August 2006 Archives

I love cheese. And who among us who loves cheese hasn't thought, at least once, "If only I could work a cheese grater into my clothing, in case I need to shred some Double Gloucester at a moment's notice, then I would be a fulfilled human being."  I mean, you never do know when you'll be in a cheese-greating emergency.

Clever Monica for finding a way to turn my dream into a reality.

Musician Avery Storm provides what might be my favorite scrolldown fug EVER:

It's like, "good, good, good, good, good, ACK! ACK! STOP! GOD! ACK!"

Are men wearing DENIM MANPRIS now? Because that is NOT GOOD NEWS. This is the kind of fashion choice that could, eventually, stand in the way of the propagation of the ENTIRE SPECIES.

Yesterday, we expressed displeasure for Scarlett Johansson's choice of activewear at the Venice Film Festival. So we were delighted to see that when she changed for the premiere of her film The Black Dahlia, she went with something we were far less likely to be found between the covers of Land's End.

She's switched to a red lip, but it's a rich, dark one, rather than a bright, knock-you-backwards red that rarely works unless if a bunch of really hot firemen are adjacent to it.

And the dress is actually really interesting -- it's not something that would ever have attracted me personally, yet I think Scarlett looks smashing in it. The cut and the fit combine to create a very sleek and tall figure indeed; the cinched waist gives the illusion that her legs go on for days. And with her new hair and her healthy (and natural-looking, miracle of miracles) skin color and tone don't allow themselves to be washed out or overshadowed by the pale fabric hue. If, say, Nicole Kidman wore this, she'd disappear and/or risk looking sickly, but on ScarJo the gown isn't wearing her -- she is wearing the hell out of the gown.

In all, it's very old-movie chic, a welcome dash of Deborah Kerr in this day and age.

Now I need to go wash the good cheer off my hands.

The last time I wrote about Fergie, I bid temporary adieu to The Fug, which she had banished from her closet long enough to show up at the Poseidon premiere without eliciting any snide "sinking ship" comparisons.

But I think we all knew, deep down, that she wouldn't be kept down for long; buoyed by the sheer atrocity of her idiotic ditty that's currently marauding its way to the top of the pop charts, the Duchess of Fugsylvania is on her way back.

This ensemble is one part Annette Funicello, one part Sandy from Grease in the end when she turns slutty for Danny Zuko and that makes everything okay, and two parts Hot Topic's Krayzee Sum'r Clozeout Clearance Sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And to that I say, no thanks, troll. Your London London Bridge can go down all on its own, Fergie Ferg.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Office Worker Overly Inspired By Goldenrod Copy Paper

LOS ANGELES -- British actress and known tanorexic Lucy Davis, best known for playing Dawn on The Office, has been upgraded to "Tanorexia Threat Level: Severe" after accidentally tragically falling into a vat of iodine prior to walking the red carpet at the Emmy Awards.

Observers close to Davis called the incident a ghastly affair.

"It was a ghastly affair," one of them said, on condition of anonymity. "If she weren't my daughter, I'd have laughed and laughed, and laughed some more, but instead I had to pull her out."

Davis, 33, was once a nice, normal color, as exhibited here in a photo from 2005.

But sources say Davis became a self-tanning addict since her success on the UK comedy; recently, when her concerned family confiscated her spray-on bottles and had her barred from Mystic Tan, Davis tried to take matters into her own hands.

The results of her attempted tanicide were devastating.

Scarlett Johansson can be so, so lovely.

Look at that! A hair color that's gently honeyed rather than a severe bleached blond, and sexy, soft makeup that's finally taken her away from the kind of red lipstick that naughty night vixens use to scrawl threatening messages on the mirrors of their more stingy customers.

Unfortunately, once we pull out of the closeup, things get a trifle more problematic.

I would love to have been at the Simpson Family Meeting where it was decided that Jessica ought to wear this little number:

MA SIMPSON: What should Jessica wear to that Yahoo! thing tomorrow?

PA SIMPSON: Pasties!

MA SIMPSON: No.

PA SIMPSON: Hot pants!

MA SIMPSON: Not again.  What about a slinky little cocktail number?

ASHLEE SIMPSON: Um, I totally hate to be a bitch, but am I the only person who's noticed that she looks like she's been living on a steady diet of KFC lately?

MA SIMPSON: Look, Ashlee, for the last time: we are not sending her out there dressed like Buckethead.

ASHLEE SIMPSON: That is not what I meant! She's totally been riding the lard pony, you guys! We were all at the Simpson Family Weigh-In this morning. You saw her charts. She's so gained weight since we booted Lachey!

