Guess

Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1981 by brothers Georges, Armand, Maurice, and Paul Marciano—born in Morocco and raised in southern France—GUESS revolutionized the denim apparel industry by blending American denim aesthetics with the tailored cuts of European fashion.

GUESS’s historic differentiator in the denim market was the introduction of stone-washed distressed denim (stone-washed), at a time when jeans were stiff and uniformly colored. Its debut style, the Marilyn three-zipper jean, sold out at Bloomingdale’s stores within hours, transforming workwear jeans into a tailored, sensual fashion piece.

Additionally, the brand built its global identity through monochromatic black-and-white advertising campaigns shot by iconic photographers, launching the careers of international models including Claudia Schiffer, Drew Barrymore, and Anna Nicole Smith, while solidifying the brand’s distinctive triangular logo.