The Punkest Night of Yr Life

Wait, what was the point of having the Met Balls theme be "punk?" Wasn't nobody dressed very punk as far as I can see! But then since the theme was "punk", it seems like no one wanted to have good hair, even though punk hair is like, often really important. 

Anne Hathaway was like, "Punk? Whoops, I thought you said Russian Mail order bride!" 

What the fuck is this hobo-looking outfit? You can't even see the graphic on the sweatshirt, which apparently is Balenciaga. Is it punk because it looks really thrown together even though it costs $5K? The answer is no. 

This look is so, "OMG! I totally heard, like, punk was the theme, so I have this really cute $10K jacket with gold studs and this weird studded comb, to like  put in my unstyled punk hair which looks totes bizarre! Who wants Smirnoff Sorbet Lite???" 

Haha. A lot of women hit the eyeliner really hard in their efforts to punk it up. This photo is so funny, their dissattached body language and faces. I mean, that's what makes it fuckin PUNK ROCK.

Okay, its not very "punk", but it's a cool, 30's-inspired dress. BUT WHAT IS THAT HAIR. Punks do their hair, people. It's not like doing your hair is not the tradition of punk. It's actually often a crucial part of the look. But I guess Taylor Swift and her stylist weren't aware.

Miley Cyrus is def. the punkest of all these celebrities, so far (take that, Carine Roitfeld!!!) and I also deem her look the punkest so far. The spiky hair and jagged, covered-up look of her dress is atypical. She looks like she's in Roxette or something, the greatest punk band of our times.

Here's Madonna, who used to be pretty punk before she started talking with a British accent. Anyway, this outfit is weird and not very fun to look at, and why gray plaid but whatever at least she acknowledged the theme and isn't wearing a white strapless dress like half these fools.

And the crotch cross is a nice touch.

This woman gets it!

Heidi got this from the David's Bridal Up the Punx collection.

The shadows in the sateen fabric make it look like her crotch neva ends. Alls I know is, if J. Lo is standing behind you, move away. You can't outshine that light.

In conclusion, I guess it's reassuring all these rich celebs and socialites did a bad job with even a high-end punk-inspired look. Even though it's the Met Ball, it seems most people's stylists are worried their clients will look too extravagant if they wear, like, a necklace or have big hair. And that's sad because we are all here for the spectacle, and when it comes down to it, there's not really that much to look at. 

Jennifer Lopez, Style Icon

I always like to see what Jennifer Lopez is wearing to an event. She wears plenty of whatevs outfits, but she is also one of the few stars to take fashion risks while sticking to a personal look. A lot of stars claim to be inspired by "old Hollywood glamour", but you can tell she really is! I love how her look is so statuesque/Barbarella/drag queeny- like my other love Beyonce, she really knows how to dress for her figure. It's funny what a scandal that green Versace dress caused; today it looks only mildly trashy. Also, that silver lurex mini dress and head wrap? Amazing!

Lady Gaga: Y/N?

I'm always convinced award shows are going to be entertaining/worth critiquing, but it always turns out they never are either, because they are always typical and boring as hell. I turned off the Grammys during the supposedly 3-D (Whatever! The 3-D glasses I took from Avatar didn't work! I knew I should have returned them!) nonsensical Michael Jackson tribute. It's like, does anyone ever really want to see Jamie Foxx do anything? Why?

Anyway, I did see some of Lady Gaga's Elton John duet, which was totally boring just like Elton John himself, except for the always transcendent Tiny Dancer. I also saw Taylor Swift bringing down poor Stevie Nicks, whom she was not fit to share a stage with, and, if I never see Taylor Swift again, I would be pretty happy. When I watch things like this, I always think, "Why are these people, of all people, famous? What do The Black Eyed Peas have that other people don't? Why is Usher still here? Lady Antebellum? What? Do you guys even know what that name means?" The whole thing is such a mindless slog, and it's hard to tell who is excited about anything.

