Agnes Trouble Bourgeois, known to the world as Agnes B., started to design clothes at the age of 19 and opened her first boutique in Les Halles in Paris in 1976. Twenty-nine years later, her company has 129 boutiques, selling clothes, accessories and travel goods around the globe. While there are 32 in France and others scattered in Europe, Asia and the United States, Japan is her biggest market at 48 stores.

Her image is embodied in the company's well-known logo, agnes b., handwritten in her lower-case cursive, and her designs for women and men are loved for their equally elegant simplicity. Many of them -- the horizontally striped T-shirt, for example, or the snap-fasten cardigan, unveiled in 1979 -- have had the rare ability to stay stylish long after other fashion trends have died on the rack. Her company's annual collections, though, are about more than just classic casual wear.

Culture and the arts have an important place in Agnes B.'s designs and her life. The company maintains two art galleries/libraries, and her stores sell a line of limited-edition artist T-shirts that feature the works of visual artists such as Jonas Mekas and Gilbert and George. Her passion for photography can be seen in the most recent collection; photos she took of scenes such as bull-fighting arenas in Spain or gondolas in Venice are printed on some of the dresses.