Style Fix

Because this is a blog, and I’m pretty sure I’m contractually obligated to do some kind of “Top Somethings of 2006″ list, and because stupid Best Week Ever already stole my idea for a “Top 10 Top 10 Lists” list, but mostly because I like talking about my own opinions, here they are, my Top 5 fashion moments of 2006.

5. Ugly Betty

If “The Devil Wears Prada” taught us anything, it’s that holding a mirror up to the fashion world is rarely pretty. But it can be funny, hysterically so. Like, for example, the brilliance that is Ugly Betty. This show, and this character, poke fun at the silliness of the fashion world, even while truthfully portraying how desperately people wish to be part of it. Love it.

4. Layering

They put it on the runway, and starlets followed suit. And while the results aren’t always as polished as they were at Celine (see:Mary-Kate Olsen), adding vests to jackets to shells to tanks kept going strong throughout the fall. Yeah, the mags are predicting a no-frills silhouette come Spring, but I have a hunch the layering trend is not quite through with us.

3. The Rise (and Possible Fall) of Rachel Zoe

Okay, this isn’t really fashion, it’s more Hollywood. But the impact Rachel Zoe and her army of bug-eyed, stick-legged starlets have had on fashion cannot be denied. Rachel Zoe clients, including Mischa Barton and, until lately, Nicole Richie, are world-wide trendsetters, in both fashion and weight. She was recently fired by Richie with a barbed comment about “healthy influences,” adding fuel to rumors that she encourages starlets to drop lots of weight and even supplies them with diet pills and horse tranquilizers (wait, what?). Whether this is true or not, the dominance of Rachel Zoe over the wardrobes of starlets, and by extension, our own, could not be denied in 2006.

2. The Bubble

Love the novelty of this silhouette? Hate how it can make your hips look like a serving tray? Either way, the bubble skirt was everywhere in fall. There were lots of variations- slight tucking at the hem, volume around the hips, belting at the knees- but the idea remained the same, and remained ever-popular. Starlets embraced it, and the runways positively swarmed with bubble skirts. I foresee a subtle-izing of this trend (is that a word?) in the coming months, but the influence will stick around.

And now. . .drumroll please. . . .

1. The End of the Super-Skinny Model (Maybe)

Government officials and fashion-industry honchos have gotten together in Spain, Brazil, and Italy to ban extremely thin and extremely young models from the catwalks. This is a huge change in an industry that has long resisted calls from the outside world to change the image it portrays. While it’s too bad it took the death from anorexia of Ana Carolina Reston, a 5-foot-8 inch, 88 pound international model, to shock the industry into adopting guidelines, I’m glad that at least some positive changes are being made.

Ugly Betty, America Ferrara, Celine, Bubble Skirts, Rachel Zoe, Nicole Richie, Misha Barton, Super-skinny Models, Top 5 Countdown, Fashion