The bad boy of fashion Mr. Blackwell Dies at 86

Richard Blackwell – the self-important bad boy of fashion whose nearly five decades' worth of annual Worst-Dressed Lists could be counted upon to provide some of the meanest laughs of every new year – died Sunday of complications from an intestinal infection, said publicist Harlan Boll. Blackwell was 86. Snide, sardonic and unrepentantly punny, Blackwell's Lists – like "Mr. Blackwell," as he always called himself – once inspired annual Hollywood target Zsa Zsa Gabor to hire him to design her an outfit. In one of his final assaults, in January 2007, Blackwell took aim at Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (who, coincidentally, just happens to be Zsa Zsa Gabor's great-step-niece), and pronounced them "two peas in an over-exposed pod ... style-free and fashion deprived."