Liz Claiborne was the founder of one of the world's most successful women's apparel manufacturing companies, Liz Claiborne

Liz Claiborne (Elisabeth Claiborne Ortenberg) was born March 31, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium, where her father, Omer V. Claiborne, was a banker for the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. In the 1930s Omer, his wife Louise Fenner Claiborne, and their young daughter returned to their home in New Orleans, where Liz received a strict Roman Catholic upbringing. Her father did not consider formal education important, and before Claiborne graduated from high school he sent her to Europe to study art in Belgium and France. Although her parents expected her to become an artist, Claiborne, whose mother had taught her to sew, wanted to study fashion and pursued a career as a clothing designer.

At the 2000 American Fashion Awards presented by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Claiborne was presented with a humanitarian award for her environmental work, particularly in helping to fight the ivory trade in Africa.

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