LMNOP

Teen Choice Awards Fashion Recap

The Teen Choice Awards were earlier this week, but it has taken me several days to get an appropriate fashion recap together.  This is probably because I am old.

Lil' Mama

While 90% of American teens are overdoing it with the whole emo trend, Lil' Mama has decided to instead overdo it with the lesser-known emu trend.  What a difference a vowel makes.

Drake Bell

I have never heard of this Drake Bell person before.  This means that literally EVERYTHING I know about him is that (1) he exists; and (2) he owns flowered velvet flare pants.  So, I would say that Drake Bell and I are not off to a good start.

Jordana Brewster

I am not entirely sure why Jordana Brewster was at this event.  I am entirely sure that her dress looks like a full-body sports bra.

Kristen Stewart

I would make fun of this look, but it actually incorporates two of my favorite trends: frowning, and metal shark teeth.

Rumer Willis

So, I have this style rule.  It's actually pretty simple: a good dress should not remind anyone of the phrase "massive dandruff."  This dress breaks that rule.

These guys

So . . . these guys just look like a bunch of dweebs.

Vanessa Hudgens

I don't know why, but I can't shake the feeling that the bottom half of this dress would look better as a hat.  On a monkey.

2009 Oscar Fashion Recap

I gotta say it: some of the outfits at the Oscars last night were very good.  Obviously, those were of no interest to me.  Fortunately, there were some bad ones as well.  Let us now discuss them.

Melissa Leo

When Melissa Leo showed up on my screen with the Best Actress nominees last night, I thought, "Hmm, I have no idea who she is."  I am guessing a lot of people were thinking the same thing.  I also thought, "Hmmm, her dress is doo-doo brown . . . and so is her hair."  I am guessing a lot of people were thinking that as well.

Brangeboring

The only thing less surprising than the Slumdog sweep was Angelina's dress.  Ooh, something black and flowy that shows off her tattoos and bony clavicle?  How original.

Bridget Fonda

Bridget Fonda is not really important enough for anyone to have asked her the "What are you wearing?" question last night, which is a shame.  I would have really liked to hear her answer, "a dress inspired by a Yikes pencil from 1991."

Miley Cyrus

On TV, Miley's alter ego is Hannah Montana.  On the red carpet, her alter ego must be a 45-year-old woman; that seems to be the only justification for why her gowns always appear to have been chosen for someone three times her age.

On another note, this dress looks like what would happen if you put a figure skating outfit in a giant petri dish and let it grow uncontrollably.

SJP

Something about this dress makes me uncomfortable.  That thing is the awkward cleavage.

Jessica Biel

I can relate to Jessica Biel's thinking here; when I wear white, I like to tuck a napkin into my top as well.  Still, for the Academy Awards?  Maybe not the best idea. 

Tilda Swinton

My main problem with Tilda Swinton is that her outfits all seem to fall into the category of "Things That Would Not Shock a Time-Traveling Pilgrim At All."  What's frightening, though, is that this dress is about a thousand times better than what she wore last year.  (Actually, what's frightening is Tilda Swinton in general.)

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Yikes.

Moving on.

In addition to the above commentary, I'd like to point out a few trends I noticed last night.

TREND: Kooky but Boring Red Dresses

 

 

Heidi Klum, Amanda Seyfried, and Virginia Madsen all wore shiny red dresses with exaggerated details, and, viewed individually, all of them looked OK; not the best dresses of the night, but not the worst.  Jointly, though, they look like a study in Things to Do with Red Fabric When You're Not That Exciting of a Person.  It's a shame, because I love Le Klum and I think Amanda Seyfried is pretty. 

TREND: Overdoing It with the Damn Mermaid Silhouette

I am so. over. mermaid silhouette. dresses.  Time to publicly shame the ladies who wore them last night.

Offender: Beyonce

Beyonce, if I had a dime for every time you wore a dress of this shape, I could reupholster every piece of furniture in my house with that hideous print you are wearing.  So thank God nobody gave me all those dimes.  But really, get a new thing going.

Offender: Melissa George

A small area of this dress is hogging an absurd percentage of its fabric.  Not unlike the distribution of global wealth, this dress is lopsided and painful to consider for too long.

Offender: Vanessa Hudgens

This dress is ugly AND it looks like a bird flew into it.

TREND: That Shade of Purple I Hate

 

 

Dear sweet God, do I hate lilac.  I just do.  I am aware that some people like it, and I am certain this world is big enough for all of us.  I can't sign off on these two dresses though, despite them both featuring that fancy drapy look I liked on all of Rami Kashou's Project Runway designs.

OK--your thoughts, please.  Who/what did I miss?

