15:01: X Marks the Spot

Around the same time that super-skinny celebrities were taking back Tinsel Town, another, starvation-free way to bare your bones emerged. Perhaps it was a fascination with the scruffy but so-sexy Jack Sparrow, but 2006 was marked as the year of skulls and crossbones.

The tale begins in spring 2003, when Alexander McQueen models trod the runway brandishing skull-emblazoned scarves. Back then, only true cognoscenti could be spotted flaunting the poison-hazard imagery, but since it’s been branded on everything from Citizen of Humanity jeans to Ed Hardy shoes, and popped up in places like Minnie Driver’s wardrobe and Mischa Barton’s jewelry.

The macabre motif is doomed. With the coming of spring, 2007 will be a year of more cheerful prints—70s-esque, animal and floral, to name a few. Perhaps heavy-metal fans will still stroll through America’s malls mocking death with their fashion choices. But for the rest of us, there’s always Halloween.

© 2007