Versace

A prince of fashion is dead, shot down on the steps of the palace he raised up from the kitsch of Miami Beach. An overdressed court mourns Italian designer Gianni Versace, who clothed royals and rockers, socialites and tarts and innumerable young fashion groupies who saved their pennies to cloak themselves in bits of instant sexiness that is the essence of Versace design.If few have owned or touched a genuine Versace, they certainly have seen the added wattage his clothes give a star clientele.

During his reign as the grand duke of fashion, Gianni Versace glorified and glamorized pop culture better than anyone since Andy Warhol. Since his murder two weeks ago, the glamour is sweeping back into the streets that inspired him.This week, hip-hop producer-turned-artist Sean "Puffy" Combs appears on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, the waistband of his white Versace underwear clearly visible under an open faux-fur coat.And although there is no place in Baltimore to buy the designer's signature couture line, Baltimore's hip youth are grabbing up whatever bits of Versace glamour they can find.

Anyone following the story of Gianni Versace's murder knows that one of his last acts was to buy magazines. The day after the slaying, the Boston Globe reported that the designer bought Business Week, Entertainment Weekly, the New Yorker, People and Vogue. He wanted Time, too, but it wasn't available.This week, he's selling them.Most of those magazines pushed the story onto their covers. (Vogue didn't, but only because it is a monthly and wasn't due to publish.)Many weeks in a slack summer, magazines scrape for cover fodder: A week ago, Jewel, Ivana's divorce, cigar smoking and retirement strategies fronted for them.

It was a year of contradictions and confusion for the fashion-minded as designers and retailers opened a grab bag of trends, hoping to recharge a lagging interest in shopping and dressing.What to wear? Fashionables touted the return of "Conservative Chic," polished dressing patterned after legendary clotheshorses like Jackie O. and Grace Kelly. Male fashion took inspiration from "Forrest Gump," a film that launched "Geek Chic."When to wear it? IBM demoted the suit and put the corporate stamp of approval on "Casual Friday."

NEW YORK - To judge by the talk emanating from Paris last week, the couture shows should be held in oxygen tents.Pierre Berge, the longtime partner of Yves Saint Laurent, recently suggested that haute couture would die with Saint Laurent. Gianni Versace and Christian Lacroix, two proponents of a younger, sexier couture, objected strenuously in interviews.Interestingly, a review of Saint Laurent's couture collection in The International Herald Tribune last week said the designer "has nothing new to say" and added: "Saint Laurent's collections are dead."

If clothes could only talk. ... Well, sometimes they actually do. There have been many fashion moments when designers have literally spelled out their ideas and married text to textile. "Word-robe" the exhibition now at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a visual lexicon of those moments in 20th century fashion.Richard Martin, costume curator for the Met, took the higher road for this exhibit. He found many examples of written fashion without resorting to T-shirts of the "I'm with stupid" school of clothing communication.

Flipper Purify, the adulterous architect in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," may be the best-dressed man on film this summer.He wears $600 Gianni Versace sweaters and $150 Isaac Mizrahi ties. He has a tiny earring in his left ear. And he makes the men on "thirty-something" look like fashion wimps.Those guys Michael, Elliot and Gary inspired a new line of clothing, also called "thirtysomething," which is supposed to be in stores for fall. But if men want to steal some really creative wardrobe ideas, they should check out Flipper, played by Wesley Snipes.

Many NBA players skew European when picking their ties and shoes but buy American when it comes to their suits. It's not patriotism, though. It's practicality. "It don't look right for a guy 6-9 or 6-11 to be in Versace, Armani," says Washington Wizards' forward Jared Jeffries, who wears a size 17 shoe. "Italian designers, that European cut, it looks crazy. It's too slim." Size is one reason why most ball players, no matter their personal styles, have their suits custom made. One favorite among players is Elevee Custom Clothing out of Van Nuys, Calif.

STUART I. ROCHESTER, 63 Co-author of book on POWs Stuart I. Rochester, chief historian of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the co-author of a book many consider the definitive account of American prisoners of war in Southeast Asia, died of melanoma Wednesday at his home in Burtonsville. Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 (1998) was written with Frederick T. Kiley, a retired Air Force colonel and teacher at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In harrowing detail, the 720-page volume tells the story of hundreds of American captives, among them future Sen. John McCain, former Alabama Republican Sen. Jeremiah Denton and Medal of Honor recipients George "Bud" Day and Humbert "Rocky" Versace.

In 1994, when she starred in "The Next Karate Kid," no designers were clamoring to flatter Hilary Swank's five-star figure. But since her gender-bending turn in "Boys Don't Cry," which has earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress, she's reached a kind of quirky fashion-plate status. The willowy actress with the punk pixie haircut has become both edgy ingenue and the darling of designers eager to outfit her for the Academy Awards. "She's an attractive proposition because she's a contender and she's a cute young thing and she pulled off a difficult role, says William Calvert, a New York women's luxury clothing designer.