JESSICA SIMPSON: (silent due to laryngitis, gives Ashlee dirty look, throws a highlighter at her head, gives her the finger.)

ASHLEE SIMPSON: You guys NEVER thought this would happen! DID YOU? NO! You NEVER thought I would be the hot one! AT LAST! THE STICKS OF BUTTER I HAVE BEEN WHIPPING INTO HER NUTRA SLIM SHAKES ARE WORKING! I HAVE FINALLY DEFEATED HER MAGIC METABOLISM! SURE, IT'S ONLY LIKE FIVE POUNDS, BUT I WILL TAKE IT! THANK YOU GOD! MY BLOOD SACRIFICE IS IMMINENT!

JESSICA SIMPSON: (holds up sign reading: "It's just three pounds, but even if it were 35, I'd still be hotter than you, you tragic little desperado.")

MA SIMPSON: Don't be ridiculous. She's maybe just a little bloated, and she's still very pretty. Let's just put her in a car hop costume and hope for the best.

ASHLEE SIMPSON: WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LISTEN TO ME? I'M THE PRETTY ONE NOW AND YOU'RE STILL IGNORING ME! SHE CALLED ME TRAGIC! I'M NOT TRAGIC! You don't think I'm tragic, do you, mom?

MA SIMPSON: Huh? Oh, we thought you'd left. Run along and play, I have to brush Jessie's hair 1000 times now.

ASHLEE: I HATE YOU ALL!

"Hi. I'm Teri Hatcher:

The Emmys totally snubbed me and the rest of my Desperate Housewife co-stars this year and we've all reacted differently. Felicity Huffman made some bullshit phony baloney speech about how she doesn't care about awards because she goes home to a wonderful man every night and he loved her even when she was fat and also, she ALREADY HAS ONE SO SHE DOESN'T CARE. I totally hate her.  Marcia was all fine with it until she realized that the morons who put together the Aaron Spelling tribute had no idea what sort of genius montage they could have put together that, therefore, America was robbed of the opportunity to see her rip off her wig on a big screen during an awards ceremony. I'm with her on that one: in a time of mourning, her stellar work as Dr Kimberly Shaw will heal our wounds.  Eva decided to go anyway, BECAUSE SHE'S A FAME WHORE. And I decided to punish America by not going to the awards in my panties this year, like I did the Grammys. Instead I put on The Dress That Ate My Neck and went down to Laguna to attend the Pageant of the Masters, where down on their luck actors have to act out famous paintings and shit.  I just know I'm going to have to act in this freakshow myself next year if things don't turn around. I can't believe my comeback was so short lived. HOW MANY BUSHES DOES POOR SUSAN HAVE TO FALL NAKED INTO FOR YOU TO LOVE ME AGAIN, AMERICA? Because I'll do it.

But don't get the wrong idea. I'm totally happy to be here in Laguna instead of accepting an Emmy award that I should have won last year. Just look at me:

Leven Rambin plays an autistic teen on All My Children, and she's really, really natural and good at it -- assuming you can get past the new herky-jerky camerawork and watch long enough to notice, and also not vomit from motion-sickness.

At any rate, she's very charming on the show, and her performance and the whole fresh-faced youthful glow of it all inspires a maternal protectiveness in me, which is why I yelped when I saw this photo.

I want to scream at her, "Leven [Middle Name Here So She Knows I Am Seriously Angry] Rambin! You are SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, young lady! You have no need to be naked! Get back upstairs and put on a shirt that's more substantial than a spandex waistband and two flaps of suspiciously stiff-looking satin! You are not Paris Hilton and you DEFINITELY are not some disco singer from the 1970s on her way to Studio 54, and you have SERIOUSLY spectacular skin! Which is neiher here nor there but I'm VERY, VERY UPSET, and stuff just pours out of my mouth when I'm upset and your nail polish is really cute! There, I said it! NOW GO CHANGE BEFORE A BUNCH OF GRUBBY-FINGERED BOYS FIGURE OUT HOW HOT YOU ARE OH MY GOD I AM PUTTING YOU IN A CONVENT TOMORROW AND THEY CAN BUS YOU TO THE STUDIO."

But it's just out of affection. I bellow because I love, Leven.

