Style Icon: Vanessa Williams

I know what you are thinking-Vanessa Williams? Yes and let me tell you why. Style is about more than putting on "fashionable" clothes. It's about an aura, a sense of pride, the way you carry yourself, an intangible that no one can quite put their finger on and that cannot be imitated. Vanessa Williams has for years been an icon. She was able to cement a career at a time when black people were shut out of Hollywood. She carried herself through her divorces with dignity and class and even when she had to move back in with her parents after the end of her first marriage, you never saw her resort to some of the shameless trash talking and media wars that we often see now. Like Yves Saint Laurent famously said "fashion fades, style is eternal". Say what you want but 20 years later people still know Vanessa Williams' name. She has proved that style is about more than what you put on the outside of your body.

Here are some of my favorite looks from Ms. Williams.

Vanessa at the 2008 Emmy Awards

Vanessa at the 2007 NAACP Image Awards

Vanessa at an event in 2008

I know that she and Rick Fox are no longer married but she still looked absolutely stunning at their 1999 wedding.