The Year in Fashion

Style.com has come up with its eoy summary of all that's really good with fashion throughout 2000andgreat
I have lovingly added some of the highlights......peep below

Because Symbols Mean Something

Why should French First Ladies have all the fun? Many Americans were outraged at the amount of attention paid to the Narciso Rodriguez dress Michelle Obama wore on election night, as if all that talk about her attire somehow trivialized the occasion. But we choose to see Mrs. O's fashion risk-taking as a small but potent sign that the next four (eight?) years won't be politics—or pantsuits—as usual. And if nothing else, Obama—who sparked a run on yellow J.Crew pencil skirts and cardigans after an appearance on The Tonight Show—could be a one-woman bailout package for one of the nation's key consumer sectors. Game on, Madame Bruni-Sarkozy.


Because Marc Jacobs Keeps Us Guessing
Jacobs was everywhere in 2007. Did that mean he'd lie low in 2008? Not a chance. First, there was the ongoing saga of his very public private life (this year's guessing game: Did he or didn't he get married to his Brazilian beau, Lorenzo Martone?). But all that falls away when the lights go down and the first model hits the runway. His Hall of Mirrors Spring 2009 collection gave New York a rare euphoric fashion high with its mad pileup of references, and he followed it up a few weeks later with another brilliantly dense show for Louis Vuitton. He ended the year by snagging Madonna for Vuitton's ads and showing up in a kilt in Miami. Whatever would we talk about over dinner if it weren't for MJ?

Because Runways and Magazines Finally Got (a Little) More Diverse
For an industry that prides itself on new ideas, fashion can sometimes be slow to change its ways. And while the consensus of a "Race on the Runway" panel in September was that there's a long way to go, 2008 at least saw an injection of color into the longtime whitewash. Some dismissed Vogue Italia's "A Black Issue" as tokenism, but Steven Meisel's images of veterans (Veronica Webb and Naomi Campbell), newly minted It girls (Jourdan Dunn and Chanel Iman), gorgeous unknowns (Arlenis Sosa and Sessilee Lopez), and even an America's Next Top Model (Toccara Jones) spoke louder than words. The issue, which quickly sold out and required a 10,000-magazine reprint, has had a (hopefully lasting) effect. Sosa was named the new face of Lancôme in September and Lopez recently posed for her first W magazine editorial.

Because Otherwise Belgium Would Only Be Known for Beer and Chocolate
Despite his best intentions, Dries Van Noten failed to stay under the radar this year. First, he received the CFDA's International Award in New York, and then a few months later in Paris, he sent out a Spring 2009 collection whose refined simplicity seemed to have perfectly intuited the world's suddenly sober mood. The Belgian designer's enduring success is all the more remarkable in that he has done it on his own terms. The corporates learned to stop knocking on the door of his Antwerp castle, because Van Noten politely yet steadfastly declines to hand over the financial reins to anyone who might ask that he change his way of working—for example, he refuses to do pre-collections as it means handing work over to assistants. Looking ahead to next year, a new jewelry line threatens to raise his profile even higher.

Because a High-Low Collaboration Can Still Knock Our (Polka-Dotted) Socks Off
In the last couple of years, those collisions of mass and class have gone from rare high points on the calendar to what seem like almost weekly occurrences (we're half expecting to see Dennis Basso for Target any day now). But Comme des Garçons' collaboration with H&M got our hearts beating a little faster this November. The Rei-verent pored with building anticipation over the Peter Lindbergh ad campaign and lined up for days in Tokyo and New York. And with good reason: The boiled wool jackets, deconstructed skirts, drop-crotch pants, and polka-dotted pieces—all made under the Japanese label's strict supervision—truly raised the bar on fast-fashion merch. Did you expect any less from Ms. Kawakubo?


Three Letters: YSL
A crowd of nearly 800 people, including Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Catherine Deneuve, his mother, Lucienne Saint Laurent, and nearly every designer in Paris, arrived at the Église Saint-Roche on June 5 to say goodbye to Yves Saint Laurent, who passed away at the age of 71. But even before that magnificently chic outpouring of grief, the tributes to YSL's genius and immeasurable influence on today's fashion flooded in: La Saharienne! Le Smoking! Art as fashion! Street-influenced couture! In fact, in the rehashing you realized more than ever just how much current runway fare comes from the revolutionary school of Saint Laurent—and will continue to do so. Not bad for a man who, in the words of his protector Pierre Bergé, was "born with a nervous breakdown."


Because After 20 Years, Martin Margiela Still Provokes (and Because No, He's Not Retiring)
There was a packed house for Martin Margiela's 20th anniversary show on September 29 in Paris, an event Style.com's Sarah Mower called "a reminder of the continuing relevance of Margiela's sidelong contributions to stimulating fashion over two decades." Or in other words: a catalog of all the seemingly outlandish yet forward-thinking ideas that have begun on the Belgian designer's runway and rippled out to change the wider course of fashion vernacular—the pointed shoulder pad, for instance. Here it was all capped off with a dancing satin birthday cake. Margiela's reps assure us that the enigmatic designer was smiling somewhere in the audience and that those retirement rumors are unfounded.


Because Without Fashion, We Wouldn't Have This Guy
Coming to theaters in 2009: Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in Mesh T-Shirt.

Whatta round up, I'm ooking forward to this film!! On a serious side of fashion films though, check this Bollywood film about the darker side of fashion coming soon to DVD.