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Red Carpet Rundown: the BAFTAs

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baftatildaswinton
Last night, the BAFTAs happened! Really, all that means is that this happened: In which Meryl Streep takes the stage, loses a shoe, has Colin Firth retrieve it and slip it back on, lays one on him, and then starts her speech with, “Well, that couldn’t have gone worse,” as if that wasn’t the most amusing part of the ceremony for pretty much everyone. (Not shown: after she gives her speech – which I skipped, because I’m already trying to forget The Iron Lady ever happened, so I don’t know if it’s any good – she and Colin head backstage with Backstage Cam, and she covers her face and says, “Thank God it was you,” and my shriveled little heart grows three sizes. But also I guess some people wore dresses, and 2012’s Bafflement Trend continues unabated! I’m looking at you, Hayley Atwell: It’s not just that this dress looks like Jefferson Memorial Middle School’s Winter Formal fell over on her, causing her original hairstyle to fall out and look like this. It’s that most… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: 2012 SAG Awards

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The most awkward awards name of all (close second to the Golden Globes) happened last night! This is the one where stylists don’t have to worry about dressing anyone except the actors, which sounds like a gimme, but when an actor is wading through a sea of people trying to Make These Borrowed Clothes Look Awesome, the stakes are high. It’s not the same danger as the Met Costume Institute Gala, when they’re competing against models whose ONLY job is Make These Borrowed Clothes Look Awesome, but there is an occasional pose that is trying waaaay too hard, some of which didn’t even come from Lea Michele. I am pleased (?) to report that the Bafflement Trend of 2012 is still going strong. As usual, some people got the memo about it and some people just chose to look amazing, but that means there’s something for everyone to make faces at one way or the other, which is what a red carpet is all about. Let’s open on a Full Baffle: Kristen Wiig deftly avoided… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: Golden Globes 2012

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GGViolaDavis
Hollywood’s Homecoming Dance was last night! I was pleased to see that my guess about the Stump Everybody theme is going strong, even though I spent a lot of my time with my hand propping up my dismayed face. For the Golden Globes, many people decided to keep the baffle in the details, so mostly-lovely garments are supplanted by a single rogue element that was clearly designed to make my heart hurt. And no one was immune from Baffle Fever. Not even Tilda Swinton. NOT EVEN TILDA. I could not love 80% of this more — the shoulders, the sleeves, the tailoring, the silhouette of the skirt are all great. A case could even, maybe, be made for the color, though I would have liked to see it a greyer, less Easter Egg pale. But something about the skirt-matching sash disaster make her look like a mother of the bride from SyFy’s Children of Dune, and that is no place you want to be, Tilda. Trust me. Other people’s attempts to baffle me with their… Read more »

Emmys 2011: Red Carpet Rundown

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So, the Emmys happened! I didn’t watch (there’s no point, plus since Cate Blanchett lost the Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow there’s no justice etc.), but I hear that overall, things went well. Plus, Downton Abbey won some things! That’s great news! That damn show and what it does to my blood pressure is something we shall speak of another time. Or, if you follow my Tumblr, I have already spoken of it multiple times and we’re all set. (From left: Elizabeth McGovern in a lovely basic dress, Joanne Froggatt in one of those dresses that you know makes you feel like a princess right until the photos roll in and you realize your costars are Amazons and you have made a mistake about proportions, and Michelle Dockery, who is wearing a really great dress to which someone has inexplicably added one of those cutouts the vampire queens always have in their armor so the hero can get the stake through it.) Thank the ladies of Downton Abbey, who are demonstrating several of the red carpet… Read more »

Miss Universe 2011

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missuniverseromania
Miss Universe! Yes, it’s that time again, when hopeful young ladies gather from all around the world to grin their beautiful hostage grins into the camera, and to be dressed like fools in “National Dress” by horrible pageant planners secretly trying to test what young ladies are willing to wear on camera. That answer came back: Practically anything. I have tried to look at this and understand what happened. In the past, this category has been spectacularly awesome (Thailand!) or hilariously fun (the national costume of Iceland is dignity!). This year is what I can only term a Hot Mess, with Intermittent Laughter. This year also seems to be the year that the always-fantastical undercurrent of this whole glittery mess went from subtext to text: Tanzania, auditioning for a role in the inevitable Metropolis remake, and/or putting mortal fear into her enemy contestants. Either way, SUCCESS. However, she had some serious competition in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category. Under this cut, a bajillion pictures.… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: The Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala

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So last night, after returning from grocery shopping for Friday’s launch party (more on this later!), I watched the Met’s Costume Institute Gala red carpet. This is probably my favorite gown-y event of the year, mostly because I’ve worked it twice, so I get to look at pictures and smile, knowing that for every celebrity posing smoothly on the red carpet there are two people running flat-out through the Temple of Dendur screaming “I NEED THAT FOLIAGE” into a walkie-talkie. This year is an especially good year for the Gala, because it’s celebrating Alexander McQueen, a designer I admire so much I wrote an article about him for Weird Tales (more on that soon!). He was a true artist, and I looked forward to seeing how celebrities would dress to celebrate that. Turns out they did it by wearing the dullest prom dresses they could find. I don’t have the energy to review the whole thing (on Kerry Washington: plain, vaguely-unflattering dress. On Maggie Q: fussy, vaguely-unflattering dress. On Lea Michele: red, vaguely-unflattering dress. On… Read more »
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