HIJACKING THE RUNWAY

A fascinating chronicle of how celebrity has inundated the world of fashion, realigning the forces that drive both the styles we covet and the bottom lines of the biggest names in luxury apparel.

From Coco Chanel’s iconic tweed suits to the miniskirt’s surprising comeback in the late 1980s, fashion houses reigned for decades as the arbiters of style and dictators of trends. Hollywood stars have always furthered fashion’s cause of seducing the masses into buying designers’ clothes, acting as living billboards. Now, forced by the explosion of social media and the accelerating worship of fame, red carpet celebrities are no longer content to just advertise and are putting their names on labels that reflect the image they—or their stylists—created.

Teri Agins is the author of The End of Fashion and has covered fashion for almost thirty years. She developed the fashion beat for The Wall Street Journal and continues to write the weekly "Ask Teri" column. Agins has won many awards for her fashion writing and has written for Vogue, Town&Country, and Harper’s Bazaar, among numerous other publications. She lives in New York City.