Look, we're not going to pretend that Candice Bergen isn't totally rad.  Who didn't love Murphy Brown  (I myself often think of the episode in which it is revealed that Faith Ford's character, Corky Sherwood-Forrest, keeps a diary in which she records what she wears every day. The joke totally worked, but at the same time, I feel like this is not the worst idea anyone ever had)? Or, if you're too young to have watched Murphy Brown -- therefore making us feel ancient -- who didn't watch her guest spots on Sex and the City and think, "jeez, that older lady is a babe. I hope I age that well. "  She's a silver fox, all right? AND YET ("and yet" being the watchword here lately, as Heather so wisely pointed out earlier):

I love, love the color of the skirt, and Bergen can rock the collared shirt like no one else, but oy! The belt! It's so "Hey there! I'm your really cute and spry Grandma who wears jeans and lives in Arizona and grows a lot of herbs and just bought a wagon wheel coffee table for kicks!"  But although that Grandma is awesome, she would never wear that belt to the Emmys. She knows better. And so should La Bergen.

I haven't seen Jeremy London for a while; I remember him from being sort of cute and brooding on Party of Five, because by law every character on that show had to be both cute and brooding, but beyond that I lost track of him except to learn that he apparently spent two years on 7th Heaven.

That last tidbit may answer the question of how he came to be in his current condition.

Okay, I have no issue with the shirt and the jeans in and of themselves, but would it have killed her to dress up a little for the party? Maybe a skirt?

I know that on Deadwood, Trixie might have counted putting on her very best "Look, ****s*cker, If you don't **** off I'm going to rip off your *****" expression as getting dolled up for a fancy night out, but Hollywood is not the same world of whores and powermongers that Trixie's from -- I mean, in Hollywood, people shower more.

Frances Conroy has a tiny but brilliant role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels -- the poor woman never saw Ruprect coming -- and so no matter how weary of Six Feet Under I got, I will always kind of love her.

And yet...

[Wait, wow, is it just me, or have we had a lot of "and yet" statements on this site lately? "We like her... and yet..." It's the Julie Chen "but first" of GFY; I am looking forward to the day when delicious Evil Dr. Will returns for Big Brother All-Stars 2: Hot, Pale Dermatologist Boogaloo with a "But First" and an inexplicable "And Yet" shirt that two mysterious bloggers have sent him... maybe along with one that says, "Sack UP, ho," just for good measure.]

Ahem. End of aside.

Anyway: And yet, I'm sad to report that Our Lady of "Why Does He Have A Cork On His Fork?" showed up dressed for the funeral of her own fashion sense.

Ms. Conroy seriously looks like she wandered over to the HBO Emmy party right after she got her velveteen frump-funk on at the Rock Star: Supernova taping. Perhaps that's Gilby Clarke's guitar strap slung so bizarrely around her hips, hurled triumphantly from the stage; indeed, I hope that's it, and that she's just another crazed, loafer-clad fan of Supernova's humdrum riffs and half-naked horndogs. Because, as it's horrendously unflattering, there really is no other good reason for that belt -- nor, indeed, for the rest of the outfit.

These are desperate, confusing times. To bastardize a line from War Games, that classic ode to the olden days of the Interwebs: We are at F.Con 1.

Any time you hear Debra Messing being interviewed about working on Will & Grace, she usually cops to being the most humorless person on the set.

... Okay, maybe that's my paraphrasing, because I'm predisposed not to like her on account of all the rumors that she's a prickly harridan. But she has gone on the record as saying her wit is by far the slowest out of that crowd. And there's nothing wrong with that -- not everyone has to jockey to be the funniest person in the room -- but that insight does make it rather fitting that she bored the pants off me during her final red-carpet trot in the name of Grace Adler.

My first, incredibly eloquent thought when I saw this was, "Well... all right. I guess. Snore." I'd have liked to see a necklace to add interest, or an updo that didn't look quite so thoughtlessly thrown up; you can't see its ragged edges here, but suffice to say it did put the "mess" in "Messing," and I blame her entirely for failing to captivate my imagination and forcing it to wander into that awful, punny place.

Something about it isn't quite right, an elegant idea oddly executed -- the fit is a tad wonky, and the fringe looks surprisingly cheap. It's as if she were the model for a picnic-supply themed Project Runway challenge, and Jeffrey "If He Made My Mother Cry I Would Have Bitch-Slapped His Undersized Head, Which Looks Like It Was Squeezed Out Of A Tube, And Then Throttled Him By His Neck Tattoo" Sebelia had one night to cobble it all together out of bulk-bought paper napkins.

