YEAR IN REVIEW 2001: FASHION-AND-DRESS

Fashions The fashion industry witnessed a changing of the guard in 2000. Legendary 20th-century designers Bill Blass and Yves Saint Laurent retired and were replaced by younger faces. American Steven Slowik-who had designed ready-to-wear fashions for Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence before becoming an independent designer in Paris-succeeded Blass, but his 2000 spring-summer collection was a critical failure. Gucci designer Tom Ford took over the reins at Saint Laurent, where he would design both menswear and the women's ready-to-wear line Rive Gauche. Alber Elbaz, Rive Gauche's former designer, moved to Milan and took over as head designer at Krizia. Saint Laurent's menswear designer Hedi Slimane, who had successfully reestablished and popularized the company's menswear in the 1990s, moved to head up menswear design at Christian Dior. Jil Sander resigned as chairman of her company in January and sold 75% of her stock to the Prada group, which later purchased Azzedine Alaia, famous in the 1980s for its body-hugging lycra dresses. A shift also took place among prominent women at the forefront of style. The front-row seats at New York fashion shows were filled with young, stylish Manhattan socialites, notably sisters Aerin and Jane Lauder (granddaughters of beauty mogul Este Lauder), Alexandra and Erin Lind, Samantha and Serena Boardman, Lulu de Kwiatkowski, and the Miller sisters: Pia Getty, Alexandra von Frstenberg, and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece. Their presence overshadowed that of elder American fashion icons Nan Kempner, Nancy Kissinger, Betsey Bloomingdale, and Pat Buckley. A contingent of designers produced pieces for both spring-summer and autumn-winter that seemed directly inspired by this so-called Park Avenue Princess look. Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Valentino all produced crisp and sophisticated yet sexy and luxurious wardrobe staples, perfect for luncheon-trousers, skirts, shirtdresses, and day coats in solid colours such as white and red. Established designers such as Carolina Herrera-who in midsummer opened her first shop on Madison Avenue in New York City-and Oscar de la Renta (named Womenswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America ) succeeded in presenting modern collections that appealed to both younger and older socialites. In Great Britain, Hussein Chalayan (see Biographies) was named Designer of the Year for the second consecutive year. It was Michael Kors, however, who best captured the neoconservative zeitgeist with his spring-summer collection Palm Bitch, a humorous take on the styles that the young rich wore while vacationing in Palm Beach, Fla. The look featured skimpy bikinis and bright acid-yellow and uber-lime silk shirts, as well as matching head scarves. Kors continued the rich-bitch theme for the spring-summer collection of Celine, the French Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned line of which he was creative director, but he added a European twist by including such items as tie-dyed silk-denim jeans that were inspired by the French seaside resort town Saint-Tropez. Kors's collection and the jet-set chic current that filtered through spring-summer fashion-Louis Vuitton produced a signature beach towel, Versace made rhinestone-rimmed sunglasses, and Burberry unveiled its first bikini in the company's signature plaid-were a direct response to the bull market and the long-term economic boom in the West. Increasingly, women were wearing expensive jewelry with casual daytime clothes. In Tokyo, Paris, and London, Cartier opened a string of "casual-style" shops, where the atmosphere was meant to be relaxed and no item exceeded 15,000 (about $21,750). European designers adopted their own interpretation of the refined, conservative look. Sincere chic, a ladylike theme, dominated Miuccia Prada's spring-summer collection, which included demure silk pussycat-bow blouses with matching pleated skirts and cardigan sweaters. Prada's theme proved influential. Her large bowling-bag-style handbag became an instant best-seller and was quickly copied by retailers, who successfully sold their own much-less-expensive versions. For autumn-winter a group of international designers-Narciso Rodriguez, Clements Ribeiro, Max Mara, Alberta Ferretti, Marcus Lupfer, and Turssardi-all produced ladylike clothes such as 1950s- and '60s-inspired dresses, tweed suits, and blouse and skirt ensembles. Such styles, particularly Prada's, drew heavily on vintage clothing, increasingly sought after from such specialized vintage vendors as Kenny Valenti in New York and Vent in London. Most designer ladylike styles and accessories-such as Gucci's classic Chanel-inspired sling backs and Jackie Onassis-style coats and Michael Kors's Barbara Bush-like multilayer pearl necklace created by Janis Savitt-were produced with a definite modern feeling. Gucci's pumps featured high, slim heels, and its coats were accessorized with dark sunglasses and psychedelic head scarves. Although the new uptown style was a dominant look, it was countered by an urban downtown cool look-an inventive style that merged art with fashion. British Vogue defined the look as featuring battered fabrics, tight stonewashed denim, baseball caps, and fake designer tracksuits worn with cheap stilettos. At the forefront of the downtown cool generation was Chlo Sevigny, whose film role as a young woman who falls in love with a lesbian in the controversial Boys Don't Cry thrust her into the media spotlight. American Vogue columnist Andre Leon Talley praised her unique style and singled her out as a new fashion icon and perhaps "the new postmodern grunge Audrey Hepburn. Austrian designer Helmut Lang, who in 1997 had moved his business from Paris to New York, launched the first art-inspired fragrance of the 21st century, an eponymous perfume-one for men and another for women. As with fashion's neoconservative look, both established labels and younger designers experimented with the downtown aesthetic. For Chanel's autumn-winter collection, Karl Lagerfeld fashioned a handbag from distressed denim, and for Christian Dior's spring-summer couture show, John Galliano took inspiration from street urchins. Meanwhile, in New