There is an image ingrained in the fabric of popular culture: a beautiful movie star, dressed in designer clothing, dripping with jewels, flawlessly posing on a red carpet, smiling for the cameras. Entire television shows are devoted to interviewing the stars as they walk the red carpet. Magazines commit layouts to what a celebrity wore to a red carpet event. Fashion designers can be made or broken based on how a star looks in their clothes. The red carpet is synonymous with modern life because it represents the ideals of culture and society. The men and women who walk the carpet have beauty, wealth, success, and popularity – all the qualities that Western culture deems most important. Surprisingly, the use of the red carpet as a symbol of status goes as far back as ancient Greece, where mortal men would place dyed fabric on the ground for the gods to walk upon.
