As I watched the movie "Philadelphia" recently for the third or fourth time, it once again moved me -- and reminded me.

"Philadelphia" is, of course, about AIDS. I think it is the best work Tom Hanks has ever done. He deservedly won an Oscar.

The title could be any city. Take your pick. Yes, even Pittsburgh. No city is immune.

"Longtime Companion" was one of the first movies to put a face to AIDS in 1990. Hanks' film was made in 1993. His character was a son, a brother, an uncle, a lover, a friend, a human being.

The fashion world reeled when the illness began some 25 years ago. But Hanks' character in this film was a young lawyer, not a fashion designer.

I was working with people in the hard-hit fashion industry for almost 35 years, and some of those years, the late '70s through the '80s, were the years the strange and yet-unnamed malady began to surface.

I remember the fear evolving as friend after friend after friend came down with what would eventually, but not immediately, have a name -- AIDS.

It was dreaded. It was mysterious. Everyone was scared. So many people were getting so sick. So many were dying.

My job as a fashion editor for The Pittsburgh Press took me to New York three or four times a year for seasonal fashion collections, beginning in 1960.

For at least 15 of those years, it was pure excitement, with very little serious thought beyond what would be trendy for the next season.

I made many friends, gay as well as straight.

Then the fear began.

We were afraid to use the same chip dip at a cocktail party if someone suspected of having this "virus" had preceded us. Don't hug, certainly don't kiss, even if on the cheek.

It might even be best not to touch at all.

With each succeeding trip to Manhattan, in the '80s, we would hear about a few more in the designing world who were "suddenly ill" or who looked nothing like the person you had seen a short six months prior.

It would go beyond designers and artists. It would be publicists, executives, authors, and eventually not just men, but women we knew.

Often, when seeing a person with AIDS, we could only gasp. Many had developed Kaposi's sarcoma, all too evident on the skin. It was, we would soon learn, the Rock Hudson look.

I recall a well-liked publicist, who always sent his grandmother's fudge at Christmas, calling me one afternoon. His voice was raspy. He would explain he had a cold, but you knew. And you were right.

We began, sadly, to know the telltale signs.

I leaned down often to hug someone in a wheelchair, someone still doing his collections or writing his columns, with the aid of assistants. But we were warned: Don't touch, as if the disease could be passed by such an innocent gesture of caring.

Last year, according to National AIDS Trust, more than 3 million people acquired HIV (human immune deficiency virus, which causes AIDS), which means an estimated 40 million people are now living with HIV and AIDS.

It is now a global emergency, claiming 8,000 lives every day.

By the time the rumor had spread that designer Perry Ellis had AIDS, there was at last a name for it.

Known for his boyish good looks and those giant strides he took around his runway after a show, a model on each arm, a beaming smile on his face, Ellis was gallant enough to be at his very last show.

He looked nothing like himself. I had shared the elevator with him to his showroom, and I didn't recognize him.

During menswear press weeks those who were not afflicted, and a few who were -- writers, publicists, manufacturers and designers -- began to have impromptu auctions, sometimes very silly things, like making bikinis out of whatever we could find in our hotel rooms or in our suitcases, to raise money.

We would cheer madly when someone would pledge $100 or $500 for a bikini made out of a Bloomingdale's shopping bag or a beach towel, or even paper press releases.

Our friends were dying. We didn't know what else to do. We were helpless. But we hugged and cried and laughed and mourned together.

And we thought it would go away. There still is no cure, but HIV can be managed with a powerful cocktail of drugs to prevent the virus from exploding into AIDS. The multidrug therapy has allowed many infected patients to lead a somewhat normal life, but it doesn't work for everyone.

HIV has now spread beyond the fashion or the gay community -- way beyond. We had no idea what we were witnessing all those years ago.

Most of us, all these years later, know someone who is ill or has died of what once had no name. All we knew was that it was deadly.

It remains deadly. Sometimes I think we have forgotten. If you knew someone with AIDS, you can't forget.