Speaking of paper napkins:

Consider my enthusiasm curbed:

I hate this so much. The color is great, and from the front it looks lovely, but I seriously hate the back.  This sort of thing can be done, but it has to be done carefully, or you look like a junior level figure skater who's lost her way. Remember Cate Blanchett in that amazing Galliano hummingbird dress? This one:

That's how you do formal back shenanigans. It's whimsical, but it's understated.

This is neither whimsical, NOR understated:

Just 15 minutes before his call time on the red carpet, Jeremy Piven had just rolled home from a six-day bender, thrown on a shirt, covered up his hickeys with a random satin scarf he would try to call an "ascot," and had his mom refresh his hair plugs with some Elmer's glue. Fairly certain he still smelled like skunky booze and feet and pretty much positive he was still drunk, he resolved to go ahead run with it: Wave to the fans, blame his beer sweats on the heat, and wash off the tequila funk some other day.

Now, if only he could remember why he was holding the pointy and gold naked lady...

Ah, of course: for imitation body shots.

I have SUCH a mental block against Vanessa Minnillo. As I've mentioned here before, I thought Nick Lachey was dating Christina Milian up until about a week ago. I am incapable of pronouncing her name correctly: I keep calling her Vanessa Milliano.  Every time I see her, I think, "THAT'S Vanessa Minnillo?" Because apparently I think she looks different than she does.

She probably wishes she HAD looked different than she did last night, too:

I like the color, but otherwise: yikes. It's so...Vegas Vacation. She looks like a high-class Wayniac.

If Tracey Gold is Peter Pan, does that make Kirk Cameron Wendy?

Oh my God, dude, put it away:

What would you say about you, if you were me? I feel like we'd get a little, "No one needs to see that," and a bit of, "look, I'm sorry: it's just not working for me at all. Horrendous. Horrendous," and then maybe an unfunny gay joke about La Seacrest, and then a barb about the 70s and/or Burt Reynolds. Not even Paula could find something nice to say about this. Nonsensical, yes. But not nice.

In these crazy times -- these wild, unpredictable times -- we are grateful that until she is recaptured by the doctors whose straitjacket she slipped out of a few years ago, there will always be Paula Abdul.

And sure, this isn't as loony as half of what she wears, but the pattern is a trifle young for Ms. A -- it's much more befitting, say, an 8th grader at her very exciting graduation into high school than a talent-contest judge.

And, no less, a talent-contest judge who probably never had an 8th grade graduation, because you can't very well pass Language Arts when your idea of a complete sentence equates more to my three-year old niece's rudimentary finger-painting than, say, Claude Monet. [Although, at least my niece has a vision when she's smearing paint around.]

Listen, Tyra, I've got no beef with you wearing a wig all over town, especially since your wigs are good ones:

See, I LOVE wigs. I am a huge fan of wigs! When I'm an old lady, I plan to wear a rotating series of wigs: platinum blonde for Monday bingo nights;  long, dark and curly for Tuesday's dialysis appointment; short and red and flippy like Ginger from Gilligan's Island for Wednesday night's cocktails at the Assisted Living Centre with my girls;  a giant Afro for Thursdays, when the pool boy comes. Et cetera.  And let's face it: you're a babe. However, you're also a babe who's got loads of cash and more contacts in the hair-and-makeup world than the rest of us would make in twenty lifetimes. So why aren't the edges of your wig EVER EVER EVER properly blended into your forehead? It's not like you don't have the acreage up there, and we know you know that.

Check out the close-up after the jump:

Emma Griffiths, the host of Total Request Live in the UK, presents reason #947 not to sell your soul to the devil:

He won't stop at sucking the life out of your eyes, nor will he be satisfied by merely condemning you to a life in the ghoulish spandex prison known as "leggings." No, Satan is fully prepared to do all of the above while also forcing you to wear a misshapen tube dress in an unforgiving wrinkle-prone satin, forcing you to spend an entire evening looking like a wince-worthy walking wrinkle and prompting your grandmother to send you a portable steamer for your next birthday, along with a note that reads, "You're usually such a pretty girl."

So. Midlife Satanism: Don't do it.

Since when does Nicole Richie borrow from Mary-Kate Olsen?

I hope the dawning of her Age of Aquarius involves a trip to Denny's. Nothing packs the meat on your bones -- in preparation for hard work spreading the groovy revolution -- quite like a Moon Over My Hammy.

[Photo courtesy of X17 Online.]

