Off the small screen and into the closet

Debra Messing, better known as funny-girl Grace from the television show "Will & Grace," was draped across the cover of the February issue of Vogue. She wore a gauzy white halter dress with playful pink spots, a look slightly reminiscent of the 1950s. The photo was classic Vogue, the cover girl anything but.

When the fashion world searches for a mannequin, it has traditionally turned either to a model or movie star. Vogue says as much in its February cover story: "Fashion trends have always shown up first in the movies, then on TV, not the other way around."

So what was Messing, a sitcom luminary, doing on the issue that dotted newsstands during New York City's fashion week?

Jessica Bush, a senior at the University of Arizona, might know the answer.

The way that she and her friends dress, she explains, is influenced much more by television than film.

"You see TV on a more regular basis than movies," says Ms. Bush, who recently changed her major from retail marketing to a broader degree in marketing. "You get to know the characters, and you learn their styles."

The show she and her roommates follow most closely for fashion ideas is "Friends." If Bush could, she would dress like Jennifer Aniston's Rachel or Courtney Cox's Monica.

"I would love to wear their clothes....," she muses, trailing off. "If I could afford those clothes."

To be sure, fashion has always been influenced by television. An entire show on the subject recently aired on Nickelodeon's TV Land.

"Inside TV Land: Style and Fashion" documented how the high heels and pearls worn by housewives across the country in the late 1950s - à la June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver" - gave way to the more practical flats and capri pants inspired by Mary Tyler Moore's character on "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

It showed how, in the 1960s, television laid bare for public consumption all things Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: from the pill box hats, oversized sunglasses, and demurely draped handkerchiefs down to her strappy sandals.

In the 1970s, droves of children donned tacky Brady-Bunch-style plaid, stripes, and polyester.

Shows like "Dynasty" reflected the high-powered style of the '80s with big glamour and big shoulders. And "Miami Vice" breathed a fresh - albeit sketchy - casual air into men's business attire: T-shirts under sport coats, shoes without socks, linen, pastels.

MTV has offered up Madonna's tarty lace, Seattle-style flannel and jeans grunge, and hip-hop's low-slung pants, in both the baggy male version and the tighter female equivalent popularized by such pop stars as Britney Spears - all of which have been hungrily imitated.

Most of Americans' exposure to celebrity - actors, musicians, society, royalty - has, in fact, come by way of the small screen.

"As much as we're influenced by Hollywood," says Michelle Lee, author of the new book "Fashion Victim," "we don't go see a movie every day. We do watch television every day." And whether or not we realize it, she points out, "when it comes to fashion, we're all influenced by what we see."

But does TV really dictate what we wear more now than when there were only three or four networks to choose from?

Ms. Lee thinks so, if only because of the sheer volume of stations available. "Just the amount of TV there is out there, we can't help but be bombarded by fashion," she says.

But why do we care so much?

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Language of Clothes," Alison Lurie lists what you might be able to tell about a stranger, just by the clothes she wears: age, class, occupation, personality, tastes, current mood.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3