Born: Brooklyn, New York, USA, 1955
Winner of British Fashion’s Glamour Award two years running, Ben de Lisi was born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island and graduated from the Pratt Institute, New York, in 1977. He worked briefly for Bloomingdales while he was still at college, designed a range of T-shirts which he sold to Saks Fifth Avenue, and spent four years with a young designer called Penelope before launching his own menswear line called ‘Benedetto’ – his full Christian name.
In 1982 de Lisi opened a French restaurant, Ciboure, in London’s Belgravia. He designed a capsule collection of ten pieces using job lot fabric – cut on tables above the restaurant – and made them up himself between sittings. He pounded the pavement and ended up with £30,000 worth of orders. De Lisi excels at swimwear and eveningwear – in December 1998 he opened his first shop in Belgravia’s Elizabeth Street.
