Fashion Calendar: 5/4/2011

FASHION HISTORY, 1998

Sharon Stone walks the red carpet at the Oscars wearing husband Phil Bronstein's white button-front shirt with a lavender silk wrap skirt by Vera Wang. Fashion pundits laud her contrarian style, and she flaunts it, telling USA Today, "I'd go to dinner in my bathrobe if I felt like it. I have gone out in my pajamas and a pair of high heels".

Fashion Calendar: 28/3/2011

FASHION REGRET, "FRANKIE SAY RELAX" T-SHIRTS

When you're wearing a t-shirt the size of a circus tent, aren't you already well enough relaxed??

Fashion Calendar: 21/3/2011 Icon

Vivienne Westwood, DESIGNER

Why? Because punk rock cleans up right nice, and tartan plaid never look so avant-garde. Because she dressed the Sex Pistols in the early '70s, and- still relevant nearly 40 years later- she made Sex and the City movie wedding dress. And because she dares to play with proportions, uses corsets as outerwear, and terrifies models with her nine-inch-heel shoe creations.

Fashion Calendar: 15/3/2011 Object of desire

Cloche

A felt bell-shaped hat meant to mold to the shape of the head. An essential piece of the 1920s flapper uniform.

Fashion Calendar: 14/3/2011

Fashion History, 1959

Barbie is born. The first doll wears a black-and-white zebra-striped swimsuit and is available as either a blonde or brunette. Mattel markets her as a "Teen-age Fashion Model", and sells about 350,000 dolls in the first year of production.

Fashion Calendar: 3/3/2011

Fashion History 1533

Anne Boleyn becomes queen consort and introduces lingerie to Henry the VIII's court. However, the most alluring of negligees couldn't keep her pretty little neck away from the execution block.

Fashion Calendar: 2/3/2011 Style Lexicon

Huarache

Mexican woven-leather sling-bck sandal with a flat sole. Popular among 1960s hippies and surfers (the Beach Boys gave the shoes a shout-out in "Surfin' USA), the shoes recenlty had a fashion moment when upscale designers such as Tory Burch gussied them up with gold accents and zippers.

Fashion Calendar: 1/3/2011 Scene Stealers

HAPPY DAYS, 1974-1984 (tv series)

Henry Winkler's reformed hoodlum, the Fonz, is rarely seen without his leather jacket. When the show first aired,ABC censors would only allow a leather jacket to be worn near a motorcycle (which explains why the Fonz drove his bike into Arnold's instead of parking out front). One of the jackets is now in the Smithsonian.

Fashion Calendar: 27/2/2011

QUIZ OF THE MONTH

Who photographed Brooke Shields in her "Nothing Comes Between Me and My Calvins" advertisement?

a) Francesco Scavullo

b) Teri Shields

c) Richard Avedon

d) Calvin Klein

c) Richard Adevon

Fashion Calendar 24/2/2011 Fashion Regret

BICYCLING COSTUMES OF THE 1890s

There's nothing like getting out for a little fresh air and exercise by pumping a bicycle up and down the boulevard. And the perfect outfit for the ladies? How about a starched high-neck blouse, wool tights, and balloning pants to better straddle the bike. It makes Spendex and Livestrong bracelets seem downright fetching.

Fashion Calendar: 23/2/2011

Fashion History, 2000, ON THIS DAY

Jennifer Lopez shows up at the Grammy Awards in a $15,000 palm-print silk chiffon Donatella Versace gown that plunges, in a dangerously wide V, to a few inches below her belly button. Stories about double-sided tape flood the news wires. On Halloween of that year, Matt Lauer wears a re-creation of the dress on the Today Show.

Fashion Calender: 22/2/2011 Icon

Marilyn Monroe, ACTRESS Why?

Because one of the most enduring images of the 20th century is of Marilyn in a pleated white dress, standing over a subway grate. Because no one else has made "Happy Birthday" sound or look so sexy. Because no other "dumb blonde" was ever so smart.

Fashion Calender: 21/2/2011 Object of Desire

Vera Wang wedding gown

Wang was a fashion editor at Vogue for 16 years, so when she began designing sumptuous, utterly stylish gowns in the early '90s, they were a revelation. Suddenly, brides could look like modern women, not cake toppers. Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, Uma Therman, and Ivinka Trump are just a few bold-face namew who have said their vows in Vera.

Fashion Calender: 18/2/2011 Object of Desire

Quilted Channel Bag

Its stitched diamond pattern (inspired by the quilting on jockeys' riding jackets) and chain strap (which allowed women to sling it over one shoulder-a novelty in 1955) looks fabulous with a suit or coctail dress, but even more so with jeans and a t-shirt. In 2005, Channel designer Karl Lagerfeld reissued the style, naming it the 2,55 bag, after its debut month and year.

Fashion Calender: 17/2/2011

Fashion History, 1762

Catherine the Great is crowned Empress of Russia. Never one for understatement- St. Petersburg's vast Hermitage museum started a her own personal art collection- she wears a robe with a 75-yard train that requires 55 servants to carry. The crown itself is encrusted with 2,564 diamonds and pearls.

Fashion Calender: 16/2/2011 Scene Stealers

GONE WITH THE WIND, 1939 (movie)

Hoping to keep up appearances on a trip to Atlanta, Scarlett O' Hara has Mammy sew her a fancy dress from the only nice fabric left in the war-ravaged house-green velvet curtains. This curtains-to-fashion trick will be parodied again and again, even inspring the self-help book title Scarlett Rules: When Life Gives You Green Velvet Curtain, Make a Green Velvet Dress.

Fashion Calender: 15/2/2011 Fashion Regret

MADONNA NEEDS MOWING

At a 2009 dinner for Gucci's launch of the Tattoo Heart Collection, Madonna wore a minidress by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton that resembled an overgrown lawn crossed with Oscar the Grouch. As her emereld plumage blew in the breeze, fellow guests fantasized about having at her with pruning shears.

 Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2009 collection

Fashion Calender: 14/2/2011 Icon

Cecil Beaton, PHOTOGRAPHER & COSTUME DESIGNER

Why? Because as the staff photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair in the 1930s, he and a handful of others revolutionized fashion photografy and celebrity portraiture. And because possessing one outstanding talent wasn't enough: His visions and sketches became the costume designs for My Fair Lady on stage and screen, and for the film Gigi.

Fashion Calender: 13/2/2011

" Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women "

Elsa Schiaparelli, 1890-1973. DESIGNER

Fashion Calender: 10/2/2011 Scene Stealers

Pulp Fiction, 1994 (movie)

Twisting with John Travolta in a crisp button-front white shirt and black cigarette pants, Uma Thurman (in an ebony pageboy wig) epitomized '90s minimalism in this Quentin Tarantino hit. The look, created by costume designer Betsy Heimann, was a welcome counterpoint to the scruffy grunge movement, and became every stylish girl's office uniform.