I used to be amazed by awards season fashion, what with all the pretty actresses in their gowns and whatnot. Now, not so much.
As awards show season rolls on in, the fashions of the red carpet have become a formulaic recipe of boring. For instance, the recent Golden Globe Awards red carpet, which took place right next to campus at the Beverly Hilton (or at least 15 minutes by L.A. Metro for those without vehicles), was a demonstrative introspection into the term, “snooze fest.”
As I viewed the red carpet photos on New York Magazine’s fashion blog, The Cut, each click on the slide show was just a nanosecond wasted looking at gown after gown after suit and gown. Cream-toned dress worn by Nicole Kidman, check. Someone wearing Marchesa, check. At least a dozen actresses going down the diaphanous gown path with ruffle accents, check, check and check.
“Why so serious?” one may ask, just to overuse Joker’s signature line in “The Dark Knight” yet again. Perhaps it’s the homogenization of the Hollywood stylist machine, or the fact that no one takes risks on the red carpet anymore for fear that US Weekly might run their picture in the worst-dressed list. Actresses blanket themselves in millions of dollars in jewels and make sure they don’t have a hair out of place for fear of looking like they ran through a wind tunnel. Frankly, that’s just boring.
I get how it all works though, or at least from what I’ve seen on “The Rachel Zoe Project,” where the title stylist goes “bananas” over procuring just the right gown for her respective clients to wear to the award shows.
For instance, in one episode, she has the renowned designer of Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, hack off the sleeve of a hot pink Chanel gown for Cameron Diaz to wear to the 2009 Golden Globes, for fear that America just won’t “get it.” It’s all about appeasing the general masses so that they won’t think an actress is too subversive just because she had a sleeve on a dress where it shouldn’t be.
Whatever happened to the fashion train wrecks of yore, the days where Cher would work a feather headdress complete with sheer pants, or Bjork would come to the Oscars clad in what appeared to be a dead swan around her neck and an attached tutu? I’d like to see that on Natalie Portman, which actually might be too appropriate, considering her role as a sad-sack, mental ballerina in “Black Swan.”
What I’m trying to say here is that it’ll be great to see some excitement on the red carpet, tabloid worst-dressed lists be damned. If anything, there was one glimmer of hope on the red carpet this past Golden Globes, and that was the always entertaining Helena Bonham Carter, in what appeared to be a tulle and brocade explosion, complete with mismatched shoes. Now, that woman doesn’t care about what anyone thinks, and I appreciate that.
But for now, we have to deal with normalcy on the red carpet, and for the upcoming Oscars, I won’t set my hopes too high for something outrageous and memorable to show up. I guess I’ll just to wait with bated breath for just another sequined applique gown walking down the red carpet. That is, unless Natalie Portman goes all “Black Swan” crazy and actually shows up in a tutu.
Trying to start a Facebook group for Natalie Portman to wear a tutu to the Oscars? E-mail Jue at tjue@media.ucla.edu.