CATS DRESSED IN EVERYTHING FROM A ELVIS COSTUME TO A SEQUINED SATIN DRESS

The catwalk really was a catwalk Thursday. Show cats dressed in everything from an Elvis costume to a sequined satin dress strutted their stuff at New York's Algonquin Hotel.

The feline fashion show unfolded in the dining room where Dorothy Parker presided over famously catty Round Table literary luncheons in the 1920s.

Thursday's show benefited an animal welfare group and honored Matilda, the Algonquin's resident cat, who just turned 13.She is the hotel's ninth cat since the tradition started in the '30s, when actor John Barrymore dubbed a bedraggled stray Hamlet.

Earlier in the day, Matilda, a pedigreed ragdoll breed with long, silky, cream-colored hair, held court on a chaise longue by the entrance.

In her honor, cocktails with names like Purr-tini and Pink Pussycat were being served at $20 apiece to guests including representatives of the nonprofit North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, on Long Island. The adoption shelter, which was to receive the proceeds of the benefit, offered more than a dozen homeless cats for adoption.

The Westchester Feline Club supplied the show-quality cats, with fashions created by New Jersey pet fashion company Meow Wear.

Matilda has become an Algonquin celebrity, with her birthday celebrated every year. She also receives about 30 e-mails a month, which are answered by longtime Algonquin employee Alice De Almeida.

“We from Stuttgart in Germany are really your fans,” says one such missive. “We've read about you in our newspaper und about the very fine lodge in which you live.”

It's signed, in German, “Miau.”

AMBUSH MAKEOVERS

Robin came to New York with her mother and best friend hoping to be ambushed! Robin recently had major fibroid surgery and is currently unemployed; she wants a makeover so she can be interview ready. Her boyfriend made her a promise that if she cut her hair, he would shave. Robin has decided to donate her hair to people recovering from cancer as a step toward her hot new look!

The Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen

An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique and commentary can be found in magazines, newspapers, on television, fashion websites, social networks and in fashion blogs.

At the beginning of the 20th century, fashion magazines began to include photographs and became even more influential than in the past. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public taste. Talented illustrators drew exquisite fashion plates for the publications which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception of the war years).

Vogue, founded in the US in 1902, has been the longest-lasting and most successful of the hundreds of fashion magazines that have come and gone. Increasing affluence after World War II and, most importantly, the advent of cheap colour printing in the 1960s led to a huge boost in its sales, and heavy coverage of fashion in mainstream women's magazines - followed by men's magazines from the 1990s. Haute couture designers followed the trend by starting the ready-to-wear and perfume lines, heavily advertised in the magazines, that now dwarf their original couture businesses. Television coverage began in the 1950s with small fashion features. In the 1960s and 1970s, fashion segments on various entertainment shows became more frequent, and by the 1980s, dedicated fashion shows like FashionTelevision started to appear. Despite television and increasing internet coverage, including fashion blogs, press coverage remains the most important form of publicity in the eyes of the industry.

Fashion Editor, Brooke Kelley said, "There's a misconception in the industry that TV, magazines and blogs dictate to the consumer, what to wear. But most trends aren't released to the public before consulting the target demographic. So what you see in the media is a result of research of popular ideas among the people. Essentially, fashion is a group of people bouncing ideas off of one another, like any other form of art