1907:The first Bullock’s opens at 7th Street...

1907:The first Bullock’s opens at 7th Street and Broadway. Live music and a pony show on the roof garden attract thousands.

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1908: Max Factor establishes a barbershop in the theater district and makes wigs for stage stars.

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1920: Romance novelist Elinor Glyn arrives in Hollywood from London. As a costumer and art director for the company that would later become Paramount, she incorporates her signature tiger skins, turbans and floating veils into many films.

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1922: Sears, Roebuck and Co. introduces styles endorsed by Hollywood stars. Gloria Swanson poses for the catalog wearing Russian boots.

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1925: Pressured by his high-society Pasadena mom to get a real job, Fred Cole gives up acting and manufactures bathing costumes.

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1927: Clara Bow, with bobbed hair, cupid’s bow lips and short skirts, stars in “It,” becoming the original “It” girl.

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1929: Bullock’s Wilshire opens on the Miracle Mile.

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1932: Paramount prints photos of Marlene Dietrich lounging at home in slacks. Demand for trousers soars.

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1935: MGM costume designer Irene Gibbons opens a ready-to-wear salon in Bullock’s Wilshire. It’s the first boutique-within-a-store to exclusively sell the collection of an American designer.

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1945: A Harper’s Bazaar pictorial celebrates “California Girl” Slim Keith, wife of director Howard Hawks. A long and lean Keith shows off her “house uniform” of men’s jeans, denim work shirts, suede jackets and moccasins.

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1947: The flagship Fredericks of Hollywood opens on Hollywood Boulevard. The lingerie empire built on the naughty appeal of black underwear will sell more than 12 million bras over the next 50 years.

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1960: Campy, acid-tongued Mr. Blackwell publishes his first “Worst Dressed Women List,” in American Weekly.

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1962: Model Marie St. John invests in a knitting machine on which she whips up her own designs. She and her fiance, Bob Gray, launch Irvine-based St. John Knits, now a $100-million company.

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1964: In an artistic denouncement of American men’s dirty-little-boy attitude toward the bosom, L.A. designer Rudi Gernreich creates a topless swimsuit for model Peggy Moffitt.

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1965: Shoppers line up along Melrose Avenue to check out the all-denim “jeans bar” at innovative retailer Fred Segal.

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1968: Designer Holly Harp sells hand-painted, diaphanous hippie gear to such customers as Janis Joplin out of her eponymous shop on Sunset Boulevard.

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1976: L.A. designers stage “California I,” a group show that attracts more than 1,000 retail buyers nationwide.

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1979: Fashion police report a crime wave as actress Bo Derek’s beaded cornrows catch on in middle America.

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1982: Bloomingdale’s gambles on L.A. designer Georges Marciano’s tight jeans, buying 96 pairs, and puts Guess? on the map.

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1984: Doc Marten-booted, mohawked trendoids swarm Melrose Avenue, shopping and flirting at such spots as Flip, Poseur and Super Thrift.

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1985: The boutique Maxfield expands to new digs on Melrose, west of Robertson Boulevard. Owner Tommy Perse is the first in town to sell Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garons and Giorgio Armani.

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1988: Ignoring advice to move east, tailoring virtuoso Richard Tyler keeps his design and retail operations in Los Angeles, becoming a favorite of Oscar-going stars.

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1989: Max Azria establishes BCBG in Los Angeles. Upwardly mobile young women love the line’s clean, contemporary look and prices.

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1995: State and federal agents raid a garment factory in El Monte, where more than 70 Thai nationals had been toiling an average of 84 hours per week for $1.60 an hour.

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1998: James “I’m Not Couture” Galanos retires after 47 years of creating glamorous ready-to-wear for a discriminating clientele, including Nancy Reagan. She wore his gowns to the 1981 and 1985 presidential inaugural balls.

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1999: Costa Mesa-based surf-wear maker Quiksilver sets up shop on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

--Compiled by Liza Whitcraft