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!
