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This chapter chronicles how the fashion industry again expanded its use of Christian elements by placing Christian holy figures onto designer garments in the 1990s. Prior to this decade, designers shied away from incorporating representational religious figures in their designs—a trend influenced by iconoclastic controversy in the history of Christianity. The chapter first examines early instances of this trend with the designs of Rei Kawakubo, Kansai Yamamoto, and Gianni Versace. It then analyzes the controversy, lack of comment, and celebration that accompanied subsequent designers’ forays into more figural designs. The chapter places a particular emphasis on Dolce & Gabbana’s “Stromboli” collection, which incorporated numerous images of the Virgin Mary and was the first collection thoroughly dedicated to a Christian theme. It met with widespread celebration from fashion critics and helped establish a Marian focus in fashion design.

The Armani high-fashion example illustrates the importance of adaptive rational methods in his founding and developing of an iconic high-fashion firm. Armani adapted stylistically to fashion’s new times in the 1970–80s by creating a new style catering for the career woman. His stylistic adaptation is compared with that of another famous Italian fashion designer, Versace, who instead modernized haute couture fashion and created a succession of glamourous styles. Both leaders exploited the same opportunity but in different ways. The third section compares these leaders’ legacies in the 1990s–2000s and assesses from a long-term perspective how capably they had used adaptive rational methods. The final section shifts the focus from fashion to the cosmetics industry and from Italy to the UK. Anita Roddick used adaptive rational methods to establish The Body Shop corporation in the 1970s–80s. However, she then abandoned rational methods with dire results for her corporation in the 1990s.

This chapter examines the newslore and folk response to media reporting on celebrity deaths. It provides some examples of the jokes about the death of Princess Diana and the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace and analyzes those jokes. It suggests that the abundance of celebrity jokes on the Internet indicates that anything goes in the online world despite the compunctions of newspaper people about offending the delicate sensibilities of their readers. This chapter also considers the role of newslore as folk media criticism.