Style

Perhaps the ultimate symbol of style and entertainment fusion is Madonna, most obviously in her ''Vogue'' video, which brought international recognition to the black and Hispanic gay subculture that treats runway modeling as a religious experience. Voguing, as immortalized in the 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning, is a bizarre fashion cult Madonna helped elevate into a weird, touching, and funny art movement.

But Madonna is not the first media star to realize that pop music is as much about fashion as it is about music. When Malcolm McLaren assembled the infamous punk band the Sex Pistols in 1975, he was the fashion-designer partner of Vivienne Westwood and proprietor of Sex, a clothing boutique in London. For McLaren, pop cults were a political force and also a great market for his bondage trousers and manifesto T-shirts. What McLaren and Madonna understand is that in the world of mass-media democracy, art, entertainment, and even politics are subject to the laws of fashion. Spike Lee is a controversial young filmmaker. He's also a fashion executive and shopkeeper.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, Clinton is in like bell-bottoms and Bush is out like last year's miniskirt. When you're planning an inauguration, the designer of the first lady's gown gets more press than the new secretary of state. Image is an ever-expanding component of our overexposed lives, and what is image but fashion?

So where is this apotheosis of fashion into big-time entertainment going? I believe we ain't seen nothin' yet. Now they're talking about 500 cable channels, and I already have too many to keep my eye on. As a result, it's hard for me to get in a full-length movie. I can't give you five minutes of my time; I can give you 30 seconds. I don't want a three-page newspaper story; I want a sound bite. Glamour is the perfect antidote. Its shallowness is a relief from the believable, the violent, and the disturbing. Fashion is illusion and masquerade. There's nothing ugly. No bad news. No fine print. It's safe. It's fun. And in five minutes, it's new again.