Bio
Georgina Chapman is an English fashion designer and actress and co-founder of the fashion label Marchesa best known to television audiences as a judge on the fashion reality competition Project Runway All Stars.
Chapman, born in 1976 in London, England, is a fashion designer and former actress and model. She, along with close friend and fellow Brit Keren Craig, co-founded Marchesa in 1994.
Chapman currently serves as the brand's Designer and Creative Director, producing two seasonal collections, two bridal collections and two pre-collections per year.
Chapman attended the Chelsea College of Art & Design in London, where she met Craig, with a focus in Design. Following her time there, Chapman enrolled at the Wimbledon College of Art for Costume and Design, where she perfected her skills as a costume designer.
She spent much of her free time while in school and in her twenties modeling for Next Models in the UK, Europeand the US, which led to film credits such as Awake, The Nanny Diaries, Factory Girl and Match Point, as well as an appearance in the Fall 2008 Gap advertising campaign.
After graduating from Wimbledon College of Art in 2001, she embarked upon her career as a costume designer. Industry veteran and muse, the late Isabella Blow, is largely credited with discovering Chapman at this time, when she noticed a dress the designer had created and worn to an event in the UK.
It was Blow, with her conviction for Chapman's talent in eveningwear, who encouraged her to create a label focused on this niche enterprise, and thus, in 2004, Marchesa was born.
The company's namesake and muse, Marchesa Luisa Casati, is the noted eccentric European style icon. Casati's original vision of fashion as art, coupled with Chapman's expertise in design and draping, results in distinctive and powerful collections, critically-acclaimed and heralded worldwide.
The Marchesa collection, and its lauded Notte range, is available in over 200 stores, including Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus in the United States, Harrods in London, Harvey Nichols in Istanbul and Dubai, Podium in Moscow and specialty boutiques throughout the world.
Chapman and her work have been featured in numerous publications, including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue UK, The Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair and Elle.
In 2006, Marchesa was named as one of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund's top ten finalists, and in 2007 the label won the British Fashion Awards, for Red Carpet Designer of the Year.
In 2008, Chapman was named jewelry designer Garrard's first guest designer, and The Georgina Chapman for Garrard collection was unveiled in September 2009 during New York Fashion Week.
Chapman also collaborated with Range Rover as part of their City Shapers campaign, where she served as the spokesperson for the launch of the Evoque automobile.
Under Chapman's direction, Marchesa has launched a bridal collection, a line of handbags inspired by the couture collection's same attention to detail and craftsmanship, and the Marchesa for Lenox tabletop and giftware collection.
Chapman and her husband Harvey Weinstein, with daughter India Pearl, split their time between New York City, Connecticut and London.