An army of bloggers who diss celebrity culture - from Perez Hilton to the folks at Defamer - should don black armbands over their pajamas today, because their spiritual godfather has died.

Mr. Blackwell, the fashion designer who issued catty insults to Hollywood's elite with his annual Worst-Dressed List, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 86.

Mr. Blackwell (born Richard Sylvan Selzer) issued his first list in 1960, targeting such stars of the era as Zsa Zsa Gabor and Anna Magnani. For the next five decades, Blackwell (pictured here in 1996) dismissed the dull and the misbegotten of celebrity fashion with sarcastic one-liners, relying often on puns, alliteration and rhymes.

Some examples from the AP obituary:

Madonna: "The Bare-Bottomed Bore of Babylon."
Barbra Streisand: "She looks like a masculine Bride of Frankenstein."
Christina Aguilera: "A dazzling singer who puts good taste through the wardrobe wringer."
Meryl Streep: "She looks like a gypsy abandoned by a caravan."
Sharon Stone: "An over-the-hill Cruella DeVille."
Lindsay Lohan: "From adorable to deplorable."
Ann Margret: "A Hells Angel escapee who invaded the Ziegfeld Follies on a rainy night."
Britney Spears: "Her bra-topped collection of Madonna rejects are pure fashion overkill."

Mr. Blackwell's act may seem tame, compared to some of the stuff you find on celebrity blogs today. But Mr. Blackwell was doing it first, when we still put celebrities on a pedestal, before we realized how much fun it is to knock them down.

(Photo: Nick Ut/Associated Press)