Elizabeth Taylor popularized the caftan in the 1960s in the same way Jackie Kennedy popularized the pillbox hat.

The French invented the negligee, but it took Americans to create loungewear for the torpid and tacky.

We’ve got the Slanket, the Snuggie, Pajama Jeans and now the ForeverLazy, a fleece onesie that makes you look like a Teletubby.

The TV commercial touts ForeverLazy as "the one-piece lie-around, lounge-around lazy wear." It was invented by two guys from Wisconsin, the cheese and lazy-wear capital of the U.S.

If Americans can’t stomach the thought of buttoning a waistband, as the boom in sloth togs implies, I suggest a stylish solution: Lounge like Liz.

Elizabeth Taylor lounged like a star. She spent much of the 1960s wearing white, flowing nighties and robes and chilling – both herself and her champagne – in hotel rooms while her husband, Richard Burton, made movies.

One of Elizabeth’s gal pals, Vicky Tiel – a fashion designer who’s stopping in Palm Beach next week for a private book signing – told me so in a phone call from New York, where Tiel was signing copies of her book It’s All About the Dress: What I Learned in Forty Years about Men, Women, Sex and Fashion.

Tiel also confided that since Elizabeth’s hotel frocks were a tad flimsy – see-through, if you must know – she offered to make Elizabeth something comfy that would be sexy but not cause heart arrhythmia in the room-service waiters.

Her solution: A caftan.

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In the fashion world of the 1980s, Tara Shannon was defined by one label: Supermodel.

With her auburn mane, ivory skin and expressive face, she posed with the flair of an actress – from the runways of New York to the cover of Italian Vogue, from ads for Calvin Klein to photo sessions with Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton.

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If you want to discover the power of fashion, persuade a woman to strip down in a dressing room.

Naked women tell the truth, says designer Vicky Tiel.

They spill it all, literally: their cleavage, their confidences, their hips, their heartbreaks — and their hopes that the perfect dress will transform them.

Tiel has been inside dressing rooms, draping and pinning and listening to naked women confess their secrets, for nearly 50 years.

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Davy Jones smiles before he and the rest of The Monkees perform at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. (Photo by Jan Tuckwood)

More: Directions, nearby dining for Sunday’s Monkees show in Pompano Beach

Davy Jones cracks the same joke every night of The Monkees’ 45th anniversary tour: “Hi, I’m Davy’s dad. Davy will be out in a minute.”

And the audience laughs, as much at themselves as the guys onstage. Because they’re bloody old! Peter Tork will be 70 next year, for Pete’s sake.

But when Tork sings that song, “For Pete’s Sake,” the song he co-wrote that ended every episode of The Monkees’ TV show from 1966 to 1968, the words have a more poignant meaning now: “We were born to love one another, this is something we all need.”

The Monkees’ two-and-a-half-hour show, which stops in Pompano tonight (June 5) is really a love fest — to three guys in their 60s who can make middle-aged women jump up and dance like they’re 13 again.

Clearwater’s sold-out show at Ruth Eckerd Hall was different from the last reunion of Jones, Tork and Micky Dolenz in two key ways: One, a video screen played scenes from their TV show and their movie, “Head,” throughout the show, drawing screams of recognition from the audience. And, two, the group performed songs they rarely do onstage, including the powerful “Shades of Gray.” The group’s playlist was partially chosen by the fans, who voted via Internet for their favorite songs off Monkees albums.

So, they played rocking renditions of their monster hits — “I’m a Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” Daydream Believer” and “Steppin’ Stone” — plus many of the sweet songs their fans remember wistfully. When Micky Dolenz sings “Some Time in the Morning” and Jones sings “I Wanna Be Free,” many of the 50-something women who were boogaloo-ing to “Believer” sat wide-eyed, no doubt remembering when they used to kiss their Monkees posters.
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Meredith Vieira with husband Richard M. Cohen in 2009. (Getty Images)

Meredith Vieira is smarter than most of us working women over 45.

The Today show co-anchor understood the whole work-life balance thing back when it wasn’t cool – back when women wore suits and bow ties to work and denied their own womanhood, as if the acknowledgment of a functioning uterus could propel them smack into the glass ceiling.

I once had a boss who came back to work two weeks after giving birth. This act of physical and emotional endurance was a badge of honor to her – by golly, she would show those men she was as tough and dedicated to the newspaper as they were.

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St. Armands Circle

Famed for its shops and eateries,

St. Armands is a fun stroll

In the center of St. Armands is the Circle Hall of Fame, an outdoor walkway of plaques honoring circus stars with ties to Sarasota. Both Dolly and her father, Lou, the famous Ringling clown, are celebrated in the Circle Hall of Fame.

Myakka River State Park

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Dolly Jacobs soars like an airborne ballerina, three stories up without a net.

For years, she starred in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus – flying high, dangling from rings, defying death with every somersault. At 50-something, she still performs.

And when her toes touch ground, she’s happy to be home: Sarasota, where she was born and raised and where the spirit of the circus lives.

It’s the spirit of Dolly’s father, Lou Jacobs – a clown so famous, his face was on a postage stamp. And of the flying Wallendas, who keep the legacy of patriarch Karl alive with occasional eye-popping stunts around town. (Karl’s great-grandson Nik sky-walked on a wire between two downtown high-rises last year.)

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Melissa Leo's ad for her Oscar campaign.

Since I’ve turned 50, I’ve noticed more people staring at me.

Alas, these inquisitive onlookers are not men.

I am being checked out by women – specifically, well-maintained women about my age.

I know they’re staring at me because I’m staring at them, too, and my thought process goes something like this: "Hmm. That woman is not young, but she’s attractive. Has she had work done? How did she manage to keep that waist? How old is she? Is she as old as I am? Do I look as old as she does?"

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Britain's Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton pose for the media at St. James's Palace in London, Tuesday Nov. 16, 2010, after they announced their engagement. The couple are to wed in 2011. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Browse more photos of the handsome couple

One thing Kate Middleton’s got going for her: She doesn’t have that deer-in-the-headlights look.

Remember Lady Diana Spencer’s first appearances with her husband-to-be Prince Charles, back in 1981?

She looked enamored but terrified. She was 19 and barely knew this old guy, Charles, who was 33.

Without the blinders of romantic notions and royal fairy tales, let’s face it: 33-year-olds wooing teenagers is creepy.

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News Channel 5 anchor Roxanne Stein with her morning co-anchor Jim Favole on November 8, 2010. The pair worked together early in their careers in Chattanooga, Tennessee and teamed back up years later in West Palm Beach when Favole signed with News Channel 5. Staff photo by Brandon Kruse/Palm Beach Post.

Read related story by Post reporter Barbara Marshall: The real world of TV reporting, from one who’s been there

When you wake up all fuzzy at 6 in the morning and flip on your TV, you’ve got to wonder:

How does Roxanne Stein do it?

How does that woman stay so peppy at this beastly hour?

How does she deliver the news in a straightforward and soothing way, then bounce around to traffic and weather and then throw in a jocular jab or two at co-anchor John Favole?

And how does she look so girl-next-door good so early? On high-definition TV!

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