Fashion today is a glamorous and unique style that no two people share. It is something that is different for everyone. Fashion happens to be a relevant and powerful force in our lives. At every level of society, people care greatly about the way they look and how people view them. This has been true since the beginning of time, that all people from all different walks of life make the effort to dress in style. Teri Agins illustrates in her new book “The End of Fashion” every aspect of the industry. Beginning with the couture shops of Paris to the famous powerhouse designers of today. You will read about the rivalry between Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger and why Donna Karan fights with financiers. For the first time there is a hard-hitting objective look at the fundamental changes in the fashion industry. Fashion trends of today are a part of our culture. You read about them in magazines, what’s in and what’s out, what was last season and what you must have for winter 2000-2001. You watch it on television when you see Naomi strutting her stuff on the runway for a fashion show. Agins believes that “a clothing style becomes fashionable when enough people accept it at any given time. And conversely, fashions go out of style when people quit wearing them.” Every few years when the style of clothing changes, women and men both, are compelled to go shopping for new wardrobes to stay in style. However, in recent years there have been a number of circumstances that have caused a revolutionary shift that has reversed the roles. The power now belongs to us, the consumers, who decide what we want to wear, when we buy it, and how much we pay for it. There have been new mega trends that have sent fashion in a new direction. By the end of the 1980s, people stopped dressing up. “Most Americans were wearing jeans, loose knit tops and Nike shoes, which became the acceptable standard of everyday dress,” according to Agins. Before long, corporate America shifted to khakis and knit shirts at least one day of the week, which we know as “casual Friday.” It began to seem that not only were dress up clothes no longer a popular thing but also good taste. Millions of Americans sank into sloppiness, and on February 20, 1995 the cover of “Newsweek” blared the headline “Have We Become a Nation of Slobs?” As a result America’s fine boutiques suffered the fate as well as European designers. In April of 1997 Ralph Lauren said, “I don’t respect Tommy Hilfiger as a designer. Everything he did he got from me. He has nothing new today.” That following July, Ralph Lauren took ownership of the American Flag for $13 million. It was a sweet moment for Lauren, American fashion’s first billionaire, to give back to the land that had given him so many opportunities. With fashion’s new condensed time frame, new designer brands came and went in a hurry. In the fall of 1998, Banana Republic draped itself in suede. The Gap organization designed the way that it knows best, advertising in magazines and on television with ads with the caption: “Banana Republic. Suede.” Agins tells the reader “Banana Republic had effectively turned suede into what’s known in retailing parlance as a ‘category killer’ by creating such a demand that suede merchandise alone drew thousands of shoppers into the store.” Teri Agins believes that the end of fashion has led straight to the Gap, which has mastered a modern way of marketing clothes: “give the lady what she wants.” To borrow a 1998 cover line from “Fortune” magazine: “Gap Gets It.” Which means the shoppers get it, too.