Barbara Tfank: The woman who dresses Adele and Michelle Obama Barbara Tfank has been producing her line for more than a decade, but her star has risen in recent years thanks to the patronage of Adele and Michelle Obama. Barbara Tfank declines to reveal her age: "I don't believe in chronology." So it is rather fitting that she's made her name designing ravishingly graceful dresses that work on women of every vintage. Tfank presented her latest collection here on Monday night, well away from the hysterical hustle of Fashion Weekend. Instead of a blink-and-you-miss it catwalk show, she arranged her clothes on models who stood in a gallery, and happily assured questioners how comfortable the hematite-heavy, jacquard-rich bustier dresses, and A-line coats were to wear. Based in splendid Los Angeles isolation, Tfank has been producing her cinematically-classic clothing for more than a decade. Only recently, however, has her hard-to-pronounce name achieved blockbuster billing, thanks to the patronage of two famous clients. The first is Adele, the much Grammy'd British singer. The designer seethes at the mention of Karl Lagerfeld's "too fat" assessment of her: "Is that some sick way of getting her to wear his clothes? It's so insulting. At it again: Karl Lagerfeld lets rip on his world view Adele might have opted for Burberry for this year's Grammy awards, but it was Tfank who dressed her first. She was 19 when I met her, and I did her first Grammy dress. I love her, and being involved in helping a young person develop their style so that, in 20 years, they look back on their pictures and aren't embarrassed: it's about looking timeless and beautiful. Tfank's interpretation of beauty is, like her fashion show, atypical for the New York scene - and this is what has made her a cult designer for well-heeled women across the US. She says: "It feels like, for a long time, people have contrived to distort 'beauty' to make it feel edgy. But if you look at classic pieces by Balenciaga, they're so simple and so powerful because of that - they have grace and they occupy space like a painting. Beauty isn't a scary, complicated thing: you don't need to mess it up. And, as Adele demonstrates (whatever the formerly rather-well-upholstered-himself Lagerfeld might say), it isn't predicated on size. Adele speaks to a whole generation of young women that might not have a size two body. She doesn't fit the mould of 'you have to be this and you should be that - and if you aren't, you're not good'. It's all about her talent. That supercedes everything. She adds: "There is an exclusion factor in fashion: you are excluded because you are not enough, or you are not with it - and that's the part of it that I really dislike." Michelle Obama, another much sniped at woman, is Tfank's second big-name devotee. The First Lady tends to choose Tfank for big-ticket state events, including her meeting with the Queen (and the Duchess of Cambridge's Reiss dress) at Buckingham Palace and the State of The Union address. Tfank is, as you'd expect, extremely complimentary about Obama - "She's not studied, contrived, or figured out. She's a real human being." - but is careful to avoid specifics. Kate Middleton wears Reiss to meet Michelle Obama This is not a designer to get the small-circulation fashion magazines excited. Which is good news for real women in search of stunning event-wear, whatever their age or shape. There are, however, two Tfank-caveats. The first is that her clothes are rather expensive - in the $1,000 (£630) to $3,000 (£1,900) range - although her painstakingly sourced materials and robust fabrication do justify this. The second is that she is not (yet) available in Britain, although that might change very soon. "I'm after timeless elegance," she says, "full-on glamour in a tasteful way, in beautiful fabrics that don't fall apart after you've dry-cleaned them five times. That's a big issue for people, and they resent it - and I resent it, too. Then she looks at one crystal-embellished dress, and frowns: "God knows, though - how you dry clean Swarovski?"