Today, brand names such as Disney, Chanel, Ferrari, Gucci and Adidas are recognised globally. But the stories of the entrepreneurs who gave their names to their fledging businesses are often less well known. 

Read on as we unearth the remarkable stories of the people behind some of the world's most famous brands. 

All dollar values in US dollars.

When many of us think of diamonds, we think of Tiffany and Co.

Founder Charles Lewis Tiffany was born in Connecticut in 1812. In 1837, he borrowed $1,000 – the equivalent of around $32,800 (£26.9k) in 2025 – from his father and used the loan to co-found a small stationery store in New York. The store branched out into selling fine glass and porcelain and eventually began manufacturing its own jewellery. 

Soon, the company gained a reputation for selling only the finest goods and jewels and opened branches in Paris and London. In 1853, Tiffany gained sole control of the company. At the time of his death in 1902, the company was worth $2 million – the equivalent of over $73 million (£60m) today – and was known as North America's most famous jewellery company. In 2024, the Tiffany and Co. brand was valued at $7.3 billion (£6bn).

Lipton Tea is an instantly recognisable brand name.

Founder Sir Thomas Lipton was born in 1850 in Glasgow, Scotland. Following an early life filled with adventure, travelling the world as a cabin boy on a steamer ship, Lipton opened a small grocery shop in Glasgow in 1870. Soon, Lipton had opened up a chain of shops across Britain. This enterprise made him a self-made millionaire by the age of 40. 

Following the success of his grocery stores, Lipton went on to build a tea empire. In the 1800s, tea was a luxury that only wealthy families could afford. Lipton was able to reduce the price by buying his own plantations in what's now Sri Lanka, cutting out the middleman. This brought tea to families who previously couldn’t afford it.

Lipton gained a reputation for selling quality products at affordable prices. Today, Lipton Tea is owned by global conglomerate CVC Capital Partners.

King Camp Gillette was born in Wisconsin in 1855 and was the inventor of the first-ever razor with disposable blades.

While working as a travelling salesman, Gillette came up with the idea of creating an invention that would be used and thrown away so the customer would have to keep coming back. This gave Gillette the idea to create a razor with a blade that, instead of being sharpened, would be discarded and replaced once used. 

With no background in manufacturing or metal work, it took six years for Gillette to perfect his design, eventually mass-producing blades from sheet metal. Gillette razors were brought to market in 1903.

Gillette had a unique business strategy. He sold his razors at a loss but made a tidy profit on the disposable blades. Today, Gillette is owned by Proctor and Gamble and is the most well-known razor brand in the world. The Gillette Company was valued at $7.4 billion (£6bn) in 2024, according to Statista.

Famed for timeless designs such as the Chanel suit, the little black dress and, of course, the trademark Chanel No.5 perfume, the Chanel brand is the pinnacle of sophisticated yet comfortable fashion.

However, the story of Chanel’s founder is a fascinating tale of rags to riches. Born in the west of France in 1883, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Bonheur Chanel's early life was a world away from the glamorous one she later carved out for herself. When she was 11, Chanel's mother died so her father sent her to live in an orphanage. She was raised by Catholic nuns who taught her to sew. Young Chanel didn’t know it then, but this skill would be the key to her future fortune.

On leaving the orphanage, Chanel worked a variety of jobs, including as a seamstress and a cabaret performer, where she was called Coco. At the age of 20, she began a love affair with a wealthy socialite, Etienne Balsan, who helped her set up her first fashion venture, a hat store in Paris.

Her innovative designs, which focused on comfort rather than the physically restrictive designs of the time such as corsets, caught the attention of wealthy upper-class women, and her business went from strength to strength. She opened up two more stores in Deaville and Biarritz. Chanel then went on to design clothes for some of the biggest names of the time such as Marilyn Monroe. Even after she died in 1971, the Chanel fashion house continued to dominate. Today, the Chanel brand is worth an astonishing $60 billion (£49bn). 

The 2021 Ridley Scott film House of Gucci explores the tangled lives of Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizio Gucci in the 1970s. But where did it all start for the real-life House of Gucci?

Maurizio's grandfather, Guccio Gucci, was born in Florence in 1881. Little is known of his early life, but he moved to London to work at the Savoy Hotel in 1899. He stayed in London for over 20 years before returning to Italy with a new business idea...

