In Praise of the Color Orange 2, or: Thoughts on Floor Length Gowns

This wedding that I’m going to is driving me a little batty. Just as I narrowed down what I would wear to two possibilities I was alerted to its radical degree of formality. Yes, sure, I knew it was a black tie shindig. But I’ve been to black tie events and women, by and large, wear cocktail dresses.  Still, in TX formal apparently means REAL long.  I could have let it go... but then how often do you actually get a chance to wear something long and flowy these days? It might be kinda nice to play dress up? My own private Oscars.

Speaking of! Who is up for a very quick fashion trial of Hollywood’s big night? I don’t ever watch the damn thing, but I like logging on in the morning after and checking out the dresses. A pleasant hour or so if you have it to spend with your coffee and yogurt. As I said however, this report will be quick, however, because there was so little to comment on! Almost none of the dresses delivered something surprising, interesting, and none were ‘fashion moments’ that will be remembered, like Nicole Kidman’s chartreuse dress:

 or Cate Blanchett’s butterfly one:

Or, for that matter a number of Blanchett's outfits from said event. 

2014 will go down in history of such events of no consequence as the year when (a) few major stars came out to play, and (b) none of them brought out the big gun gowns.

Here are my favorites:

Camilla Alves, a plus one who is usually the queen of tacky, went for old school drama:

Kate Hudson, who usually wears fair and bare managed to cover up nicely in a dramatic cape:

Amy Adams, always spare and classy, held on to that title, but the result was underwhelming if elegant:

My biggest disappointment? Lupita Nyongo. She killed it all along the awards season, coming up with one fantastic look after another, but when it was time for the jewel in the crown she decided to opt for a fairly standard princess look, slightly punched up by an unusual color, but badly accessorized and with a terrible décolleté that left no bone from shoulder to rib spared from view:

Wasn’t Blanchett there, you might ask? She was, hell, she even won. But her gown was utterly blah:

 Worse, it was kinda tackily reminiscent of another touchstone ‘sarotorial event’, as one of my favorite fashion bloggresses wrote, Britney’s bedazzled jumpsuit

The bottom line was that despite a plethora of truly interesting gowns on the fashion week runways the stars, or their stylists, went for sedate, predictable, and just blah.

This observation carries to the retail situation.  I decided to search gowns in case I would decide to opt for one for my TX outing.  I searched online as well as in person. Here’s the sad report:

Saks Fifth Ave: everything not designer (i.e. below the 1.5k+ price point) was deadly boring. And repetitive, as if the various brands copied each other. A ton of one shoulder, some sequin, some ponte. Most of the colors were either dull (dirty bath water gray) or predictable (red, black, nude with sparke). The designer stuff was better, with some stunning gowns, but ringing in at 3k or so, making it as good as nonexistent.

Nordstrom: Same, but worse. Even less variation.  Even cheaper crap. BLAAAH.

Lord & Taylor: RUN, ladies, run away. All the long items are mother-of-the-bride stuff, stiff, cheaply bligned, and generally YUCKY!

The stand out was the Outnet. No wonder, I suppose, since it’s the site’s whole pitch is designer ware on slashed prices. Here are two I liked, harkening back to my previous post on orange:

Demonstrating nicely what a bold color choice can do to a very sedate design and cut. Yum.

It wasn’t the only orange dress there, by the way, giving me some hope. Here’s another, in an utterly different take on both color and style:

(They call the color red, but on my screen it reads as a red with a high yellow quotient, thereby making it legitimately orange in my book).

In short, if any of you is ever in need of a gown, get yourselves to the outnet site ladies. The choices are better but, as with every online retailer the way things look online ain’t what they look like in person. Case in point is my experience. I ordered this, thinking that it has the edge I personally gravitate towards with some fairytale element that I will be happy to sport this one time.

In person the dress was made of such flimsy, thin silk that it looked rather like a rumpled nightgown with a ridiculously blinged-out collar. But the funnier element was its size. Since the only size available was 0, I dared, with some trepidation, to order it. In truth I haven’t been a size 0 in over a decade. But this dress? Oh, I fit into it with some room to spare width-wise. And length-wise, you ask? Well, it was long for the husband who is around 185 m.

All this gives rise to two observations:

1) Why are US clothiers so keen on fooling their clients with sizing that is all but meaningless? 0 should mean 0, 4 should be 4, and these measurements should not vary wildly from brand to brand.

2) I can understand that floor length gowns are made longer for a reason, but surely there is a reasonable length? How many giantess walk among us?

 

As for what I will wear? After much agonizing about fitting in I will wear a short B&W dress with my orange coat over it. And let ‘em Houstonians judge me if they will.

And I will let you know if they do!