2009 Grammy Fashion Recap

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards were last night, and I am celebrating another year in artistic achievement gone by with an exercise in my own craft: making fun of famous people's outfits.

Coldplay

I turned on my TV just in time to see Chris Martin prancing around the stage during Coldplay's performance wearing a freakish aqua blazer and a comically small pants/crop top duo.  Yes.  Crop top.  The entire band was dressed in what Martin later described as a "Sgt. Pepper rip-off," but let's acknowledge it for what it really was: a deranged, parallel-universe version of The Wiggles.

MIA 

MIA doesn't really try to dress for anyone's approval, so she's hard to hate on.  Plus, last night was literally her due date, so again: hard to hate.  Instead, I will just merely make the observation that she looks like a human maternity version of a migraine aura.

Paris Hilton

Three shades of purple, two shades of green, cutouts, glitter, shimmer, lace, and ruching: that is a lot to fit on a dress that's approximately nine inches long.

Estelle

To be fair, this is one of the best attempts at futuristicgreyplastickycrapstyle I've yet seen.  But having the best ugly plastic dress?  That's like having the prettiest turd.

John Mayer

John Mayer looks stupid.

Lisa Rinna

You'd think that with all the security personnel employed by the Brangelina family, somebody would have noticed Lisa Rinna picking through their trash as she put together this Jolie-wannabe look.

Taylor Swift

Actually, I think this young lady looks fantastic; however, I see a disturbingly Zellwegerian squint in her facial expression, and am hereby putting her on FaceWatch.  If such behavior continues, I will have to take drastic measures.

Sheryl Crow

This dress isn't so horribly offensive, but for me the fabric is way too much like staring into one of those oily, rainbow-ish puddles on the ground at the gas station--and, well, I just have to believe that good fashion doesn't ever remind anyone of being at a gas station.

Golden Globes Fashion Recap 2009

The 2009 Golden Globes were on last night, and since nothing helps exorcise my pent-up bitchiness better than smug celebs in formalwear, I was ALL OVER THAT SHIT.  And while I love checking my gossip sites the day after awards shows to see all the Best Dressed and Worst Dressed lists, I've long felt that such simplistic categories do a great injustice to the Hollywood set.  Actors are complex, multifaceted people; so, rather than stuff them into one-size-fits-all categories of Best and Worst, I've invented a much more robust system that recognizes their intricacies and special qualities.

[click any pic for a larger image]

Best Use of a Hot Topic Gift Card: Heidi Klum

Usually, Heidi Klum can do no wrong in my eyes.  But she also usually doesn't dress like a random goth at high school prom.

Best Use of a Smug-Ass Smile: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Tie)

Brad may not be getting any hotter these days, but he is getting wiser: aviator shades will go far to protect his eyes from the glare of Angie's halo.

Best Auxiliary Dress: Eva Mendes

Actually, Eva Mendes looks great.  But she also kiiiiiiiinda looks like she stapled an extra dress to her hip in case she spilled something on the first one.  Eva, may I suggest a lobster bib next time?  Much more streamlined.

Most Revealing Dress to Also Look Horrifyingly Matronly: Renee Zellweger

Granted, Renee Zellweger could wear the most gorgeous dress in the world and still look awful as long as she employs her famous default facial expression of "sourpuss squinting at a solar eclipse while swallowing a handful of needles," but this is just an abomination.

Best "Josie Grosie" Throwback: Drew Barrymore
 
Doesn't that hair look a little too much like this?  Drew Barrymore would have looked better dressing up as ANY OTHER character she has played in her life.  Even the little girl in E.T.

Best Use of 1992 Technology: Lisa Rinna

This dress looks like your average hideous geometric pattern at first--until you stare at it long enough and the 3-D Magic Eye dinosaur appears.  Good save, Rinna!

Best Use of an Iron: The Top of Rachel Griffifths' Dress

Worst Use of an Iron: The Bottom of Rachel Griffifths' Dress

Best Use of Resume Paper

The pattern/color of this dress on Penelope Cruz are exactly what I look for when I go to Kinko's to Xerox my resume.  So . . . not a good choice for a dress.

Am I forgetting anyone?

Emmy Fashion Recap

Because LMNOP is a nice blog, we don't do "Worst Dressed" here.  Everyone is Best Dressed--just for different reasons.  Behold:

Best Dressed Ulcer: Sharon Stone

. . . Because "Dressed to Excess" isn't the same as "Dressed to Abcess."

