2011 was a year of ups and downs. The year saw everything from international change (the youthful, high-tech Arab Spring modernised the word ‘revolution’) to tacky commercial publicity stunts (we’re used to seeing near-naked Bollywood starlets grace our screens, but Veena in her birthday suit was a novelty across the border).

We were jolted by the demise of larger-than-life personalities like Elizabeth Taylor, Steve Jobs and the infamous bin Laden. And from the glitzy pinnacle of the Royal wedding down to the fall of the Murdochian empire and unprecedented urban riots, the city of London experienced a roller coaster ride of its own.

The world of fashion saw John Galliano’s disgrace from Dior and Sarah Burton’s meteoric rise at Alexander McQueen. Here in Pakistan, everybody and their neighbours seemed to jump onto the lawn bandwagon, resulting in a frenzied exhibition pandemic. In the meantime, couturiers have doubled and even tripled their prices from preceding years, while ready-to-wear labels struggle to remain competitively priced.

While some of this past year’s fashion trends were aesthetically innovative, others seemed like regurgitated relics from the past. And then there were those that never caught on in Pakistan in the first place.

Has Fashion REALLY Not Changed In 20 Years?

A new piece in Vanity Fair by Kurt Andersen suggests that fashion has been stuck in a “decades-long rut.”

Andersen locates the origins of the rut in 1992, making an ambitious statement that although technology has progressed at a blitzkreig pace, pop culture, art and style haven’t made any truly significant strides in 20 years:

Movies and literature and music have never changed less over a 20-year period. Lady Gaga has replaced Madonna, Adele has replaced Mariah Carey both distinctions without a real difference and Jay-Z and Wilco are still Jay-Z and Wilco. Except for certain details (no Google searches, no e-mail, no cell phones), ambitious fiction from 20 years ago (Doug Coupland’s Generation X, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow) is in no way dated, and the sensibility and style of Joan Didion’s books from even 20 years before that seem plausibly circa-2012.

Andersen also says that because the economy has led places like Target and Anthropologie to mass manufacture clothes and other accoutrements, the American middle class has all become “quirky, independent individualists” who aren’t innovating in the way they used to.

But Andersen’s major omission is this: just because style hasn’t seen a “revolution” since 1992 in a way that looks like the “revolution” of the ’60s or ’70s doesn’t mean it isn’t changing and growing.

Obviously, fashion has been retro-crazy for years: just look at the revival of ’70s-style clothes that occurred in the late ’90s (we spent most of 1999 in our flared jeans and printed polyester blouses). In the aughts, we’ve seen the ’80s come back (skinny jeans and neon are still ubiquitous) and then an apt chronological transition to a grunge renaissance (plaid, combat boots). And as Andersen notes, “Mad Men” brought back ’50s-era trends as a fetishized lifestyle.

The observation that hipsters of recent years have just been cribbing from old trends is not a new one. But style trends often arise as a reaction to the trends that preceded them; for example, grunge style was a reaction to the fussiness and excess of ’80s carefully sculpted hair and oversized jewelry. Why can’t the trends of the 2000s be an equally valid reaction to previous years? Why does, for example, Lady Gaga being carried down the red carpet in a giant egg have to smack of Madonna?

Yes, people are still wearing pants as they did in 1992, but the style and silhouette, for example, have changed. Just because it’s 2011 and we’re still wearing clothes, and not spacesuits and jet packs, doesn’t mean our generation is devoid of creativity and inert when it comes to innovation.

Perhaps it’s true that the diversified 2000s can’t be summed up in a single, over-simplified label (e.g. the “hippie” ’60s, the excessive ’80s), but who says it needs to be? Fashion and style are about communicating — and fashion can still communicate without necessarily demanding a “revolution” in the exact form we’ve seen in the past.

‘I was told I was too fat for the stage’: Jennifer Ellison steps out in another bandage dress as she reveals why she lost five stone

After losing five stone, no wonder Jennifer Ellison is showing off her trim physique in the tightest of dresses.

And as she stepped out in Cheshire last night, the former Brookside actress revealed the turning point that made her decide to lose weight.

The TV star, 28, revealed a director at a theatre audition said she was ‘too fat’ for the part, which prompted her to overhaul her diet and start working out.

Ellison admitted the cutting remark as she celebrated New Year’s with dinner and drinks at the Coterie Wine Bar in Widnes – where she lives with husband Robbie Tickle and their son Bobby, 23 months.

Now a svelte and toned size 8, Ellison certainly had the last laugh as she showed off her figure in a £109 CelebBoutique Kimmy Adelisa bandage dress and a pair of towering Christian Louboutin platform heels.

The former Hell’s Kitchen winner, who is set to star on the new series of Dancing On Ice, piled on the pounds while pregnant with Bobby and struggled to lose the weight after as she battled with post-natal depression.

Although she was unhappy with her weight, it was an extra blow when her agent told her why she had missed out on a part she really wanted.

She told The Sun: ‘My agent started off by telling me how sometimes we have to say things that are hurtful but that he wouldn’t be doing his client justice if he didn’t say it to them.

‘Then he told me what the director had said about me. He said that I desperately needed to get back to my Chicago weight and that if I wanted to continue working in the West End I had to slim down.

‘I felt so humiliated. I believed I had made a complete fool of myself in front of all those people at the audition. It was an awful time but I have to admit, that director did me a favour.’

The 5ft 7 star described herself as a ‘hippo mamma’ after she went from a size 8 to 18.

She lost some weight in 2010 after enrolling at boot camp in preparation for her nude scenes in the touring production of Calendar Girls.

