Bloomsbury Fashion Central

Tomasz Starzewski was born in 1961 to Polish parents who had emigrated to London in 1946. Both his mother and grandmother worked in the fashion industry and he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a fashion designer; he went on to apply to Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design in London.

Starzewski started his career in 1981. He specialized in couture, women’s ready-to-wear, ladies’ suits, wedding dresses, and cocktail dresses. He counts many members of the British and European royal families and famous actors among his customers. He had his major breakthrough in 1989 when Victoria Lockwood, a former fashion model, wore one of his wedding dresses when she married Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana.

Every design by Tomasz Starzewski is a limited edition. He sees the clothes as investment pieces and does not follow the traditional pattern of producing two collections a year for fall/winter and spring/summer. Instead, he designs a rolling collection. Starzewski is well known for his use of embellishments and embroidery. These techniques have allowed the brand to expand into home furnishings, where it offers handmade textiles and transfers the Starzewski aesthetic to non-textile materials.

Tomasz Starzewski, Fall/Winter 1997 Photograph by Niall McInerney, Fashion Photography Archive