If you had asked me last year how I would react to seeing Bobby Trendy without his usual profusion of ribbons, bows, and lip gloss, I am sure I would have said, "with relief." And yet:

Although it's fascinating to see him with all the bells and whistles removed (as Heather said to me, "IT'S HUMAN"),  and he is certainly a handsome man when he's not covered with the insides of Diamond Foam and Fabric, Bobby Trendy's public appearance of total normalcy is almost alarming, like the secret tenth sign of the Apocalypse.  It turns out that Trendy without tulle is like Thanksgiving without turkey, like buying Halloween candy without setting aside a secret bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to eat alone in your car. Something is missing. Something fun that will probably give you a stomachache later. And so, while I'm happy to see that La Trendy can leave the house without wrapping himself in one of his boudoir curtains, I must admit it: I miss the flash and sass.

I certainly hope you haven't been listening to us, Bobby. We never meant for you to actually do that.

We're through the looking glass here, people.

No, seriously. This crushed-velvet nightmare -- aside from indicating that there may not be any hope for us as a society any more -- looks ripped straight from the pages of Lewis Carroll's little-known Alice sequel Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat, in which the Dormouse, drunk on tea and drooling with power, enters Alice into the Little Miss Wonderland pageant and makes her perform "The Good Ship Lollipop" before the Queen of Hearts.

I can only assume Aisha Tyler wore this because her mind has been addled with grief over her exit from The Ghost Whisperer, and she's regressed to age 10. Such a tragedy; her endless legs deserve better.

So, we've been a bit bitchola to Nicky Hilton lately. I may have said she was looking worse than Tara Reid. I definitely said she was looking bloated and uncomfortable and cranky. I may also have a retraction on my hands. For two reasons. 

Number one: look how cute she looks at Paris's CD release party:

Cute, right? Cute bag, cute shoes, cute waistl -- hold the phone.

And here we are at Possible Retraction Reason Number Two.  See, I've read some gossip around town that there's a little Spawn of Connolly setting up shop in Nicky Hilton's ladyparts. And, of course, at first I dismissed this as totally unfounded rumor. EVERYONE is accused of being secretly knocked up in Hollywood: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Garner (again), Reese Witherspoon. I myself was convinced that Lauren Graham was pregnant for MONTHS, when I really just think the folks on Gilmore Girls were into making her hold shit in front of her belly. But looking at her here...I don't know. Check the close-up:

Time for true confessions. Remember how I told you the other day that I am back into liking Hilary Duff? I didn't happen to mention at the time that I also think she looks really cute now. But she does. I don't know if her teeth like...got sucked farther into her gums, or got filed down, or her face grew, or what, but she's been looking cute, right? Look at her at the premiere of Material Girls, with Haylie:

I think part of it is that she's growing into her face, and she's not scary skinny anymore, and the hair is flattering, and she seems so happy with old Tats Madden...and I don't know. But there's something about her that I just find really appealing lately. Haylie looks cute too, right? There's just something about them here that seems approachable and charming, and it's refreshing.

Sadly, Haylie's chic-itude didn't last forever:

Kiersten Warren was highly unamused by the photographer's assertion that although the movie being premiered is Invincible, her fashion sense certainly isn't.

Indeed, this red eyesore actually makes us hanker a bit for the flip-flopped version we saw -- and didn't love -- ages ago. This reversed color scheme actually manages to make the other look almost understated. We're also really curious about whether it's uncomfortable to wear shoes whose soles are too narrow to house all five toes, but maybe we'll wait to ask her about it until her expression no longer brims with contempt.

This outfit is proof that when they decide to make That's So Raven: Misadventures in Menopause, Tonya Pinkins will be a lock for the part.

Until then, though, she might want to leave the hideous lumpy brown sundress and croc corset at Forever 21 and Bill's Pleather Palace, where they belong.

It is apparently a day of mercy here at GFY; the compliments are just flowing from our poisoned fingertips.

But when confronted with this latest evidence that Christina Aguilera's really dirrrrrty days may be well and truly behind her, I couldn't contain myself. I am human. I love clothes. I love to shop. And were I shopping right this second, I would consider it the luckiest day ever if I walked away with every item here:

She looks fantastic. The kicky retro red dress with pea-coat accents, the trench, the sexy leopard shoes and bag, the artfully tousled mane -- it's all great. I've never been a huge fan of massive, colored plastic sunglass rims, but even those are the perfect accessory here.

Who'd have thought our girl in the black leather jumpsuit -- the original Firecrotch, in a way -- would engineer this kind of fashionable turnaround? Even her Marilyn makeover, while a game and welcome stab, often seemed to veer too far in the other direction. But this? This is divine. This is, we hope, the Fuguilera spectrum nearest its point of normalcy.

