Trends such as fast fashion, high-low dressing, pop-up shops, and the tossed-out look were widely in evidence last year owing to the recession-battered global economy.

Here with the Britannica Book of the Year’s look at the year in fashion, in text and photos.

What is the dumbest question that you have ever heard? How about: Who wore it best?

I mean, when we see side-by-side photo images of two impossibly attractive, often alarmingly thin, undeniably fashionable female celebrities wearing the exact same outfit on different occasions and then are asked to rate who looks better, isn’t that a dumb question?

Am I just over-reacting, or does the cultural practice of rating women’s bodies and promoting a nothing-less-than-perfect standard of attractiveness, even among the naturally beautiful, lead to increased self-dissatisfaction and body image preoccupation?

F-A-T.

For many, it is the most terrifying three-letter word in our language. You would think there are worse things that someone could be, but in our society, to be fat is to be a failure.

But there are many misconceptions about weight that we ignore at our peril …

A 34-year-old puffin? 34,000-year-old clothes?

Titanic moons named after places in a sci-fi novel?

In this week’s Hot Links, we look at these matters and more—including a recent spotting of “pretty perversity.”

Master fashion and celebrity photographer Irving Penn has died at the age of 92.

Read Britannica’s biography of Penn here.

Seldom does a single video highlight how not to do two careers, but this one manages just that.

So here’s how not to perform as a professional newscaster and runway model.

Each Saturday we highlight a humorous and sometimes poignant video, interview, comic, or skit concerning different careers, past and present. From W.C. Fields to Rowan Atkinson, from classic cartoons and commercials to Monty Python—all and everything will be tapped for this look each week at various professions and pastimes (loosely defined).

Click here for all of the videos and careers highlighted to date.

This day, in 1981, hundreds of millions of television viewers worldwide watched the “fairy-tale” wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

We know, of course, how the “fairy tale” ended.

On the 10-year anniversary of Diana’s death in 2007, the Britannica Blog featured a series of outstanding posts on Diana, the cult of celebrity, and the future of the British Crown.

The ideas they discussed are still relevant.

Here’s a few of the posts:

Catherine Whitney: “Diana and the Royal ‘Me’ Generation”

Vanity Fair’s Maureen Orth: “Diana, Versace, and the Celebrity Epidemic”

Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford: “Diana, Beckham, and the Cult of Celebrity”

Tina Brown: “Interview with the Author of The Diana Chronicles”

Baseball Star Denny McLain: “Celebrity: A Little Bad, A Lot of Good”

An article in my newspaper (yes, I still read one daily) about tattoo shops caught my attention the other day.

It seems that, despite or possibly because of the current embarrassment of the economy, they are multiplying like, well, the tattoos on the gal in this photograph …

Fast Company recently released its list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.”

British/Turkish designer Hussein Chalayan came in at number 62.

Twice voted Britain’s “Designer of the Year,” he made headlines in recent years by fusing high tech with high fashion in his “transformer dresses,” which can mechanically adjust hem and sleeve lengths on command, and his “video dresses” as seen here.
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Perhaps you have heard of it. It’s the new “buzz word” surrounding eating disorders. Reports are that it has been inspired by images of thin, yet pregnant, celebrities along with famous figures who lose their baby weight within a matter of a few weeks.

Although “pregorexia” is used by the entertainment world to catagorize women who have a “baby bump” yet watch their weight to an extreme degree, there is nothing remotely entertaining about starving oneself, over-exercising or purging while pregnant.

As a matter of fact, an eating disorder like this can put both the mother and baby at risk.