The multi-tasking Rowley is a fashion designer, author, TV personality and all-round lifestyle guru.

The Illinois native attended the Art Institute of Chicago and started selling dresses to Marshall Field & Co. while she was still in school. Shortly after graduation, she decamped to New York, starting her line with $3,000 in seed money from her grandmother and audaciously inviting every big name fashion editor to attend her first fashion show inside her tiny walkup apartment (none showed up), But Rowley kept at it, and by 1994 she'd won her first CFDA award thanks to her vintage-style dresses with whimsical twists, which caught on with girls looking for something in between preppy and frilly. By the end of the '90s, she'd expanded with men's lines, accessories and eyewear, sold at her own boutiques and department stores across the country. Rowley's Fashion Week shows still draw a crowd, but these days her clothes seem to have taken a backseat to her numerous other ventures, including books, TV appearances, dishes, and a line of housewares at Target. And although there continue to be Cynthia Rowley stores in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and East Hampton, she's even more popular in Japan, where she now has more than 50 boutiques.

After her first husband passed away and her she split from her second husband, in 2005 she tied the knot to writer Bill Powers. Rowley has two daughters. [Image via Getty]