Best Dressed, as Measured in Cubic Meters: Hayden Panetierre

Best Dressed Thing on One Leg: Felicity Huffman

Best Dressed, Pre-Double Take: Mary-Louise Parker

If you flip past this picture quickly, nothing appears to be wrong with it.  But if you dwell on it, it kind of stops making sense.  First of all, it would have looked better as a short dress, and that long red ruffle at the bottom should just be cut off.  Secondly, I hate when famous women wear dresses that are so tight you can practically see uterus.

Best Dressed, At Least In Her Own Opinion: Kimora Lee Simmons

I HATE that smug look she always has.  HAAAAAAATE!  She seems even more obnoxious than Tyra Banks.

Golden Globes Fashion Recap

Due to time constraints resulting from my trip around the world, I didn't get to do any Photoshopping of the outfits from last night, but I couldn't resist recapping the outfits in some way.  This time I went with the good old "numbered list of mean comments" format.  May God help us all.

1. We'll start off with one of the most disturbing dresses of the night--that of Nicolette Sheridan.  Despite the awkward black ties, this dress isn't that bad until you get about 95% of the way down and it appears to be taken over by an F5 tornado.  Seriously, remember that part in Twister where Bill Paxton and/or Helen Hunt is/are explaining how the most fierce tornadoes are accompanied by massive, deadly, black swarming clouds of debris, and that is what will really kill you?  Well, that's also what will kill your outfit.

OK, I guess I understand that Nicolette Sheridan isn't hiding a tornado under her dress.  More realistically, she is probably hiding . . .

Celebrity Halloween Roundup

In reviewing the various roundups of celebrities' Halloween costumes this year, I have noticed that they are pretty disappointing.  These are supposed to be very highly creative people with endless resources--how come they can't think of something better than dressing as a devil, policeman, or cat? 

What follows is my analysis of celebrity Halloween costumes: the disappointing, the inexplicable, and even a few I actually liked.

GROUP 1: How Is That Different From What You Usually Wear?

Some of the most outrageous and eccentric celebrities out there seem to come up with the mildest costumes.  Compare, for example, Dave Navarro's devil costume with some of the other stuff we have seen him wear, and you will notice that it actually involves less makeup, less jewelry, and roughly the same number of feather boas (click if, for some reason, you need to see the enlarged photos)
:

I know you've had a rough year, Dave, but come on--this is what I would imagine you go to bed in every night.

As for Dennis Rodman, well, let's play a little game.  Look at these four of his outfits and guess which one was his Halloween costume and which three were things he wore on non-Halloween days:
 

It's the KISS one, which is maybe the least crazy of them.

GROUP 2: Didn't I See You At That Frat Party . . . Two Years Ago?

These celebrities seemed to take their costume ideas from the Used aisle at their local Costumes for College Students store.  Both Haylie Duff and Lindsay Lohan went with the '80s aerobics-instructor look, and Travis Barker's skeleton is so played out.  I mean, Sean and Phylan were there two years before you, dude.    That's bad. And Paris?  Police and bunny outfits?  I expected better.

GROUP 4: Wait-- What?

Some celebrities I don't even know how to accurately ridicule, because I can't even figure out what they are supposed to be.  Oh, well--I can still try:

Alyssa Milano, at first I was wondering if you were a princess, a fairy, Thumbelina, or a butterfly.  But now I'm pretty sure I figured it out--the theme of your costume is "The Most Inappropriate Thing a 33-Year-Old Woman Could Ever Wear."  How did you even get that in your size?

Elisha Cuthbert: Jaunty mental patient?

Fergie: OK, I'm trying to figure out what princess tiara+Girl Scout sash+Mickey Mouse glove+vast expanses of midriff is supposed to add up to, but I just can't.  I'm hoping the answer isn't "drug relapse," though.

GROUP 5: My Favorites
It is a testament to the overall shittiness of celebrity Halloween costumes that my top three aren't even really that good.  For what it's worth, though, here they are.

Second runner-up honors go to Dakota Fanning.  I'm aware that praising Dakota might be the most controversial thing I have ever done--especially in light of things I have said about her before--but I'm just so relieved that she's actually dressed in something a kid would wear.

God, seriously though?  So creepy, that child.

My runner-up is Jennifer Love Hewitt, for making herself look hideous.  That takes a lot of guts on Halloween--both figuratively and literally, because she appears to have padded her costume.  Anyway, congratulations to J. Love for resisting the temptation to dress like a ho-bag.

Speaking of tempation, how about my #1 pick?  Let's build up the suspense a little by putting it on the continuation page.

Formula for Fashion

Viewership for the MTV VMAs was down this year, but I've decided to give you a helpful recap of the  fashion at what is commonly regarded as the tackiest of the award shows.  I've also decided to do this in the form of a game!  In this game, I will show you what I have determined to be the main elements of a particular celebrity's outfit.  Based on these elements, you are to come up with a mental image of what you think the celebrity's outfit looked at.  Then, you'll scroll down and see how close you were!

