Laura Ashley
Fashion Designer
Welsh entrepreneur and fashion and furniture designer. Her clothing design style was marked by a romantic, nineteenth-century, pastoral character and by the use of non-synthetic materials.
During World War II, she joined the Women's Royal Naval Service. After the war, she worked as a secretary and designer of quilts and scarves.
Her fashion design company was originally called Ashley Mountney (a combination of her married and maiden names), but her husband suggested that it be re-named Laura Ashley.
She was raised in England and Wales by Baptist parents. Her marriage to engineer and fellow designer Bernard Ashley produced four children.
She was a contemporary of Broadway costume designer Patricia Zipprodt.