So, that's why at least a Beyonce, or a Lady Gaga makes sense. These people are showmen. They wear more exciting clothes, have more charisma than most, sing and perform (mostly) better, catchier songs (again, The Black Eyed Peas- what is going on with their "music?" Who buys their albums? I did like Fergie's 80's whore dress, though), and at least are an event unto themselves. It's interesting to me that Lady Gaga is famous because she would not have been in the pop princess-dominated early 2000s, but now the tide has turned and we are ready for every person to wear glitter shoulder pads once again. I'm glad that Lady Gaga has turned her mainstream success into a platform for performance art, and that she has chosen to get weirder instead of more normal as time goes on. I would much rather little girls like her and know of her existence than the existence of Taylor Swift. I am also glad she declined to be in the new re-recording of "We Are the World."

Of course, Lady Gaga is not really weird, and the weirdest thing is that she is always being treated as weird, particularly in this day and age. I saw this magazine page that listed Leigh Bowery as one of her influences, and it's like, you know who's weird? Leigh Bowery. And even before him, David Bowie was weird. Cher was weird. Prince was weird. Even Madonna was weird, kind of. And they didn't have stylists. What's weird is that everyone's like, "Oh, this futuristic glam thing is so weird! So new!" but doesn't everyone remember when futuristic glam was THE dominant aesthetic in music for a long time, and that once upon a time, having an extreme, poetic, artistic, bold, raunchy aesthetic was a huge part of music?

Look at these (totally mainstream) weirdos! Remember them? They grabbed their crotches and simulated masturbation and wore feathered headpieces to the Oscars with the best of them, and today we can't even handle Adam Lambert in a suit leading someone on a leash like nothing like it before has ever happened in the history of musical entertainment. One step forward, two steps back, dudes!

PS: Speaking of people who are still "hot" even though they were also "hot" when I was in middle school (ie, Usher, an eighth grade dance staple), Green Day really needs to give it a rest. Like, really.

Mary's Musings: I Liked It, I Am Sick of Looking at this Bitch, and More!

Issue One: Here is a dress Jezebel hated on as "one of the worst of the year." Whatever! I think this dress is cool. It looks kind of like your everyday cocktail dress crossed with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. It's special and weird!

This, on the other hand, they loooved. It was one of the "best of the year." This is like the kind of dress you might look cool in when you are seventy years old and you're a grand dame type with an elegant and stately style, but if you're 23 or what this Olsen is (God, remember the Olsens??? Everyone was so obsessed with them!) you are just boring and safe as hell. Much like Anne Hathaway in this dress:
What a bunch of boring crap! I'm so sick of rewarding celebrities for wearing a $12,000 gown their stylist picked out for them. Except for the Rhianna dress in there, nothing considered "great" is risky, inventive, unique, or strays from the typical model. I love how celebrities won't even wear necklaces or jewelery half the time because they are so intent on looking classy.


Issue Two:
What the fuck is up with these new cell phone commercials starring an unforgivably bloated Luke Wilson? Who's like, "Well, if fat 'n frumpy Luke Wilson wants me to change my coverage, I will!" I remember when I was a child, and I saw stuff on TV and craved it intensely (once I made my mom buy me this red sugar goo that you were supposed to squeeze onto your oatmeal to make fun shapes- needless to say the goo just kind of smeared and melted everywhere, and I think I learned a valuable lesson.) Anyway, I would love to visit an alternate reality when female stars show up looking fat and disheveled and shilling something on a TV commercials and no one bats an eye.




Issue Three:
Hey, guess what? You suck, Tim Burton. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sucked, Sweeney Todd sucked, Big Fish sucked (I watched this in college with my new-at-the-time roommates and they all cried at the end and I was like "WTF?") , Corpse Bride looked like it sucked, and your new obsession with CGI really sucks, because at least you used to be all about this unique, hand crafted, stylized aesthetic and this preview looks like a video game. Also, much of this aesthetic has become totally cliche- ie, of all the stupid Nightmare Before Christmas plastic crap made for pez Hot Topic teens. Also, Alice is a little girl, not sexy babe with her dress half torn off. I do like Beatlejuice, but that was a long time ago!