Let's do an example.  Imagine what an outfit would look like if you combined the following three items:

When you're good and ready, scroll down slowly to see the actual celebrity outfit.

Did you come up with anything like this awesome outfit of Mario's?  If you didn't, don't be discouraged!  There are still plenty more chances to play!  Try this one:

Once you've got a mental picture of an outfit that contains ALL of these elements, you can scroll down.

If you were picturing Paris Hilton's Ace Ventura Hair, boots, and tutu with a splash of Bjork's feathers and a dead-eyed stare, give yourself two points!

Here's another one.  Take a close look at these two elements, and merge them in your mind to create a red-carpet-worthy look.

Ready? This one should have been easy.

Yes, J. Simp looks exactly like the man in the picture above after he has been doused in self-tanner and sent on his merry way.  Now that's vintage.

Here's another set of classic inspirations:

Charlie Chaplin, Burberry, and Botox.  Who could it be?

Shame on you if you didn't foresee this outfit of Fergie's--it's exactly like I promised!

I'm sorry, but the derivative elements of our next celeb's outfit can only be described in this fashion (pun definitely not intended):

If you've seen the Worst Dressed lists, you must know who I'm referring to . . .

It's J. Lo!

OK, one more.  This is a rather complex equation; it has four parts.  However, I'm sure if you think hard enough you'll be able to get it.

What do you get when you cross the color blue with silicon, pairs figure skating, and whorishess?  I'm glad you asked:

You get Ice-T and Coco, current world leaders in the discipline of Coordinated Tacky Fabric Abuse.  Long live the king and queen, and thanks for playing.

It's Not a Bad Outfit, It Just Has the Wrong Backdrop: Emmy Awards Edition

A while ago I did a post asserting that most celebrity fashion choices are not actually ugly, they're just worn in the wrong setting; an outfit that may be inappropriate for Brooke Shields to wear to Dolce, for example, could still look great on a caveman.  I decided to post similarly about some celebrities' outfit choices for the recent Emmy awards.  In each of the following examples, I will give you an example of a celebrity whose Emmy outfit bombed, and then I will helpfully suggest a better place for her to wear it in the future.

First, we have Paula Abdul.  Paula routinely ends up on worst-dressed lists, and this look shows that she remains quite comfortable with that:

Speaking of 'comfortable,' this outfit reminds me of something: a couch.  In fact, I would like to hereby recommend to Ms. Abdul that this would be the perfect piece for her to wear next time she has one of those awkward "too much Vicodin, even for me" moments at a party, says something embarrassing, and invokes the quintessential sixth-grade angst mantra, "I wish I could just blend into the furniture."  Problem solved.

Is this Allison Janney, or Jane Kaczmarek?

I couldn't be bothered to check.  I'm far too busy scanning this photo for the rearing bull that must be somewhere in the near vicinity of this outfit.  Because frankly, it takes a lot less work in this day in age to not look like a matador than it does to--wait!  There he is!

Tyra ended up on some worst-dressed lists and some best-dressed lists with this one, and I can only imagine that the people who liked this gown are subconscious dendrophiliacs.  Let's be honest, Ty Ty looks like a tree tree.

She doesn't look like like just any tree, though; rather, she looks like the girl who auditioned for the middle school play, then cried because she got cast as a tree, then told her mom how upset she was.  After that, Mom saw an opportunity to teach her daughter a lesson about self confidence and poise, so she gave her daughter a speech about how she may be embarrassed that she didn't get to be Cinderella, but sometimes that's how life goes and frankly, honey, it doesn't say nowhere in that book that the trees in the forest weren't the tallest, hottest, prettiest, most special characters in the book, so you know what we're going to do?  We're going to make you the prettiest tree ever, and you're going to steal the show, because you're my daughter and you were not made to stand in the background while some bitch steals your thunder. 

Way to go, Tyra.  You sure showed that girl.

Tracey Gold's outfit has me conflicted; the color says Peter Pan, but the cut is all Tinkerbell. 

And who would have thought that when you combined those two whimsical characters, you would get this result--a  weird, ugly dress with the kind of vertical-hangy straps that adorned Roman military costumes.  But way sluttier.  So let's put this ancient Roman hooker where she belongs: in front of the Colosseum, waiting for her next customer.

Well, enjoy your Friday night.  I'll be back tomorrow to put up the September design, and maybe on Monday I'll do a 'Wrong Backdrop' analysis of the VMAs.  I was looking through the pictures today, and some of those outfits make Paula Abdul's upholstrosity (upholstery monstrosity) look downright, well . . . not good, but, like, better.