There are few designers that have influenced the way we think about fashion as a culture. However, the handful that have managed to mold society's image of fashion made a lasting impression on the pages of magazines and looks both on the runways and in the streets. Here are three examples of fashion icons who have shaped both the cuts of our dresses and the way we think about them:

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren has managed to revolutionize a style referred to as the “All-American Look.” The Bronx native started off working after school just to earn money to buy suits. After attending college for 2 years and serving in the United States Army, he began to sell neckties under the name “Polo.” He later expanded, and the brand took off in the early 1990s when Polo Ralph Lauren became a publicly traded company and one of the most successful fashion lines in history.

Coco Chanel

Born Gabrielle B. Chanel, this French designer had a modernist perspective and masculine inspired threads. Chanel has managed to build an empire of haute-couture that spanned the 20th century and is still one of the most influential fashion lines today. She has dressed the likes of icons Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe and popularized one of the most quintessential pieces in a woman’s closet, the little black dress. Chanel has built a reputation for timeless, classic elegance and truly is the definition of fashion.

Style icons Domenico Dolce (left) and Stefano Gabbana

Since 1985, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have managed to turn the fashion world upside down with their daring use of color, print, and all-around design. D&G have managed to build an empire spanning from luxurious gowns, swimwear, eyewear, and accessories, and their work has become the paramount of high-end fashion.

-- Mairys

Even if you live under the so-called "rock," you are no stranger to the diet pill, plastic surgery, bleach blonde, boob-job-embracing lifestyle plaguing society. It's messed up, it's scary, it's wrong.

Maybe it's the allure of the famous Paris Hilton, or maybe it's the misconception that fashion equals skeleton frames and extensions, but the whole trend is getting out of hand.

Take this for example: The Times Online recently reported on an interactive Web site called Miss Bimbo that is targeting young girls and promoting "extreme diets and surgery."

In the month since it opened, the article reports, "the site, which is aimed at girls aged from 9 to 16, has attracted 200,000 members. Players keep a constant watch on the weight, wardrobe, wealth and happiness of their character to create 'the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world.' Competing against other children they earn 'bimbo dollars' to buy plastic surgery, diet pills, facelifts, lingerie and fashionable nightclub outfits."

Here's a pic of the one of the bimbos the article mentions:

Striped socks and polka dot shoes don't work anyway.

Come on! Really!? If you go on the website, there is now a disclaimer that explains the site has taken away the option to buy diet pills due to international media attention. But a few more clicks bring you to the registration page, where you are told you can "even resort to meds or plastic surgery. Stop at nothing to become the reigning bimbo!"

This is just as bad as the children's show and doll line "Bratz." These cartoons dress like hookers and their goals include landing a date with the cutest boy and going to the mall. Becoming a doctor ... so not hot!

The Bratz Girls

The Miss Bimbo website is obviously poking fun at the public's love/hate relationship with socialites. But when the game falls into the hands of young girls who emulate trends even when they are detrimental to their health, it isn't funny anymore.

Most people have come to terms with the idea that frantic media attention will probably never turn its focus to the spread of HIV in Africa or even to a few low-key fashion designers. The crazy antics of celebrities are just too interesting.

Let's just hope the parents of these online gamers can help their kids understand that real fashion and real trends have nothing to do with surgery or shacking up with the hottest actors.

Or maybe they can just take their Internet connection away for a decade or so.

--Johnie

"When I first moved to New York and I was totally broke, sometimes I would buy Vogue instead of dinner." - Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

Just like thousands of other fashion fanatics, I need to refer to the Bible for inspiration: Vogue Magazine. However, Vogue has become much more than a source of inspiration. It has helped launch the careers of endless designers, photographers, models, and writers alike, and has inspired the looks of various decades.

To some, Vogue may seem a bit overdone, but this publication is not simply a magazine. It is a visual gallery that displays the various textile art forms of our time. However, for those who appreciate the art but feel a bit intimidated by it, Teen Vogue has become the "approachable Vogue."

Teen Vogue

Teen Vogue is not your ordinary teenybopper mag. A young woman of any age can admire its undying devotion to high fashion portrayed in a more everyday, approachable fashion. Teen Vogue still manages to maintain the artistic flair of its predecessor in a way that allows any girl to identify with it.

Artistic displays of fashion are a trademark in spreads for Teen Vogue

Now, the magazine has found new popularity and exposure thanks to the likes of Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port from MTV's The Hills.

Hopefully, the efforts of such celebrities and designers to support the magazine will help fend off all the lies (and truths) about the magazine's downfall. Rumors and some actual reports have been saying the magazine is a failing entity. The day such a creative, unique and respected magazine is taken off the stands is a sad one for fashion lovers across the globe.

--Johnie and Mairys

Being on the fashion beat can be an experience in being patronized. Evidently having a knowledge of (and, heaven-forbid, an interest in) fashion isn't exactly considered intellectual or impressive. And I'll admit, sometimes cracking open the cover of Vogue to search for the "hottest bags of the season" can seem pointless and trivial. But underneath all of the materialism and sickly thin models, there lies a powerful force.

From the suit-wearing doctor or lawyer to the unconventional-ists: fashion influences all of them. Whatever you are decking yourselves out in is -- in one way or another -- a descendant of some runway ancestor. Yes, even that "anti-style/ indie-band loving/ wear it everyday" hoodie.

Fashion is fundamental. Even though it may seem a vain waste of time to many, fashion has had just as important an influence on our culture and history as music or literature -- perhaps more. Fashion is simply a different sort of art form. It can be politically or socially driven, or simply a form of creating beauty. Fashion is art or a statement you can wear and can cause as much of an impression as any other form of personal expression.

For example, look at The Clash. Members of The Clash were huge trendsetters and their sense of style was completely original, but the design of the elements of their wardrobe came from high-fashion houses.

The Clash

People have been following fashion, occasionally unbeknownst to them, for centuries. From the obsessive costume mimicking in the French courts at Versailles to the mod/hippie/rock revolts against standard fashions in the '60s, everyone is a slave to some kind of fashion, even if that means anti-fashion.

Luckily, fashion is anything but boring. It is hard categorize or define, and it is always evolving. Haute couture fashion is actually one of the most abstract and interesting forms of art there is in my opinion, and some of the most talented minds are the ones sewing that last touch on a gown.

Fashion is so interesting and alluring that it has led to the idea of the "art of fashion." Music, paintings, movies, and photographs have all been influenced by the creativity of high-fashion.

Fashion and art collide

Each one of us individually is a part of fashion. Even the simplest sweater in your closet was a product of a designer's imagination and was created to be paraded down a runway, flaunted by a celeb or advertised on the pages of a magazine. The designer's vision eventually made it down to manufacturers that created the same exact look you are wearing today and distributed it to the masses.

So say what you will about fashion. Bash it, patronize it, look down your nose at it, because in the end, you're the one wearing it.

-- Johnie and Mairys