11/84Percentage of American men who admit they wear uncomfortable shoes because they look good: 20
Percentage of American women who admit they wear uncomfortable shoes because they look good: 45
3/85Number of trench coats owned by Morley Safer: 5
4/85Pairs of toe shoes the New York City Ballet orders for principal dancer Suzanne Farrell each season: 350
8/86Amount Nancy Reagan’s hairdresser charges for a haircut: $100
4/87Rank of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue among the best-selling magazines in college bookstores: 1,2,3
9/87Percentage increase, since 1986, in the number of fashion pages in Vogue and Elle featuring black models: 64
2/88Geiger counters Christie Brinkley carried with her on her recent trip to the Soviet Union: 1
6/88Percentage of all ties sold last year that were bought for Father’s Day: 17
8/88Price of dyeing a dog pink at the Village Dawg Shoppe in Rockville Centre, New York (with shampoo and cut): $87
12/89Total weight of the pages of advertising in the September issue of Vogue, in ounces: 43
Total weight of the pages of editorial content, in ounces: 14
3/89Percentage increase in garter belt sales at Frederick’s of Hollywood since the release of Bull Durham: 15
4/89Jail sentence a Tucson judge gave a lawyer last year for wearing green tennis shoes in his courtroom, in hours: 40
1/91Estimated amount Princess Diana has spent on underwear since marrying Prince Charles: $26,460
6/91Percentage increase, since Iraq’s defeat, in daily sales at the Frederick’s of Hollywood near Fort Campbell, Kentucky: 300
7/91Price of an American flag necktie that plays “The Star-Spangled Banner,” from a Bradenton, Florida, company: $19.95
11/92Chances that a sock manufactured in the United States is an athletic sock: 1 in 2
6/92Miles of ties given for Father’s Day in the United States each year: 12,600
8/92Number of the 3 items looted from the Frederick’s of Hollywood Museum in L.A. last April that have been returned: 2
12/93Pages of forms an applicant must fill out to be considered for the position of elf at Macy’s: 10
3/93Number of times fashion model Iman was interviewed about Somalia on national TV news shows last year: 10
3/93Number of bras on display at the Frederick’s of Hollywood Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame, in California: 16
6/93Price of a necktie made from whitewall tires, from One Song Enterprises of Willoughby, Ohio: $15.50
Length of its limited warranty, in years: 500
8/93Rank of Bill Clinton’s shoes, among the largest of any president since Woodrow Wilson: 1
2/94Royalty paid to Charles Manson for each T-shirt bearing his likeness sold by Zooport Riot Gear in California: 10¢
2/94Price of an “authentic, preworn” plaid flannel shirt by mail order from Blowhole Productions of Seattle: $20
2/94Estimated annual spending on medical treatment for foot deformities caused by women’s ill-fitting shoes: $2,000,000,000
2/94Year in which the South Korean government stopped defining footwashing at barbershops as an “act of lechery”: 1993
3/95Price of a blood-proof Emergency Medical Services jacket from Anna Sui, a New York City boutique: $210
5/95Price paid at a charity auction this year for a turtleneck worn by Jimmy Carter during cease-fire talks in Bosnia: $5,000
4/96Ratio of red flannel Lamar! shirts Lamar Alexander’s campaign has given away to the number sold in stores: 1:1
6/96Change since 1970 in tons of clothing and footwear disposed of each year in U.S. landfills or incinerators: +293,000,000
12/97Number of Florida state prisons that have cell-door locks that can be broken by striking them with a shoe: 16
2/97Number of years the mother in the Family Circus cartoon had the same hairstyle before changing it last year: 36
2/97Hours of training required to become a licensed hair braider in New York City: 900
Hours of training required to become a New York City emergency medical technician: 117
10/98Price of a trench coat with a cell-phone-emission-proof pocket, from Barneys New York: $595
4/98Ratio of the average amount a U.S. family spent on food, clothing, and shelter last year to what it spent on taxes: 3:4
7/98Number of days last March that a Georgia teen was suspended after wearing a Pepsi shirt on his school’s “Coke Day”: 1
2/99Number of DON’T IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT IF IT INTERRUPTS MY SOAPS! T-shirts printed by Soap Opera Digest last fall: 250
6/99Number of men ticketed for indecent exposure in Opelousas, Louisiana, last year for wearing low-riding pants: 14
Amount that an average inner-city African American spends: $2,440
7/99Fee that Nike offered Ralph Nader to say “another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes” in a TV ad: $25,000
1/00Percentage change in the average amount of cloth required to clothe a U.S. woman between 1913 and 1928: -64
Number of World War I battleships said to have been built from the steel donated by U.S. women from their corsets: 2
1/00Year in which Marie Antoinette convinced France’s King Louis XVI to declare that all handkerchiefs be square: 1785
1/00Estimated number of pairs of gloves owned by Elizabeth I: 2,000
11/00Factor by which the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased between 1992 and 1998: 2.9
Factor by which the annual number of cosmetic surgeries performed in the United States increased during that time: 2.5
5/00Number of endangered tortoises that U.S. Customs agents discovered in a man’s trousers last December in Miami: 55
7/00Fine for “nudity” that Mississippi has proposed levying on fully clothed men “in a discernibly turgid state”: $2,000
3/01Price of a designer skirt made of hamster pelts, introduced in Britain last year: $2,200
5/01Number of pairs of Imelda Marcos’s shoes on display in the Philippines ‘ new shoe museum: 200
7/01Average amount that workers in one El Salvador factory are paid for each $12.99 Gap T-shirt they sew: 11.6¢
8/01Price of a pair of stonewashed, sanded, hand-torn jeans from an Italian designer: $2,222
1/03Retail price Mattel suggests that toy stores assign its Lingerie Barbie, dressed in “merry widow” or “peek-a-boo” style: $45
3/03Percentage points by which wearing a swimsuit increased the average math test score among men in a Michigan study: 4
3/03Number of pygmy monkeys seized from a traveler’s pants last December by L.A. customs officials: 2
5/04Months into the war that Britain confirmed that all its troops were outfitted with desert clothing: 9
5/04Number of Holsteins disqualified from the Ohio State Fair last August because they were wearing a hair piece: 2
11/05Percentage change, in today’s dollars, in the average U.S. price of apparel and shoes since 1995: ‒30
4/05Maximum hair length for North Korean men, in centimeters, as prescribed by state media: 5
3/06Amount that one of Saddam Hussein’s military uniforms sold for at auction in December: $16,000
5/06Number of “Wal-ocaust” T-shirts sold by a Georgia man before Wal-Mart ordered him to cease and desist: 1
8/06Price, from a Colombian manufacturer, for a custom-made bulletproof sports coat: $1,020
1/08Chance that a red lipstick tested by a Washington advocacy group last fall contained dangerous levels of lead: 1 in 3