I applaud her, and I bask in the glow of Jordan Bratman's style-healing wang. Here's hoping he helped complete her journey by chucking the jumpsuit in the Goodwill pile, or, better, sending it off to Fergie so she could appropriately christen her solo career. We would never spot urine stains on that thing.

Sure, it looks like Drew Barrymore is signing an autograph:

But she's really writing, "I will never wear pants that make me look this squat again" 25o times.

There was a time when I couldn't imagine having much nice to say about Kimberly Stewart. Aside from looking generally dishevelled -- well, except for her full, perfect makeup, slathered on with a trowel at the merest hint of fresh air in the hope of running into some paparazzi -- there were few things as sad as when Paris Hilton decided to be her BFF for about ten seconds, making them dress alike, pose alike, and party alike in order to convince Fox that it didn't need Nicole Richie to do The Simple Life. Of course, when the honchos saw straight through this act and refused to bite, Paris dropped Kim like a Greek shipping heir, leaving Kim stranded on Robertson Blvd. outside Kitson with nobody but the manager rooting for her.

And, we hate to say it, but Paris had a point -- I mean, failing to convince a studio executive that you are a good charismatic foil for Paris Hilton is a bit like losing a dance competition to a tree.

So, things were looking pretty bleak for Rod's spawn. And yet, there may be a light at the end of her desperate, clawing tunnel:

Cute clutch, cute ring, cute smile, cute flirty dress, and REALLY CUTE shoes: Suddenly, Kimberly Stewart looks kind of... dare I say it... adorable. Granted, I set the bar for her at, "Completely clothed and/or not relying on a bathing-suit top as her only means of cover," but still. And I really cannot say enough how fantastic those shoes are, and how much I covet them, even if the right one is a tad big in the heel. [But, who doesn't have that happen? Most everyone has one foot that's slightly smaller than the other, and until shoes come in adjustible sizes, we're just going to have to live with some gaps. All of us.]

Perhaps all that shopping paid off -- perhaps Kimberly Stewart is slowly pulling herself out of the cesspool of style in which she once so gleefully dog-paddled. Or, perhaps the Kitson manager took her under his wing, figuring that if she was going to be photographed clutching one of his shopping bags like a lifeline, he'd prefer she didn't look drunk or deranged, lest anyone think her misguided wares came from his store.

Either way, we're pleased to see progress.

Okay. True confessions time: I love Posh. When I read her fantastic autobiography, Learning to Fly, I found myself, against all odds, deeply enchanted by her. There is something about her that is so deliciously over the top and tacky -- yet the book is also very self-deprecating and charming. When I finished it -- it was like 1,500 pages and yet it only covers her life up until she had Brooklyn -- I realized that I want these two to make it work, against all odds. I know that's probably a pipe dream, but I can't help it. I secretly lurve them!

What I don't lurve, tragically, is her outfit here:

And do you know why?

BECAUSE THESE ARE POSH AND BECKS IMPERSONATORS.  Thank God. Prior to confirming this, Heather and I had a frenzied conversation in which we decided if it actually was Posh, she must really be pregnant again -- and god, I hope she is, and god, I hope it's a girl. Can you imagine what they would name a girl? I vote for Versace. Versace Victoria Beckham -- but that if the man involved actually was Becks, then something had gone TRAGICALLY AWRY with his face. I may have used the sentence, "Why would he DO SOMETHING to his BEAUTIFUL FACE?!" Which might have been followed by some gnashing of teeth.

But, thank God, David Beckham has not had a tragic run in with a nefarious plastic surgeon, and Posh has not ACTUALLY left the house in an off-the-shoulder tunic with a tiger drawn on it. I mean, she dresses crazy sometimes, but there is no way she's actually go somewhere dressed in something I owned in 6th grade.

I wish I were a fly on the wall in the Beckham household right now, though, just to hear her scream about this. Heads, I suspect, may roll. No one sends out her impersonator dressed like a model from the Lillian Vernon catalog! No one!*

*Okay, fine. Our sources tell me that Posh actually HAS worn some kind of terrible tiger outfit out and about. So, to sum up: these people are impersonators, but the shirt may in fact by an accurate representation of an actual shirt that the actual Posh has actually worn OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS SO COMPLICATED?

If you had said to me a year ago, "Heather, sometime in August 2006, you will see a photograph of Cloris Leachman wearing a foot-eating boho skirt, a strange, puffy white shirt, and a belt made of strips of leather that sits Federline-low -- and she will not only look drunk, but she will be holding a keg over her head like she's about to Donkey Kong that thing through a row of frat boys," I would have smiled, told you that you looked very pretty in that outfit, and promptly delivered you to the nearest House of Bedlam, where you and your insane babble clearly would have belonged.