Issue Four:
Also, you suck, Michael Jackson. I am so sick of hearing Michael Jackson songs in every place and context. It was bad enough when it was just a hipster party staple, but now you can't escape it anywhere. Of course, there are only like five songs anybody will even play, and no one ever even plays, like, Man in the Mirror. Michael Jackson obviously had a huge cultural impact and is an icon and blah blah blah, but musically those songs aren't anything special. And everyone is so intent on claiming Michael Jackson as their own, like playing Billie Jean at a bar for the five hundredth time is really going to blow everyone away.


Issue Five:
You know what else sucks? "Remixed" old Christmas songs that are like Bing Crosby's voice going "Chestnuts roasting- roasting- roasting- beep bloop boop oonz oonz oonz." It's such a travesty! I hate the modern assumption that no one has enough of an attention span to listen to something slow and complete that doesn't jump or cut into something after five seconds.

Seal of Approval: Adam Lambert

Like everyone else, I now love Lady Gaga after the masterpiece of "Bad Romance"...but what really blew my mind was American Idol Adam Lambert's insanely gay performance last night on the American Music Awards!!! This was absolutely the first time I have ever seen such "classic" homosexual imagery within the context of an openly gay performance on a major awards show! He dragged some guys in bondage gear around on a metal leash! He kissed a guy! Simulated oral sex which sadly was edited out of the West Coast Feed! Whoa!

Apparently it "shocked" many- prompting a commentor to say "I can see why America is embracing Taylor Swift. She is sweet and pure. I didn’t understand it before, but Adam helped to put all of that into perspective." Another referred to it as "degenerate" and "sick." Many people said they wouldn't want their kids watching, as if this was the first "inappropriate" performance on an awards show-but think how great this could be for older teenagers who really are confused about their sexuality and see something like this validated, even in a theatrical way?

Yeah, the song was pretty bad, and the singing was more Broadway-esque than anything else, but it was more about the spectacle. It seems that though we have seen as much from scantily clad-eighteen-year-old girls appropriating this type of sexuality in order to appeal to men, it's okay, but when it comes to a gay man camping it up in the same way, it freaks everyone out. I think we are so used to gay performers consciously trying to avoid addressing sexuality, or to only embrace the most mainstream of mainstream to not alienate anyone, it is nice to see such an obviously brash/trashy/bawdy tribute to it. (Additionally, everyone has sat through countless performances wherein clearly gay backup dancers dance suggestively around the lady-star, so it was nice to see backup dancers be what they usually are, which is hella gay!)

Anyway, I have to agree most with Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker who said, as a TV viewer, he totally disagreed. "I thought Lambert's performance was a gas, a delight, a blast of brash vulgarity in the midst of merely ordinary vulgarity," he wrote Monday morning. "Lambert was an event unto himself. The song he was singing was beside the point — and the point was, 'Here I am, Adam Lambert, freed from the shackles of 'American Idol,' I'll push this dancer's face into my crotch if I feel like it, isn't it funny to lead human beings around on leashes, and can you believe how high I got my hair to stand up under these lights?' "

Anyway, perhaps someday we won't have to talk about performances like this one as if they represent all of gayness, as they obviously don't, because we will have lots of representations of gayness in all it's forms in the media and blah blah blah, but for now, at least he did it loud and proud.

I Liked It: Miley's Princess Dress & More

This is kind of two months ago, but whatever. Godamn, Oscar fashion is boring. I have already done a post or two about how the rise of the Hollywood stylist has effectively killed whatever creativity or originality that the Oscars once had, so I guess it's no surprise Miley, in her much-panned glittery fairy princess dress, didn't use one and is one of the few people who did not wear a draped satin strapless dress. Her dress, aside from being beautifully made and insane, just seems so appropriate for a teenager at the sparkliest place on earth, and is so much more interesting than this.



I also appreciate Beyonce's outfit, which everyone hated on the basis that it was "tacky." In case no one noticed, the Oscars are tacky. It's a bunch of overpaid, botoxed, talentless hacks (I'm looking at you, Martin Scorsese) congratulating themselves on a stage that looks like this. I like Beyonce because she always keeps it real and consistent. She would never wear something lank and blah; she is all about the statuesque, the glamour, and the rejection of trends in favor of highlighting her own considerable assets. To me, Beyonce always looks worthy of walking the red carpet, and like a glam movie star of olde instead of some girl shoved in something classy and "appropriate."

