In 1994, soccer enjoyed a brief spasm of chicness when the unspeakable happened.

The hallmark of loungewear was its combination of chicness and comfort.

This same curious mix of chicness and invisibility applies to the more recent bamboo fabrics.

Prohibition, and the chicness that goes with illegality, made speakeasies alluring to a wide audience.

Despite the chicness of certain brands, the market is dominated by hundreds of more workaday waters.

The chicness wore off fast.

The resort remained an attraction for decades, but reached new peaks of chicness during the era before World War I and later in the 1920's.

"There is a chicness about gangsters," Mr. Bolton said.

The chicness of Gstaad comes from the Italians who live there, people like Valentino."

"I think we share an aesthetic: we both like the same kinds of photography and a kind of subtlety and old-fashioned chicness."

Unlike in the big-city nightclub scene, where chicness and of-the-moment rule, tradition and familiarity more often than not outweigh other factors down the shore.

Month after month after month in her magazine she'd perpetuated the hurtful myth of eternal chicness and supposedly attainable beauty.

And forming a dazzling parade of proto-modern chicness down the middle of the exhibition is the stripped-down furniture that shows Hunzinger at his most innovative.

"The real estate opportunity was very important in our process," Mr. Ruzow said, citing the chicness of nearby restaurants like 71 Clinton Fresh Food.

Despite this apparently pagan remnant, the entire Dingle Peninsula now resembles Lower Cape Cod in expense, numbers of tourists and chicness.

"There's a chicness to being there first," said Richard Born of BD Hotels, which owns properties like the Mercer and Chambers in Manhattan.

Plainly dressed as became her business-like surroundings, there was, nevertheless, a daintiness and chicness about her whole appearance that would have delighted an even more critical observer than the detective.

North Salem, a town in the far northeastern corner of the county that even many Westchester residents have not heard of, is obscure enough that it seems safe, for now, from chicness.

Little more than a rhythm section revolving around a Lynn Drum, they were Factory's fairly successful attempt at New York chicness, and Factory desperately wanted to become an international concern.

A restaurant where tables are hard to come by and the chicness barometer is high is exemplary of a new trend in Los Angeles: hot spots in smaller places off the beaten path.

"The chicness and high profile of the Rothschild sale did bring other things to the surface," said Anthony Crichton-Stuart, head of Christie's old master paintings department in New York.

There is a French chicness to the navy blue suits the receptionists wear - no Miami tropical casualness here - and to the decor of the reception room, filled with bottles of Guerlain perfumes.

Especially appealing to marketers were New York's sky-high ratings in the categories of chicness, style and sophistication, all of which have risen significantly in surveys in recent years, said Robert Passikoff, the president of Brand Keys.

During the judges' critiques, Latrice's look was praised, especially her rhinestone makeup (called "artwork" by Michelle Visage), as her boat, emanating "chicness" through the eyes of Billy B., but was reprimanded for the boots that she wore too frequently.