Connie Wang, senior global editor
"It was my first summer spent interning in NYC, and I was earning an intern's stipend so measly, I considered dollar pizza a luxury (hey – ramen was only 10 cents a package!). However, that was also the summer of new designer Alexander Wang's first-ever sample sale, and I just had to go...and I fell in love with a dress. Granted, $80 now doesn't seem like a splurge anymore, but back then, it meant I had to spend my last month in NYC in a self-imposed spending freeze. But the dress was my first designer purchase I made myself, and I wore that thing at least once a week for nearly a year (and for a sleeveless, double-breasted, waxed-linen trapeze dress, that's really saying something). I got street-styled with a friend outside of a show when I returned to NYC that fall to freelance (by the lovely Mr. Newton, when he was still went by Style Sightings!). I still try and bust that thing out at least once a season."