The son of a leather craftsman, Guccio was reportedly inspired by the luxury luggage carried by guests at the Savoy. In 1921, he opened his first shop in Florence, a small store that sold imported luggage. When Italian trade embargoes in the 1930s made it difficult for Gucci to find leather, he diversified the business using a variety of other materials such as wicker and linen.

By the time Guccio died in 1953, the fashion house had stores throughout Italy and a newly opened store in New York. His sons rapidly expanded the family fashion empire, opening stores in London and Paris during the 1960s. Today, Gucci is a $15.6 billion (£11.7bn) business and one of the most recognisable brands in the world. 

Enzo Anselmo Ferrari was born in 1898 in Modena, Italy. Ferrari fell in love with car racing at the age of 10 when his father took him to watch a race in Bologna.

In 1919, following a stint in the military, Ferrari moved to Milan to work as a test driver for Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali. He made his debut as a racing car driver that same year. Ferrari joined the Alfa Romeo racing team and had a successful driving career for over a decade. 

Ferrari opened Auto Avio Costruzioni to develop his own racing cars. In 1947, he took the first official Ferrari, the 125 S, out for a test drive. The car achieved its first win that same year at the Rome Grand Prix.

In the early 1950s, Ferrari started producing high-performance cars for road use. To this day, the world's most wealthy people still line up to purchase these luxurious cars, and the company is valued at over $77 billion (£62.7bn).

It's a common myth that the name of sportswear brand Adidas is an anagram for ‘all day I dream about sport’.

However, the brand was actually named after founder Adolf ‘Adi’ Dassler. Dassler was born in a small town in Germany in 1900. In his youth, Dassler was an apprentice baker, but when his family set up a shoemaking business he changed career paths and worked for the family business with his brother Rudi, who went on to create rival Puma after the brothers became estranged.

A sports fanatic, Dassler began designing athletic and tennis shoes. He officially set up Adidas in 1949. Adidas quickly became the most popular and best-selling American sports shoe. At the 1972 Olympics, every official and most of the athletes wore Adidas shoes. 

Following Dassler’s death in 1978, the company was taken over by Horst Dassler, his son. Today, the Adidas company is valued at $15.7 billion (£12.8bn), according to the latest data from Statista. This picture shows soccer legend Lionel Messi with a statue of Adolf Dassler. 

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago in 1901. As a boy, young Disney had a keen interest in drawing, a hobby that would one day make him a household name.

By the age of 18, he had begun working as a commercial illustrator. He moved to California in the early 1920s and, along with his brother Roy, set up Disney Brother Studios. This is where he created Mickey Mouse, the first of many successes. Disney and his company went on to make hugely successful films including Fantasia, Dumbo, Cinderella and Mary Poppins. He then branched out into amusement parks, with Disneyland opening its doors in California in 1955. 

Following his death in 1966, Walt Disney left behind a huge legacy. He holds the world record for most Academy Awards ever won by an individual with 26 Oscars to his name. Today, the Walt Disney Company is valued at around $240 billion (£196bn). 

Christian Dior was born in 1905 in a small seaside town in Normandy, France. Dior was born into a wealthy family who hoped he would become a diplomat. However, Dior wanted a career in the arts.

In 1928, Dior left school and received money from his father, which he used to open a small art gallery. The gallery later closed due to the Great Depression. Dior worked as an assistant designer at several fashion houses before being drafted for military service during World War II.

In 1942, following his stint in the military, Dior launched his own fashion house. His ‘New Look’ design, famed for its dramatically short hemline, launched Dior's career as one of the most famous designers of the 1950s.

Despite his untimely and sudden death from a heart attack in 1957, the Dior fashion house went on to find global success under numerous creative directors, including a certain Yves Saint Laurent. In 2024, the Dior brand was valued at $10.4 billion (£8.5bn), according to Statista.

Born in 1908 as Josephine Esther Mentzer, Estée Lauder was raised in Queens, New York by Jewish-Hungarian immigrant parents. Her interest in skincare began as a teenager as her uncle would create creams and lotions in the family kitchen.

It was from him that Lauder learned how to make these potions and apply them to the skin. In the late 1920s, Lauder married businessman Joseph Lauder. The couple moved to Manhattan, and Lauder began selling her products in beauty salons. In 1946, Estée and her husband went into business together, officially launching the Estée Lauder Company.

Lauder (pictured on the left with journalist Barbara Walters) was an entrepreneur in every sense, playing an integral role in the marketing of her products and overseeing the training of her staff. Her hard work and commitment to her company paid off.