York, Miguel Adrover, a 34-year-old Spanish self-taught designer who had worked briefly for Alexander McQueen, debuted his inventive spring-summer collection-highlighted by a day coat made from cotton ticking taken from the mattress of his neighbour, the late Quentin Crisp-which won him the respect of fashion critics as well as the CFDA's Perry Ellis Award for Women's Wear. At the forefront of London's young fashion scene was a group of friends and colleagues: Luella Bartley, Katie Grand, Liberty Ross, and Giles Deacon. Bartley, a former Vogue fashion writer, followed her promising 1999 debut with a 2000 spring-summer collection that personified the new London girl look-pink gingham shirts and shrunken kilts paired with striped ankle socks and Converse sneakers. Her friend Grand, a stylist and fashion director for the British youth magazine The Face, promoted Bartley's work in Pop, a new arts-meets-fashion magazine that Grand launched in September as editor. Ross, a young British model who was hailed in Britain as the next Kate Moss, was also found on the pages of Pop; in addition, she modeled for Luella and fronted advertising campaigns for Burberry and Emanuel Ungaro. Meanwhile, Deacon, a young London-based designer, was appointed creative director of the Italian leather goods label Bottega Veneta. Deacon succeeded in updating the company's signature style-woven leather-with a more modern design aesthetic. Formerly tacky sun visors were reworked in ostentatious crocodile skin, and the shell suit was retooled as sensuous casual wear in the most expensive supple leather. Deacon's footwear for autumn-winter-kitten-heeled two-tone pumps and red leather baggy boots-were found on the most fashionable feet, just as Marc Jacobs's stitched flat-heeled shoes and low-heeled sling backs were in the summer. Style-conscious teenage girls emerged as the new affluent free spenders. Their role models were blonde pop singers such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Meanwhile, supermodels Christy Turlington, who launched an Ayurvedic skin-care line, Sundari, and Claudia Schiffer, who publicly romanced her playboy boyfriend, Tim Jeffries, reestablished their modeling careers as 30-something role models. When the first issue of Teen Vogue was published in September, the New York Times newspaper noted that "the upward-striving teenager is now more than ever the target of luxury marketers who once focused strictly on adults." Making inroads into the teenage market were Chanel, Ralph Lauren (who introduced his first teenage scent, Ralph), Lancme, and Versace. Teenage shoppers boosted sales at upscale shops around the world. Fortune magazine reported that Spanish international clothing retailer Zara, which specialized in manufactured copies of designer clothes, reported sales of $2 billion, a profit gain of 34%. The Gap, meanwhile, opened its biggest shop in the world on Regent Street in London. African American style icons, once relegated to the sidelines of style, emerged as major industry players. Music producer and rapper Sean ("Puff Daddy") Combs introduced Sean John, his first ready-to-wear line for men and women during the 2000 autumn-winter fashion week in New York. His collection responded to the popularity of Ghetto Fabulous-a unisex look that promoted the overt luxury that he, his girlfriend, actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, and black female musicians Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim, and the trio TLC had established. The Ghetto Fabulous look popularized labels such as Versace, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce & Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, and Galliano's designs for Christian Dior, as well as copious amounts of chunky real gold and diamond jewelry and fur of rare breeds, such as chinchilla. Motorola's answer to the look was a diamond-encrusted mobile phone, which retailed for $25,000. Logomania-a look that overtly displayed designer initials on clothes, jewelry, and accessories such as handbags and shoes-was the fashion industry's take on Ghetto Fabulous and was popularized in the 2000 spring-summer collections by Gucci, Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, and Galliano at Dior. Bronwyn Cosgrave Gertz, Elmer American lawyer, teacher, and writer (b. Sept. 14, 1906, Chicago, Ill.-d. April 27, 2000, Chicago), was a champion of civil rights-working for fairness in access to housing, battling against police brutality, and shepherding a strong bill of rights into the Illinois constitution-and figured prominently in some of the most famous court cases of the second half of the 20th century. Gertz represented such high-profile clients as Nathan Leopold in his quest for parole after he had served over 30 years of a life sentence for the 1924 "thrill" murder of Bobby Franks, Henry Miller in his struggle against censorship of his 1934 novel, Tropic of Cancer, after it was accused of being obscene, and Jack Ruby in his bid to have his murder conviction overturned on the grounds that his case had been tainted by pretrial publicity regarding his shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald-the accused assassin of Pres. John F. Kennedy. Gertz was educated at the University of Chicago, earning a bachelor's degree (1928) and a law degree (1930), and practiced law at a prominent Chicago law firm. He came to public attention in 1958 with his successful argument that Leopold had been rehabilitated and deserved parole. In the 1960s, in addition to his victory in the Supreme Court in the Miller case and his gaining Ruby the right to a retrial (Ruby died in jail before he could be retried), Gertz was responsible for another landmark Supreme Court decision-that in murder trials potential jurors could not be excluded solely on the basis of their opposition to the death penalty. Although Gertz was a champion of freedom of the press, he himself became a principal in a notable case in 1969 when a John Birch Society publication accused him of being a communist after he represented a family who sued a Chicago police officer. The Supreme Court's 1983 decision extended to public figures the protection that private citizens enjoyed against attacks on their reputations. With that case, Gertz succeeded in redefining libel law.