated with runways, models, and eight collections a year have produced some of the most eccentric personalities in high fashion.

Betsey Johnson

We’ll start with Betsey Johnson. Not only is she fashion’s (crazy) sweetheart, she’s also its child at heart. Known for her signature shaggy blonde hair and red-lipped beam, she could be your adorable granddaughter…if she weren’t the age of your grandmother. She lets her employees come to work wearing a slip and has even taken her assistant to the ballet on a leash—reow! But her most impressive feat yet had to be her Spring ‘11 collection. Citing inspiration from Nicki Minaj (alarm bells!), Betsey was actually able to transform Minaj’s kooky style into something that every colour-loving girl would like to wear. If that isn’t eccentricity at its most genius, then I don’t know what is.   

Forget walking like cats down the runway, for Betsey it’s all about the cartwheel.

Karl Lagerfeld

Karl’s Twitter feed has 700,000 followers. And who can blame them for following the 140-word thoughts of the Kaister when they are treated to such gems of wisdom?

“Nonchalance in couture is very important, because couture without nonchalance is just the drag queen attitude of women of an era past.” 

“Florals are for middle-aged women with weight problems.”

“On this day each year, I soak the previous year’s calendar in my mother’s favorite perfume and then set it ablaze. Here’s to a fresh start.”

The moral of the story? “Don’t look to the approval of others for your mental stability.”

Karl got his name all over a Coke bottle before any of us mortals had. Keeping ahead of the pack as expected. 

John Galliano

Galliano suffered a very, very long fall from grace when a series of his drunken and anti-Semitic rants went viral. The highly publicised scandal resulted in his career imploding. At his trial, he explained work and financial pressures to be the cause— seriously, the fashion industry will make you go crazy. Since his departure at Dior, there is still a designer yet to step forward and fill his talented (and disgraced) shoes. Unfortunately, today he is more likely to be branded as a racist fashion designer than the artistic genius he was previously celebrated as.

Viking sailors are the Next Big Thing. Well, were, until I was crushed by the financial and work pressures of making this Next Big Thing work and started insulting these people in some pub in a fashion-induced fit and, well you know the rest of the story…

Valentino

Red dress posing on the red carpet? Check. Matching tan and hair? Check. Personalised mode of transport? Check. In fact, for “The Last Emperor” of high fashion (there, there Karl), Vanity Fair proclaims that “three buses are needed: one to move Valentino, Giammetti [his business partner] and staff;  another for luggage; and a third to transport five of Valentino’s six pugs—Milton, Maude, Monty, Margot, and Molly”. Not bad, we always like to see a man’s dogs travel in style.

Valentino and his omnipresent posse of pugs. What couture? 

André Leon Talley

With the invention of words such as “dreckitude”, André Leon Talley’s whirlwind personality was clear to all those transfixed (in horror, bemusement?) in front of their screens during his time on America’s Next Top Model. Although he is Vogue’s Contributing Editor, Talley also keeps busy by swathing himself in furs and swirling around in capes. It all makes for a very interesting look, more so if he’s being hand-fed grapes at the same time, a sight Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn swears that he witnessed.  

If ever in doubt…well, you probably never will be. 

Anna Wintour

Not one to be outdone by Talley, Anna Wintour is known to have even more outrageous demands. Once again, it was that lucky Tim Gunn who happened to spot Wintour being carried down flights of stairs by her bodyguards: “The bodyguards had made a fireman’s lock and were racing her from landing to landing. She was sitting on their crossed arms.” Did she also wear a crown with two horns protruding from the sides? Some would say no, many say yes, but her true power lies in the fact that she is the only one in the fashion industry who can make anything seem legitimate, wearable and highly on trend. A fashion force to be reckoned with, if Anna had liked Crocs, there is no doubt that they would be showing at Paris Fashion Week.

Woops, wrong photo.

The real Anna Wintour. Meryl Streep ain’t got nothing on her.