In this excerpt from Radar Magazine's March fashion issue, meet the style-world's new power elite

This article is from the March issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here

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We really do get the icons we deserve. In 1968, it was Jackie Kennedy. Fast-forward to 2008 and our aspirational logic has imploded, thanks to a 22-year-old former surf groupie whose mind-numbingly banal—and yet, strangely fascinating!—life as a Teen Vogue intern is cataloged on The Hills, MTV's most lucrative invention since the music video. Through the power of basic cable, the coffee-fetching ingenue has been catapulted to instafame. Rumor has it that LC so upstaged her bosses that they're trying to stuff the front-row genie back in the bottle, severing their ties with the reality series. But Conrad, said to be landing at a new glossy this year, is unstoppable. Millions of tweens believe passionately in her fairy tale, and they all get allowances. The Lauren Conrad Collection launched in September 2007, featuring a 10-piece line of camera-ready dresses best accessorized with a caramel tan and a blank stare. Roll your eyes, but Conrad, in her pearls, headbands, and empire-waisted floaty dresses, is the mild-mannered muse of the moment.

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PISSING EVERYWHERE ISN'T VERY CHANEL reads the little black sign in Lagerfeld's Paris loo, which pretty much sums up why the fashion world can't get enough of the scarily slim seventysomething couturier. His personal rebranding efforts may veer toward the broadest rag-trade caricature—the powdered-white ponytail, stomach-cinching black pants, and noir shades—but they're perfectly calibrated for mass consumption. He also cannily picks his muses (Lily Allen, Irina Lazareanu, and Lindsay Lohan) with an eye on deep-pocketed consumers decades his junior. This year Lagerfeld celebrates his 25th anniversary perched in Coco Chanel's bergère, but he's not letting his legacy go to his head.

"I don't go around calling myself an artist," he's said, in what might be the motto of the New Fashionistas. "If anything, I'm a whore. I go wherever they pay me."

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It's official: Marc Jacobs is bulletproof! The innovative designer's shows have always been tardy, but his fashionably late reputation hit a snag last fall, when the crowd spent the two-hour delay throwing a royal tantrum. Rumors (later proved untrue) swirled that the designer was boozing with his boyfriend while the rest of fashiondom furiously cooled their Chanel pumps. "I would like to murder him with my bare hands," ranted Suzy Menkes, branding his new collection "a freak's costume party." Jacobs, who'd ditched his nerd-chic look of years past for a buff Soloflex physique, responded by calling bullshit on Seventh Avenue, threatening to pack up his pincushions and move his M.J. runway show to Paris. Since Jacobs happens to be the only American designer who's consistently revered for his art—if not his punctuality—the glitterati scrambled to make amends. Even in an off year, his power was palpable.

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Refusing to be put out to pasture like an over-the-hill pinup, Banks has laid down the ratings-grabbing schmaltz on her eponymous chat show, and, as the host of America's Next Top Model, has held the reins as the face of fashion in the flyover states since 2003—in spite of Tim Gunn's earnest attempts to seize them. As the latest season of the catwalk cavalcade wound down, Tyra pulled out the theatrical stops with a circus-like finale in China, complete with hundreds of extras (on stilts!) who chanted as they dutifully followed in her wake. Though her lackluster modeling advice and idiotic catchphrases ("Smile with your eyes!") can grate, Tyra speaks in a language the plebeian masses understand.

Always eager to kiss up to celebs, the fashion industry invited these tiny titans to the CFDA Awards' 25th anniversary last year, where they rubbed insiders the wrong way by addressing the snotty crowd as their "fellow designers." Scissor wizard Phillip Lim even sniped that their prominence was "unfair." The waify divas—who control an estimated $1.4 billion empire—launched two clothing lines in 2007 alone, and, between them, have graced the covers of Nylon, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, and Teen Vogue. But their greatest coup is the accolade they now share with Anna Wintour: the wrath of PETA, who dubbed them "Hairy-Kate and Trashley Trollsen." When people start throwing blood in your face, you know you've arrived.

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At 43, the editrix whose dad wrote the lyrics to Annie thinks like she's 25 and knows a trend when she sees one. Which is why, after six years at Allure, she bolted for—of all places—Us Weekly. Though it lacks hauteur, fashion flacks say landing a shot of a Simpson sister holding a label's latest It bag in one of Morrison's coveted red-carpet pages moves more merch than a full-page image in a highly art-directed Condé glossy. And when one of Morrison's minions calls in a sample, even the most prickly of PR reps tells the messenger to hustle.

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Briefly exiled after onetime client Nicole Richie dubbed her a "raisin face," Zoe's been welcomed back with open arms. With a plum role overseeing the relaunch of Halston's '70s-glam collection, she's sagely steered away from the underage DUIers who made her a success. In 2007, she stepped up her media assault by publishing the requisite book and landing herself in millions of homes via an ad campaign for cell phones. The Zoe-thon appears to have worked: Both W and the Times Magazine have tripped over themselves with fawning articles dubbing her fashion's queen bee. Expect the fluff to keep flowing: The last thing a magazine wants to do is alienate the woman who just might pull out her Samsung and score them their next cover.

Why wade through blow-job editorials on the power of pleats when you can get fresher content for free—and save trees! The Web's preeminent indie fashion hub, refinery29.com susses out new trends so routinely that many fashion monthlies unabashedly lift their news directly from the site. As one fashionista puts it with a hint of awe: "They covered the liquid-leather/latex/shiny black trend before anyone else, and were the first to write about fishing vests!" Philippe's a tall, blond German; Piera's a former photo editor from City magazine who manages to pull off cloche hats with aplomb. And they're married, which is so gosh-darn dorky, it's cool.

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For lensmen-on-the-make and would-be It girls, an audience with Purple magazine's Olivier Zahm—who's also the creative director for YSL's stunning ad campaigns—is the ultimate break. The consummate Frenchman, Zahm's got the cravat, cigar, and aviators-at-night look nailed, plus the chops to keep it from being repellent. Fashion insiders—loath to pay retail for anything—gladly open their wallets to buy Purple, which made French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld a cover girl. The newest addition to Zahm's publishing mini-empire is WOW!, a collection of party snaps by guest editors like Karl Lagerfeld, which offers a vision of the fashion world so glamorous and debauched, it almost looks like fun.

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As H&M's top style maven for, like, ever, Stockholm native van den Bosch outfits Gen Y in trendy gear—for, like, nothing!—at H&M's 1,500 stores around the world. More important, she oversees the cheap-chic chain's frenzy-inducing designer collaborations, the most successful of which (Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, and last fall's leopard-crazed Roberto Cavalli line) sell out within hours. By introducing themselves to legions of global H&M addicts, designers raise awareness of their own entry-level lines, notably fragrances and accessories, which might explain why conglomerates like LVMH are willing to pimp out their couturiers for the low-budget consumers they once ignored.

This article is from the March issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here