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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.