As fashion goes mass, the barbarians are at the gates ... and the elite are trembling in their Louboutins. In this excerpt from Radar Magazine's March fashion issue, we rank the leading trendsetters du jour

RUNWAY RUMBLE Teen Vogue intern Lauren should be fetching coffee. Instead, the reality starlet is a budding designer with her eye on Anna Wintour's job (Photo: Kate & Camilla Digital Imaging by Statik Digital)

This article is from the March issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here

Wake up that anorexic underage Estonian supermodel crumpled in a heap, splashes of champagne staining her Balenciaga silk gazar dress! Sweep the pigeon poop from the floors of the Bryant Park tents! It's time for Radar's first-ever Fashion Influence List, wherein bearded drag queen Andre J. and sultry Web moppet Cory Kennedy, the conniving, miniature celeb-stylist Rachel Zoe, and the fabulous Olsen twins are justly ranked and celebrated.

What can be said of this mad moment, in which intern Lauren Conrad holds more sway than a world-class designer—even one who lost 92 pounds by swishing Nutella and spitting it out? How to explain the ascendance of stylists over editors, trashy tabloids over high-end glossies, know-nothing celebs over real ladies of style?

The seeds were sown decades ago when Coco Chanel put everyone in little black dresses and fake jewelry, telling shopgirls to look like countesses, and vice versa. Though black was her color, Chanel luxuriated in social gray areas. Seventy-odd years before Karl Lagerfeld, who now helms the house that bears her name, entered into his devil's pact to design for H&M, Mme. Chanel paid a visit to Manhattan's then notoriously pedestrian department store S. Klein. On spotting racks of fake Chanels, she offered a Gallic shrug and declared the knock-offs "spontaneous publicity."

Now the tail is wagging the dog more violently than ever and, for most consumers, fashion no longer means Alexander McQueen or Yves Saint Laurent. It's Tyra Banks! It's Tim Gunn "making it work"! Ugly Betty winning a Golden Globe. And then there's Lauren Conrad, a charmingly vapid intern at Teen Vogue who's jetting off to Paris (with an MTV camera crew in tow) this spring, while millions of star-struck girls set their DVRs to find out precisely what she'll be wearing. If Coco were still alive, she'd surely have her 'round to tea.

Click here to read an excerpt from Radar's March fashion issue, and meet 10 of today's new style-world elite