Versace

In the world of interior design, Eileen Brown has discovered one fashion truth: It helps if you dress the part.To this self-proclaimed "high-maintenance" dresser, that means devoting attention to her wardrobe and visiting designer showrooms in New York for the latest styles.Fine fabrics -- particularly silk and cashmere -- distinguish her style, but she also likes clothes that show her sense of humor."I'm lots of different people wrapped up in one," says Ms. Brown, 47, an interior designer who lives and works in Pikesville.

ACTRESSES GET ALL THE BREAKS. If they follow the winds of fashion when getting dressed in the morning, they're congratulated for being so on-trend. If they break away from the trendy and do something different, they're avant-garde. Nowhere was that more obvious than at last week's Academy Awards. Gown after gorgeous gown on the red carpet either exemplified a trend or went against the grain -- and, for the most part, it all looked fabulous. "I thought it was in very good taste, fashion-wise, this Oscar season," says Avril Graham, executive fashion and beauty editor for Harper's Bazaar.

Under all the lace and velvet, sturdy tweed and filmy chiffon, fall fashion's modern fantasies of Edwardian dandies, Russian officers and Scottish Highlanders are built on old-fashioned jackets.Romantic is the operative word this season, as international designers ransack archives to revive vintage jacket shapes drawn from across the centuries and across the globe, from the snowy Tyrolean Alps to the misty English hunt country.Blowing the dust off the foppish styles first set in the drawing rooms of late 19th-century London, designers on both sides of the Atlantic dote on dandy looks this season.

In stepPeople either love or hate Birkenstocks -- those oversized, cork-soled sandals and clogs. Despite the mixed reactions, Sierra Leather at Towson Town Center has been selling about seven or eight pairs a day this year, according to Tony Mirarchi, the assistant manager of the store.Those who love them come in two forms: trendy types catching on to the fad and ailing types looking for relief from back, knee and foot problems, Mr. Mirarchi said.Those who hate them think the shoes are ugly, no matter how comfortable they are."

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Henry VIII is coming back to the throne. And this time, he's bloody gorgeous. Showtime's epic 10-part miniseries The Tudors holds court beginning tonight at 10 with Jonathan Rhys Meyers cast as the unlikely lead. And much like Henry VIII, the show's producers can't disguise their ambitions - to produce a show that finally gets Showtime an HBO-style hit, popular both with the Emmy nobility and peasants alike. They've invested an unprecedented $38 million and have spent millions more promoting it. "We are hoping to be back here filming for another two, three, maybe four years, because the material we have to work with is so rich and there's so much story to tell.

Actor Johnny Alonso has thick skin. Again and again in the past five years, Alonso hopped into his SUV, put a classic Eartha Kitt album in his CD player and made the lonesome haul down Interstate 95 to Wilmington, N.C., to audition for producers of the WB teen drama Dawson's Creek. He was rejected 27 times. "It got to the point where I would just drive zombified. I had no idea where I was," Alonso said from John Steven, a favorite Fells Point tavern. "I've always wanted to entertain.

In the annals of fashion, the hemline has been one of the surest indicators of social unrest. This much is true -- each time a hemline has risen drastically, the world has been filled with uncertainty, rebellion and the heady possibility of sweeping change. In the jazzy '20s, the newly empowered woman wore skirts at a shocking knee-length. And in the politically charged 1960s, hemlines dramatically raced up the leg and miniskirts became must-haves for any self-respecting, liberated woman.

The morning talk shows were barely over yesterday when Robert K. Ressler - criminologist, retired FBI agent, the man who interviewed Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and the Son of Sam - decided to stop talking to the media. After five days of being stalked by reporters, the renowned profiler had nothing more to say about the sniper who has killed six people in the suburbs of Washington. He did not want to speculate on motives or state of mind or why the most recent victim was a child.

The prescription: a healthy bout of retail therapy in Glasgow, Scotland, a city ranked as Britain's lustiest shopping mecca outside London. It would be a weekend rage of clothes, cocktails and caloric indulgence. And then the dollar tanked, committing hari-kari at the brink of 2 to the pound (up from its usual wildly expensive rate of $1.60). Shopping -- or buying, at least -- was out. What remained was four crisp days to discover the where and why of the once-gritty city now dubbed City of Culture, City of Architecture and Design, Scotland's Capital of Cool.

In the worlds of fashion and entertainment, the name "Versace" has been front and center in recent years. We've seen the glorious gowns on stars from Britney Spears to Catherine Zeta-Jones. And who could forget the taped-down scarf dress at the 2000 Grammy Awards that some still think launched the superstardom of Jennifer Lopez? A&E Network attempts to demystify the Versaces this week on an installment of Famous Families in Biography. The episode, which airs tomorrow at 8 p.m., tells the story behind the label, from the birth of Gianni Versace in a poor Southern Italian city to his becoming an international household name.