Zandra Rhodes

America Online is moving full force into the interactive shopping arena. The company has entered into a content partnership with the creators of "Chic Simple," the bestselling series of lifestyle and fashion books from Alfred A. Knopf. Under the agreement, "Chic Simple" creators Kim Johnson Gross and Jeff Stone, who also write a monthly column for InStyle magazine, are designing a series of online catalogs to offer women answers to wardrobe questions.

Question: My daughter will be married late this summer, and she has asked the mother of the groom and me to wear street-length dresses in light chiffon prints. Please help me find one that I will be able to wear after the ceremony without looking like a retired mother of the bride.--J.Q.

The Carousel of Hope ball, dears, is one party where you don't want to be caught in a plain little cocktail dress and Grandma's graduated pearls. To be sure, Barbara Davis, chairwoman of Friday night's fund-raiser for diabetes charities, and her daughters Nancy, Dana and Patty didn't disappoint. Their full-skirted "Age of Innocence" gowns (Nancy's with a bustle) were made to order by Vera Wang, better known as a bridal-gown designer.

He's been called the godfather of Rodeo Drive. And it's not all hyperbole. Before Beverly Hills was the land of designer logos, before it was teeming with tourists and rolling with Rolls-Royces, the city was home to Fred Hayman, the proprietor of the Giorgio Beverly Hills boutique. Hayman was an architect of luxury in Los Angeles, bringing high fashion, a social shopping atmosphere and white glove service to what was still a sleepy main street when he went into retail in 1967 at the age of 38. During the 31 years he ruled the retail roost from his perch under Giorgio's signature yellow and gold awnings, he cultured relationships with designers and celebrities and set a new standard for fashion parties, helping to promote Los Angeles as an international style center.

British Fashion Week (actually a long weekend with 37 shows in the Duke of York Barracks, and 300 fashion firms showing in the Olympia trade center booths) is still a sort of "them against us" proposition. "Them" is the Establishment, the old-line names like Norman Hartnell, Zandra Rhodes, Jean Muir, Burberry, Aquascutum and the like. "Us" is the young and funky, the rebels who don't like rules and who put British fashion back on the map just a few years ago.

What if they gave a party and everybody came? That's what happened Wednesday night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art when "David Hockney: A Retrospective" opened and 1,500 or 2,100 or 2,800 friends showed up. Friends of the artist, of LACMA, of AT&T (which sponsored the exhibit), and big names from UK/LA flooded the museum, waves of black-tied partygoers surging between the tables crowding the Times Mirror Central Court.

Shana Zadrick, the super model in the Guess jeans ads who looks like Gina Lollabrigida and commands a $10,000-a-day rate, has news. She's stopped working for Guess and will be appearing in Calvin Klein fragrance ads instead. Sharon Padua, a spokesperson for Men/Women, Zadrick's modeling agency, says sharing space with model Karen Mulder in the Guess ad campaign was a factor. "I think if Guess offered Shana a solo spot, it's something she might reconsider."

With a rising new star and a production that both entertained and did justice to high ideals, Opera Pacific opened a four-performance run of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" on Wednesday night at the Orange County Performing Artscenter. Nicole Cabell, 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition (which also launched the careers of baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Bryn Terfel), made her company debut as Pamina.