In conclusion, if I ever get invited to the Oscars, which probably I will pretty soon, I'm going to have monkey butlers in golden tuxedos carrying my 700-pound cape with a scenic tapestry on it.

Taking it to the Hoop, in a Good Way

After my last negative post, I felt the urge to post perhaps the original "I liked it": Bjork's swan dress from the 2001 Academy Awards. Asked to come and perform the song she recorded for her film, Dancer in the Dark. Anyway, the point is, she wore an insane swan dress and the American media was like, "What a fashion nightmare! It's totally a 'don't!'" Of course, the Oscars are pretty much there to celebrate mainstream symbols of status/wealth/beauty, and Bjork was using the platform as a type of performance art- particularly noticeable in the picture at left, where she "laid" her egg-shaped purse on the red carpet by dropping it.

Anyway, it's pretty sad that everyone didn't get it and all, and it's still talked about as if it was some sort of big fashion nightmare, but truly, it was awesome. Fashion icons as creative and strange as Bjork are unfortunately few and far between. And the Oscars, as it gets more and more driven by stylists and boring evening gowns, is pretty damn boring. This is, after all, the venue where Barbra Streisand once wore a sheer, glittering, bell-bottomed tuxedo and Cher once wore this. Of course, both these pictures were found on some "Worst dressed Oscars" list because these looks are so simply unflattering and uncouth! I mean, they could have dressed like this!

Uppers, Downers, and All-Arounders

Oh Emma Watson! First you tell Parade magazine (I was going to make fun of Parade magazine, but I just read a post on GFY making fun of Parade magazine in relation to Emma Watson, so I guess I won't) that you think it's great Hermione isn't afraid to be smart and that you are "a bit of a feminist." (How British/adorable!) and then you wear this very awesome, campy, Valley of the Dolls-esque dress, which has pills allover it. Seriously, this dress is so weird! (Apparently it is Chanel.) Can you imagine like, Hayden Pannetierre or whatever that whore's name is wearing a dress like this? No, you cannot.

Also, this photo of you reacting to Daniel Radcliffe's homotastic Details magazine photo shoot is amazing. When I saw that, I seriously thought that was just his face pasted on the body of George Michael. Who is styling this kid?

The Devil Wears too Much Sequins and Beige

I guess Anna Wintour has stuck with that bob in hopes of crafting a timeless, Diana Vreeland-like iconic look, but it has always looked more to me as if she just loves the wigs. Which seems to go along with her overall look of clothing wearing her instead of the other way around- she takes risks, but she tends to look more nuts/over accessorized than she does glamorous and creative. It's like everyone's afraid to criticize her, but is she really ever going to be cited as a style icon? I don't think so.

Maybe she should have gone with a nice Zum Zum-esque prom dress like her daughter.

Way to Fail

I really love the premise of the Met Costume Institute Ball- I firmly support over-the-top dressing and events that encourage it, but I guess if you're Mischa Barton dressing "over-the-top" is wearing a boring gown that looks like a towel and flattens your boobs into oblivion and doesn't come up far enough anyway. I can't remember who is next to her (some designer?) but he looks like an unsavory character in a John Hughes movie (and what are those- Mardi Gras beads?) This pair is lacking in so much fierceness I feel sorry for them.

Don't Hate

I still can't believe Gwyneth got so trashed for this Zac Posen dress on the left at this past Oscars. Doesn't it seem like every time anyone strays from the strapless/satin and or glitter format ends up on the Worst Dresses List?

What's particularly annoying is that her hideous, ill-fitting, pepto Barbie prom dress is still cited as brilliant Oscar style, and this one has been almost roundly criticized.

Well, I, for one, love it. It's a little covered up, but not in the over-the-top way Hillary Swank's was two years ago. It has a refined 1930's feel, and creates a more curvy, statuesque figure than Ms. Paltrow actually has. Even the color, which is treading on dangerous ground as a pinky beige, is saturated enough not to wash her out and look really delicate and vintage-y. Add in the red lips and updated Veronica Lake hair, and I actually said, "Gwyneth Paltrow looks so pretty!" while watching the Oscars, even though technically I hate Gwyneth Paltrow and everything she stands for.