Mats Gustafson, whom many consider the heir to René Gruau, was born 1952 in Sweden and began his career
in 1976 as a costume designer for Swedish television immediately after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and the Scandinavian Theater Institute.

Two years later he published his first illustrations in British Vogue and soon after he was contributing regularly to American, French, Italian, German and Australian Vogue, Interview, Marie Claire, the New York Times Magazin and
The New Yorker.

His advertising campaigns for department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Galeries Lafayette, for fashion houses like Chanel, Geoffrey Beene, Romeo Gigli, Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons and his portraits are highly acclaimed.

Since 1980 Mats has been dividing his time between New York, Stockholm and Paris and his minimal style has been accepted by virtually all major fashion journals worldwide.