By Veronica Manlow

Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, the Hepburns (both Audrey and Katharine), Princess Grace, Princess Diana. Six women who were fashion icons. Their style inspired designers and what they wore inspired other women. As we head into fashion week, we have to ask—what happened to the fashion icon?

There was a recent blip on the fashion meter last year when Michelle Obama seemed to be influencing style. The J. Crew website nearly shut down after women rushed to buy one of her outfits. And her daughters, mini style arbiters, were close behind. Yet the First Lady’s recent appearance in shorts coming off Air Force One dashed all hope. Fashion icons rarely make mistakes and this blunder was a huge one.

What, in fact, is a fashion icon? Someone whose style is immediately recognizable and timeless. Marilyn Monroe’s red lips, blond hair, beauty mark, and décolletage, epitomized Hollywood glamour. Want to look sexy? Think Marilyn. Jackie Kennedy’s look—simple and classic finished off with those large black sunglasses—can be seen on the streets of Manhattan every day. The Hermes Kelly Bag is still a sought after accessory. The black sheath dress and Delman flats are immediately recognizable as vintage Audrey, yet it’s a look that has never gone out of style and can be a worn by women of all ages. And Katharine made wearing pants both feminine and authoritative, a difficult balancing act. She pulled it off with style and paved the way for pants in the workplace. “Shy Di” brought elegance back with her penchant for dressing up from her crown to her toes. Women everywhere drove their hairdressers berserk asking for the “Di look.”

In the absence of a true fashion icon, we often fall back on rock stars like Madonna. Now Lady Gaga, who, like it or not, does make her own fashion statement, is seen as a trend setter. But her outfits are for the stage not for the street. We may see them in the East Village, not on the Upper East Side. A true fashion icon influences fashion everywhere—from Wall Street to Main Street—anytime and for anyone.

Perhaps our diverse society now renders the fashion icon irrelevant. People belong to multiple “lifestyle” groups: ethnic, religious, even sexual. And, even in these lifestyle groups there is fragmentation. Hipsters can be subdivided into several genres. There is no mainstream population that shares the same values, and therefore there is no one ideal of beauty, style, fashion. The traditional institutions that provided certainty and continuity: religion, family, political ideologies, have themselves lost a firm anchoring. What was thought of as “high culture” no longer claims to stand apart from society, setting a standard. The consumerist pop culture society we live in prizes the new and the contradictory. This is the social milieu that a fashion icon is up against.

A fashion icon requires consensus amongst people: tastemakers and the public. It requires too that women be willing to take direction rather than go their own way. Michelle Obama’s recent appearance in shorts, though it received some criticism, provides us with a definitive statement that women don’t have to follow fashion, and that fashion can be anything one wants it to be: J. Crew or Valentino.

Today’s fashion icons exist, but they speak to a much smaller audience, and their influence is fleeting. Fashion is polymorphous and it has become melded to marketing. Fashion icons of the past choose designers and put those designers on the map. Now, the brands have become icons, dressing the stars of their choice. It is Louis Vuitton that selects Jennifer Lopez, not the other way around.

With top notch designers selling their clothing in moderate-priced chain stores like Target and Kohl’s every woman has it within her grasp to become a style icon. Glamour is no longer something accessible only to the celebrity or the occasional woman of high social status. It is accessible to every woman.

Do New York women, readers of Woman Around Town (a tribe to be sure, and one with definite ideals, attitudes and opinions!), have their own fashion icon(s)? Tell us who inspires you…

Veronica Manlow (PhD Sociology) is a professor of economics at Brooklyn College who does research on organizational structure, culture, leadership, networks, and on the creative process of design and marketing within firms in the fashion industry.