Fashion History

The Mini Wars or the debate over WHO invented the miniskirt and the wrap dress is heating up again.

If you're a fashion history buff like me, then feast your eyes on this new book, offering a view of the evolution, personas, and cultural phenomenon coursing through this industry.

First she showed us fashion's future-- and now she is giving us a glimpse into our nation's fashion history.

*Scroll down for photos* Last night, guests from New York City, Los Angeles, and London braved a torrential downpour to attend a "Forgotten Fashion" ...

Vreeland's very appearance reflected her mantra that beauty could sometimes be strange and even alarming.

MacGrawn originally began her career in fashion, working at one point as an assistant to legendary editor Diana Vreeland. Perhaps this influenced her wonderfully innovative approach to dressing.

Ms. Head's snippets of advice and witticisms were as closely heeded as those attributed to Coco Chanel, and they remain relevant today: "You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it."

Unlike our other style icons, Casati had her true heyday before World War I -- yet her occult-ish look continues to inspire history-minded fashion insiders generations later.

Today we pay our respects to the great Nancy Cunard, a heiress, activist, and provocateur who shunned a spoiled existence to wage war on the racist attitudes of her generation.

Contemporary audiences will immediately notice how comparatively mature Parker appears compared to today's supermodels. Aesthetics were very different in Parker's day: women strived to look sophisticated, rather than half their age.

Marlene Dietrich is one of my personal heroines. The epitome of Old Hollywood glamour, Dietrich also exuded sex appeal - and yet never veered into crassness. Mystery and subtext were Dietrich's forms of currency; today's bare-all stars could take a lesson or two from her.

This lavishly creative designer was once as revered and famous as Coco Chanel, who referred to her rival as "that Italian artist who makes clothes." Schiaparelli collaborated on pieces and collections with artists Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, and Alberto Giacometti.

*Scroll down for the full slideshow* In 2007, we launched on this site ...

Today New York City's Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute will open its new exhibit, "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity." Gazing at the glamorous finery of eras past, as usual I found myself wishing back certain flourishes and trappings, from hand-held fans to white gloves to turbans.

In every major instance of feminist upheaval, women's clothing has been examined as both a symbolic and literal reflection of women's inequality in society.

After reading the recent NYTimes article highlighting Eddie Feibusch's zipper business in New York's Lower East Side, I was reminded of the history of the not-so-humble zipper.

I spoke to Baker's son about how Josephine became a savior of the House of Dior, who really invented that deliciously scandalous string of bananas, and how she became a "guest editor" at Vogue (without the editors ever knowing it).

WatchMojo.com recently asked when did women start wearing revealing and skimpy clothes. The McCord Museum helped answer with a look back at changes in...

In eras past, the designs of the day were presented to clients at chic poolside presentations or at delightful little department store luncheons (Waldorf salad, rather than global outreach, was the order of the day).

One of the amazing aspects of Jackson's style is that no matter how outrageous he looked throughout his life, he was consistent in the visual motifs in which he decorated himself.

I love that Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko incorporates the traditional folksy milkmaid plaited braid, juxtaposed with her otherwise very modern sartorial sensibility, with nods to history.

This year we're upping the glam quotient on year-end roundups by choosing the best and the brightest of Fashion's class of 2009.

Invitations to designer shows during New York Fashion Week are harder to come by than smiles on the catwalk. There was once a time, though, when you couldn't pay people to show up for this biannual orgy of style.