But it wasn’t until last year, she really started to conquer her weight battle.

She has now shared the secrets of her transformation in a new fitness DVD Jennifer Ellison’s Fat Blaster Workout.

The new DVD, which is co-presented by celebrity personal trainer Elia Siaperas, sees Ellison go through a five step workout, including Fat Blaster, Tone Blaster, Box Blaster, Power Blaster and Belly Blaster.

Supermodel Janice Dickinson hit with $43k fine after failing to pay her tax bill again.

Former supermodel Janice Dickinson is known for saying what she wants.

But the former America’s Next Top Model judge will have to do some smooth talking to avoid being locked up in jail for failing to pay her taxes.

The 56-year-old has begun the New Year being chased by the taxman and has been hit with fines of $43,191.

The latest amount comes on top of the $250,000 she allegedly owes to the taxman for unpaid taxes over the last two years.

Documents obtained from the Los Angeles County Recorder of Deeds shows that a tax lien of $43,191 was placed on Dickinson on November 30th.

Since 2009 the Internal Revenue Service have imposed fines of $250,000 for unpaid taxes.

Dickinson, who has dated a string of high profile men including Mick Jagger and Warren Beatty, has decently sparked controversy when she alleged that America’s Next Top Model was ‘definitely rigged’.

She claimed the winner of the show was chosen by executives at cosmetics giant Cover Girl rather than the panel of the judges.

Janice Dickinson was dubbed the first ’supermodel’ and after her catwalk career ended she became reality TV star and appeared as a judge on America’s Next Top Model for four seasons.

She also had her own show The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency and has appeared in the UK on Come Dine With Me and I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of here.

Yummy mummy! Myleene Klass shows off her famous bikini body as she holidays in Barbados with her two daughters

She became the top searched for celebrity in the UK after her famous bikini shower scene on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

And five years and two children later, Myleene Klass has still got it.

The singer showed off her incredible bikini body while holidaying with her two gorgeous daughters, Ava, four, and Hero, nine months.

She added a straw hat and a pair of aviator sunglasses as she kept sun safe in the scorching heat.

The family were joined by Myleene’s agent Jonathan Shalit, who covered up in a white T-shirt, and were expected to be joined by her new husband, Graham Quinn.

Her little girls looked cute in matching back and white polka dot swimwear.

Myleene lifted Hero up and playfully bit her little fingers as she grabbed on to her mother’s hat.

The star then grabbed fruity drinks for everyone.

The former Hear’Say member had been looking forward to New Year’s Eve with her daughters, posting on Twitter a picture of a bottle of water and Hero’s milk bottle in a jug of ice, with the caption ‘bottle of white on ice for tonight’.

She joined the hoards of celebrities in the Caribbean, former WAG Lizzie Cundy, Mark Wahlberg, Simon Cowell, Sinitta, Andrea Corr and Emma Forbes.

The Wanted and their girlfriends were also there, including Max George’s Coronation Street actress fiancee, Michelle Keegan

Rihanna was also back in her homeland.

‘I got changed in front of him and he didn’t look’: Kim Kardashian strips in closet to ‘test’ if pal Jonathan Cheban is gay

Any red blooded male might struggle to avert their eyes if Kim Kardashian stripped down in front of them.

Which was clearly what the reality star was thinking as she got changed in front of pal Jonathan Cheban – to gauge whether or not he is gay.

The 30-year-old TV star was in the closet, so to speak, of her New York hotel and decided to carry out the ‘test’ after Kris Humphries gets her thinking about her friend’s sexual orientation.

Brad Goreski’s rift with former boss Rachel Zoe has intrigued the style set since they parted ways just over a year ago.

Now, as he prepares to make his solo reality show debut tonight, the 34-year-old admits he is as baffled by the ongoing tension as the rest of the world.

In a new interview, he speculates why celebrity stylist Ms Zoe may now refuse to speak to him.

He told the Daily Beast: ‘I just think it’s unfortunate that she feels so competitive with me in a way.

‘Because I left to create a name for myself – and not to ride on any of her coattails.

‘She’s so incredibly successful, that a stylist starting out – I don’t know what kind of threat that is to her. Maybe she thinks I’m incredibly talented. Who knows.’

Mr Goreski also hit back at claims that he had been ’stealing’ clients from his former boss.

‘That’s not the truth,’ he said. ‘And she knows that’s not the truth. I didn’t even say goodbye to a lot of her clients because I didn’t want anything to be misconstrued as me soliciting anybody.’

Christina Ricci and Jessica Alba are among the stars he has worked with since establishing himself as a stylist in his own right, though he admits he didn’t get off to an easy start.

He confessed: ‘People will be surprised to see that when I left [The Rachel Zoe Project] I didn’t have a ton of work’.

Of course, it helps to have a large wardrobe, and online women Ms Lyons, who earned $4.2million last year, certainly has that.

‘I am actually a little bit of a clothes horse,’ she admits. ‘I love clothes, I love shopping. I have a huge array of everything from shoes to pants to shirts.

‘Things can’t always be perfect’: J Crew boss Jenna Lyons reveals the secrets to her effortless signature style

Jenna Lyons’ marriage breakdown may have overshadowed her professional achievements of late, but personal life aside, she still remains one of the most influential women in fashion.

Now, in a newly-released interview, the J Crew creative director, 42, reveals the secrets to her distinctive personal women style.

Speaking during her label’s debut presentation at New York Fashion Week in September, she described how important it was to have a degree of imperfection in an outfit.