Of course, then I would have owed you a HUGE apology today. So it's probably for the best that you never talked to me last year about this.

First, let me say that I love Charlize's shoes. But I'm distressed that she's moved into body-hugging, stretchy faux-lace, the likes of which 1980s Madonna eyeball with a sneer and then dismiss immediately as "too obvious, too tacky."

But most gravely, this stretchy sheath very nearly caused us to put out an APB on her nipples. Not because we hoped to see her nipples -- indeed, if the freezing-cold sets of Friends taught us anything, it's that sometimes we really don't need proof of nip at every opportunity -- but because, well, where would they be here? Shouldn't they be... somewhere? The imprisoning cut mangles her chest, so could they be smooshed under the black bar? But isn't that awfully low for her nipples? And isn't it too early to fly south for the winter?

After a good long time of staring and gaping and wincing, we finally realized that the nude liner goes all the way up into a bra-shaped top, and is just very well hidden to the point of being fear-inducing. So her nipples probably are safe, and in the right place. But chalk that whole debate up as a monstrous negative against this dress, which is officially doing her chest zero justice. At all. Any dress that draws stares of abject brow-furrowed concern about the freakish absence or unnatural drift of your nipples is not, I would suggest, a good dress.

It appears that Ming "ER" Na misinterpreted the entire concept of the Teen Choice Awards, and was under the impression that she was supposed to disguise herself as a teen in order to get in:

Girl, please.  You are 43 damn years old.  And while you look considerably younger than that -- which, you know, bravo -- you and I are both aware that a time comes when a woman of a certain age realizes she can't dress like an extra from High School Musical anymore, and you, my dear, are well past that age.  The Charlotte Russe-reject shorts  ensemble is  bad enough (are those PLEATS?!), but those shoes! Honey. No.  They don't even match.

PS: Next time, try hot little jeans and cute top. Or a little dress. Or a  --- okay, next time, just leave the shorts at home, okay?

Meryl Streep has always moved to the beat of her own drummer, stylistically; sometimes she looks wonderfully elegant and regal and stunning, and other times, she goes on a jaunt in casual clothes and tinted shades that are somewhat boho and therefore decidedly less my preference. But she's comfortable and often makes it work as best she can, and she's Meryl Streep, on whom I have a total girl crush because she's so brilliantly funny in addition to being talented with drama, so ... you know, it is what it is.

Still...

... I do feel that I can caution her against wearing chartreuse open-toed mules, the likes of which haven't been seen on feet since Alison Parker got a job as a receptionist at D&D Advertising, got promoted, dated a sex addict, got a horrible shorter haircut that turned her pretty face into a big ol' boxy fright, and then turned into an alcoholic with a tragic suppressed past.

Don't be Alison Parker, Meryl. She was humorless.

[Plus, you don't want Amanda Woodward on your ass. Trust me on that one.]

From the desk of Ned Sofanegra, WHEE! Entertainment's online gossip columnist:

WHEN: Sunday. WHERE: The Teen Choice Awards. WHY: Aw, jeez, I may not be the youngest buck at the rodeo, but who doesn't want to sneak a peek-a-treat at the hottest of Hollywood? We're tawkin' brunette Britters, blonde Brittany a-twitter, and Sophia Bush no longer bitter. Plus, more Jessica's than you can fit in a bathroom stall.

And so that got me thinkin': Who would these sass-packed starlets want to spank over an open toilet? And who better to ask than TV's snarkiest sleuthy cutie.

"I don't understand a single word you're saying," said Crimson -- oops, Kristen -- Bell.

Nuts -- these cagey types just don't understand a good wish-and-bitch sesh, no? But I pressed on: "Tish and pish, you delish dish -- I'm saying', if you could palm a pouty, pert patootie, whose would it be?"

But K.B. didn't let me get the answer so E.Z.: "I have to go talk to, um, Kevin Federline," she said.

The dark-rooted cutie with the primly covered booty stalked, rather than rawked, the red carpet in an old lady's canary-yellow blouse and pants with a zipper so long it's already in syndication. And so while she hoofed away like a show-pony -- trying not to trip on her prim pants hem -- I called out to the Veronica Mars honey-pie, "Would you ever date a man as old as your fashion sense?"

