REMY DE LA MAUVINIERE / Associated Press Issey Miyake, seen at a 1997 Paris show, is a hot commodity in fashion circles. Now, though, hisinfluence is being feltbeyond the runway.

In the early 1960s, as protests rocked college campuses around the world, a Japanese newspaper printed an angry letter from a Tokyo university student. The source of the writer's fury? The media's insistence that fashion design was silly, frivolous, unworthy of serious coverage.

Back when she was in her early 40s and her skin was still smooth and unlined, Susan Burke used to joke that she was going to have a face-lift the minute she turned 45. The deadline came and went. But now that Burke has turned 50, she is feeling pressure to do something about the changes she sees in the mirror.