Cynthia Rowley

Rowley is a native of Barrington, Illinois, an affluent northwestern suburb of Chicago. She is one of three children born to Ed Rowley, a former science teacher, and his wife, Clementine, who was a painter. Rowley made her first dress at age seven, and came from an artistically inclined family – her grandparents included the designer of the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo and a painter. She graduated from Barrington High School and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rowley was kicked out of her junior year art show at SAIC because her use of wings in her design was seen as over the top. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Rowley said that Marshall Field's had bought her first collection while she was still a student at SAIC.

Rowley's first husband was photographer Tom Sullivan, who died of brain cancer at the age of 32 in 1994. Rowley married William Keenan Jr., a Brooklyn sculptor, with whom she had a daughter, Kit Clementine Keenan (1999). Keenan released her own line of clothing in 2018, titled KIT. In 2019 Cynthia and her daughter Kit created a podcast together called Ageless. After Rowley and Keenan Jr. separated, she married William (Bill) Powers, an art dealer, owner of the Half Gallery in Manhattan's Upper East Side, and writer, on September 17, 2005, at the home of photographer Peter Beard. They have one daughter, Gigi Clementine Powers (born 2005).

The designer also created a line of home accessories called Swell, based on a book series she co-wrote with friend Ilene Rosenzweig, which made its debut at Target in 2003. In 2011 Rowley presented the Mr. Powers collection, a limited menswear range named after her husband Bill Powers.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America honored Rowley with a Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent in 1994. In 2012, Rowley was given the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Legend of Fashion award, alongside her husband Bill Powers. In 2015, Rowley won the Designer of the Year award at the 37th Annual American Apparel and Footwear Association American Image Awards.

Since Rowley launched her first capsule collection in 1988, has grown to include women's wear, handbags, glasses, color cosmetics, fragrance, wetsuits and swimwear, home furnishings, bedding products, and office accessories.

In 1981, Rowley won an SAIC fellowship award in her senior year and used the money to move from Chicago to New York City. She then launched her career with $3,000 in seed money from one of her grandmothers.