Women in Design

A comprehensive history of women designers working internationally from 1900 to the present day. 

Women designers have created some of the most important objects in history. By revealing the untold stories of female design pioneers, this wide-ranging introduction celebrates their crucial role in the history of modern processes of making.

Arranged chronologically, this guide considers the structural barriers to professional success and how women overcame these hurdles, charting the works of designers including Anni Albers at the Bauhaus, the architects Eileen Gray and Zaha Hadid, interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe, and fashion icon Mary Quant. Focusing on the key subjects of architecture, craft, fashion, furniture, graphics, interior, product, and textile design, author Anne Massey explores the link between early twentieth-century revolutionary design and lifestyle, as well as the idea of shopping and consumerism as liberatory. Massey also discusses the important contribution of designers during and after World War II, along with design activism, design collectives, and the current success of women working transnationally in architecture and design.

Illustrated throughout, Women in Design is the definitive history of women designers working around the world over the past 120 years.