Today, its products are sold in over 150 countries worldwide. Lauder was the only woman on Time magazine's list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. 

Tim Hortons is Canada's largest quick-serve restaurant chain and now has franchises across the globe. Yet the story of the company's co-founder and namesake is a tragic one.

Miles Gilbert 'Tim' Horton was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 24 seasons in North America's National Hockey League (NHL). Not only a talented sportsman, Horton was also business savvy, and he co-founded the coffee and doughnut chain that bears his name in 1964.  

Tragically, Horton died suddenly at the age of 44 in a car crash. Despite his untimely death, his legacy lives on. There are now over 5,000 Tim Horton restaurants across 14 countries. Horton was also named as one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in History in 2017.

Another fashion designer from humble beginnings, Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents in 1939. After graduating high school, Lauren studied business at the City University of New York, though he dropped out after two years and joined the US Army.

Following his stint in the military, Lauren worked as a tie salesman at a company named Brooks Brothers. When he was 28, Lauren was working for a tie manufacturer, Beau Brummell, and convinced the president to let him manufacture his own line. The Ralph Lauren Corporation launched in 1967. 

In 1968, Lauren launched a full menswear line, inspired by his love of sport. By the 1970s, he'd branched out into creating womenswear. His signature preppy designs caught the attention of Hollywood, and in 1974 he outfitted the male cast of The Great Gatsby movie with designs from his now world-famous Polo line. He custom-designed an infamous pink suit especially for the character of Jay Gatsby.

Lauren has a current net worth of $10.9 billion (£8.9bn) and is famed for his philanthropic work, having used his fortune to set up numerous charitable foundations. 

Just like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, who was born in 1942, is another successful fashion designer who was born and raised in the Bronx by a Jewish family.

After graduating high school, Klein attended New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. Following various jobs in the fashion industry, he became the protege of Baron de Gunzburg, a French magazine editor and socialite. It was through this lucrative connection that Klein was able to launch Calvin Klein Inc, a company that saw him become a shining star of the New York elite fashion scene. 

Calvin Klein Inc launched its first clothing line in 1968, and just a year later Klein (pictured here with Bianca Jagger) appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine.

In 1975, at the age of 33, Klein was voted into the Coty Hall of Fame, the youngest designer to achieve the accolade. Today, the Calvin Klein brand is famed for its underwear, fragrances and watches, and Klein has an estimated net worth of $800 million (£654m).

James Dyson was born in Norfolk, England in 1947. As a child, he attended a private boarding school before going on to study furniture and interior design at the Royal College of Art. Dyson then changed course and decided to study engineering, a decision which put him on a path to becoming one of the world's most successful inventors.

In 1978, Dyson grew frustrated by his vacuum cleaner's performance due to the bag inside clogging with dust. Working with a process called cyclonic separation, he began working on what would become the first-ever bagless vacuum cleaner.

The path to success wasn't easy, and 5,127 prototypes were created before he perfected his design and got it to market. Today, Dyson is a globally recognised brand name, and its products are sold in countries around the world. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2024, Dyson is the fifth richest person in the UK with a net worth of £20.8 billion ($25.4bn).

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were childhood friends from New York. In 1978, the duo decided to take a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making at Penn State University. With an investment of just $12,000, the equivalent of around $58,000 (£47.4k) in 2025, they opened up their first ice cream store in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont.

The best friends would go on to create an ice cream empire.

Cohen suffers from anosmia, which means he lacks taste and smell. He relies on texture in food to bring variety to his diet, and his condition is what inspired the company's trademark chunks to be mixed in with the ice cream. 

Following its success, Cohen and Greenfield sold the company to food giant Unilever in 2000 for $326 million ($597m/£488m today). Though their names are still attached to the product, they hold no board or management positions within the company. 

Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas in 1965. Following his graduation from high school, Dell went to medical school to please his parents, who wanted him to become a doctor. However, Dell was always more interested in technology and during college he started building and selling his own computers.

He soon dropped out of college to focus on his business, a decision that proved to be very wise. His company brought in $6 million in its first full year of business in 1984, around $18 million (£14.7m) in today's money.

Today, Michael Dell is the chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world’s largest tech companies. According to Forbes, Dell is currently the 12th richest person in the world with a net worth of $114.2 billion (£93.4bn).

Dell is also known for his philanthropy. In 1999, Michael and his wife Susan set up the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The charity focuses on education, childhood health and economic stability. 

Now discover the famous brands that have different names around the world

Updated by Alice Cattley