was a Japanese fashion designer. She was one of only two Japanese women to have presented her collections on the runways of Paris and New York, and the first Asian woman to be admitted as an official ''
haute couture'' design house by the
Fédération française de la couture
The Fédération française de la couture, du prêt-à-porter des couturiers et des créateurs de mode ( en, French Federation of Fashion and of Ready-to-Wear Couturiers and Fashion Designers) is the governing body for the French fashion industr ...
in France.
Her fashion house, opened in Japan in 1951, grew to become a $500 million international business by the 1990s.
Career
Mori was born on 8 January 1926
in
Muikaichi, Shimane.
After graduating from
Tokyo Women's Christian University, she married and attended dress-making school.
She opened her first atelier, Hiyoshiya, in 1951,
and over the next several years designed costumes for hundreds of movies.
In 1965, she presented her first
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
collection, "East Meets West." Twelve years later, she opened an haute couture showroom in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
, leading to her 1977 appointment as a member of the
Chambre syndicale de la couture parisienne.
Mori designed three consecutive uniforms for the
flight attendant
A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are pri ...
s of
Japan Air Lines
, also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as w ...
(JAL). The first uniform was worn from 1967 to 1970; the second, which created a sensation by featuring a