Liz Claiborne, fashion designer for working women climbing corporate ladders, died Tuesday at the New York Presbyterian Hospital after battling cancer for many years. She was 78.

Said Bill McComb, CEO of Claiborne's company since November: "In losing Liz Claiborne, we have not only lost the founder of our company, but an inspirational woman who revolutionized the fashion industry 30 years ago. Her commitment to style and design is ever present in our thinking and the way we work. We will remember Liz for her vision, her entrepreneurial spirit and her enduring compassion and generosity."

Claiborne, with husband Art Ostenberg and partners Leonard Boxer and Jerome Chazen, launched her label in 1976 after working for years as an unknown dress designer. Her brand featured ensemble sportswear with price tags below that of other designers and revolutionized the department store industry. Once compartmentalized, with pants in one department and skirts in another, Claiborne's coordinated clothing inspired the merging of once-separate departments.

Liz Claiborne Inc., with its trademark triangular logo, was the first company founded by a woman to be listed in the Fortune 500. That pioneering woman who was born in Brussels, Belgium and retired from the day-to-day operations in 1989, was quite a force.

"She was tough but with soft knuckles," says fashion designer and former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America Stan Herman. "She was perhaps the beginning of the great designer-stylists of our time. She was a trained designer but, more than that, she had a vision of how women should dress. ... She suddenly understood the shape of women and the emancipation of shape and the change of a woman's shape."

Claiborne is also known for her charitable endeavors. She founded the Liz Claiborne Foundation in 1981 to focus on ending domestic violence and promoting economic self-sufficiency for women and positive development for girls. Up until the day she died, she was involved in the day-to-day activities of the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation, dedicated to wildlife conservation.