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Lexicographer by day, vintage dress fanatic by night—well, by day also—Erin McKean is clearly the right person to catalog the surprisingly arcane and always wonderful world of women's wear with her site, A Dress A Day.

Last year, we gushed about her stories of the secret lives of dresses and her rants against the Handbag Industrial Complex. Recently, we sat down in her virtual sewing room for a conversation about fabulous fabrics and fashions.

Why did you start your blog?

I was out with my husband Joey one night and was talking about the blogs I was reading, and I told him I really wanted there to be a blog that talked about a dress every day. And because my husband is the kind of guy that intuitively understands what you really want and then eggs you on to do it, he said "Why don't you do it?"

I registered the domain name dressaday.com and then sat on it for a year, not doing anything. So when it came up for renewal I felt as if I had wasted a year in which I could have been doing something fun and cool, just because I was "too busy." I figured I would never be LESS busy, so I'd just have to make time for it. I'm so glad that I did!  Read the full profile...

Shortly after Gawker Media—the rudest kids on the blogging block—launched a web site focused on women's media, we knew there was going to be some mudpack-slinging ahead in the world of women's magazines. And it wasn't long before Jezebel's editors announced they would pay handsomely for real evidence of the airbrushing chicanery that goes into the covers of magazines like Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and Redbook. That day has arrived, and one sneaky Jezebel reader grew $10,000 richer while the rest of us grew a bit wiser about Photoshop foolery in the media. Compare the original Redbook cover photo to its digitally-enhanced alter ego. Did beautiful, 39-year-old country singer Faith Hill really need to have a few lines erased, a hand transformed into an arm, another appendage digitally liposuctioned, and a myriad other mutations? The outcry about this muckraking has been loud, if not entirely clear. Could this be the end of the airbrush apparent? If Jezebel keeps it up, maybe someday you can start really judging a Redbook by its cover.