Alpine’s Jim Spradley works only with beaver fur because of its fine texture and superior water repellency. There is a six-to-eight-month wait for one of his custom-made creations, like this Silver Select. $2,200; spradleyhats.com

Karl Lagerfeld wants you to know that he loves Texas. So much so that he will stage Chanel's next Métiers d'Art show in Dallas in 2014. "I love Texas. I love Texans," the French designer told Women's Wear Daily's Marc Karimzadeh:

My hands are covered in gold glitter. It is obviously expensive glitter—softer, shinier, and a much deeper yellow than the stuff I remember from second grade. The source is a pair of short $750 Miu Miu boots. The owner of these boots is twenty-year-old style blogger Jane Aldridge.

Twenty-year-old Jane Aldridge has spent the past five years blogging about her passion: shoes. It all began when she registered seaofshoes.typepad.com and began posting what she was wearing on Free Dress Fridays. At the time, Aldridge lived in Trophy Club, a suburb of Dallas, and attended a private school that required uniforms. At first she didn’t get much of a reaction, but before long, Aldridge was featured in Teen Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Houston Fashion Types and Where They Shop

demier cri: she is always first with what's In, reads Women's Wear Daily. Wouldn't be caught dead in a Pucci now but loves Halston. Uses Vogueand Harper's Bazaarthe way other women use Sears catalogue: she calls her saleswoman at Sakowitz, Neiman's or Esther Wolf and orders by page number.

• Luxury retailing is built upon strong personal relationships. Nothing is more rewarding than dressing four generations of a family. I love that shared history.

It arrives like a blimp, floating ethereally through the door before the rest of the woman’s body does. For a moment, you can look at nothing else. You try to stare at the woman’s face, at her dress, even down at her shoes—but your eyes keep wandering upward. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, you find yourself once again awestruck by that towering, impenetrable edifice known as…Big Hair.

Painter of the Century

Evan Smith: If Stanley Marcus were around to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Neiman Marcus this month, would he recognize the 2007 version of the company?

FIRST, A CONFESSION: I do not like to wear makeup. Whether this is a consequence of living in Austin, where flawless, full-coverage foundation can mark you as a hopelessly unhip out-of-towner—"That's so Dallas," Austinites like to sniff—or simply my own failure as a woman, I'm not sure. Only when it was forbidden by my mother, in junior high, did I wear makeup with abandon.