She didn't answer. My bet? Depends which one, if you get the incontinent implication. I mean, which ornery oldie -- short of Jack himself -- would live long enough to work that zipper to its end?

I have sat here staring at this photograph for almost 20 minutes now, trying to wrap my brain around what, exactly, Everybody Hates Chris' Tichina Arnold is wearing.

It's been hard.

It's like she showed up in a tank and jeans and then realized she had totally underdressed; desperate, she locked Ashlee Simpson in a closet, tore off the front of her dress, and tied it to her shirt hoping she could convince the photographers it was a whole dress by side-stepping her way through the red carpet and never turning around. Sadly, a gust of wind ruined that plan.

And to conclude, I present a little exercise I like to call, Choose Your Own Hacky, Embarrassing CW Joke.

a) I guess now she's free to be fugly.

b) I guess "CW" stands for "catastrophic wardrobe."

c) Apparently "CW" doesn't stand for "complete wardrobe."

Thank you! Thank you very much. Try the chicken; it's divine.

I'm not really sure what the ski pants are in aid of, considering it's a warm Southern California August right now, but then again, this is Paula Abdul. It's possible she thinks she's at Sundance.

That, or she woefully misinterpreted some starlets in the bathroom talking about an avalanche of perfect white powder.

Last night, at the Teen Choice Awards, Mischa Barton represented the best and the worst of what her own closet had to offer.

On the red carpet, she was quite simply adorable:

I covet this dress. I COVET IT.  It's so simple, but it's so flattering -- hello, I think her legs are as long as my ENTIRE BODY -- and best of all, it looks so easy. I don't mean "easy" in the sense of, "Stay away from that Mischa Barton, Janie! Everyone knows she's easy, and I don't want you running around with her! She's pretty enough to be able to shake off that kind of reputation and still make a good marriage, but you? Not you. You must keep your image sparklingly pure!"  I mean it in the sense of, "Oh, this old thing? I totally forgot I had it until today. It's cute, right? I just naturally look this fantastic without putting in any work at all."  Which is perfect for the event. It's totally effortless.

(Unlike THIS particular get-up:

Okay, listen: I am not happy about having to write this particular post. I have a large and shameful soft spot for Sophia Bush, for several reasons. 1) She's very pretty, and if I could figure out some way to steal her hair and swap it for my own, I would. 2) She handled the whole Mrs Chad Michael Murray thing with about as much class as could be expected. I mean, we've all gotten involved with someone we should have avoided, but her Inappropriate Manchoice went and skanked it up with Paris Hilton. That sucks. Good for her for cutting him loose. 3) And now she still has to work with him? Awkward. Workplace relationships gone awry are never fun, but I've never had one where I was then contractually obligated to make out with Mr Gone Awry in front of all the rest of our coworkers for months afterward. So I have a lot of sympathy for her. 4) We went to the same high school, albeit not at the same time, as I am a withered old crone and she is a young, fresh lass of the appropriate age to be invited to the Teen Choice Awards. 5) She's really rather charming and sassy on One Tree Hill, which I somehow got sucked into watching last season, like a black hole, and now I can't seem to get out. It's really, really bad, and yet I enjoy it immensely. But we all I know I have problems. 6) Sophia is almost never poorly put together. Really. This is, I believe, her first appearance on this site. And yet:

It's basically a scroll-down. When I saw the top, I actually assumed it was a short dress -- which would, I think, be cute in a sort of summer-y, virginal, bridal way. And the neckline and bodice is really flattering on her. Seriously, in your mind? Cut it off just right above the knee, and give her some better shoes. Workable, right? But this thing just WILL NOT END. It just goes on and on and on and on and I feel like, if you have her cute little figure, why are you covering it up? (I am going to spare you the 'hiding her light under a Bush-el' pun that just occurred to me, because I am nice like that.)  In fact, this recalls nothing so much as that one season of 90210 where everyone was inexplicably wearing long, kind of shapeless, polyester dresses in unflattering shades of beige, which was okay for Jennie Garth, because I think she was pregnant, but which did Tiffani-Amber Thiessen no good at all. And most of us, in that scenario, are the TAT, and should bear the lessons we have learned from her in the forefronts of our minds. And so I say to you, Sophia Bush, take my fugging of you in the spirit in which it is intended -- with love! tough love! -- and the next time you go out, show us a bit of leg or a spot of color or both. Let's continue to show that cad Chad what he's missing.

Not to dredge up a past whimsical fugging, but: Earlier this week, we featured Courteney Cox-Arquette and reminisced about a teen novel cover she'd modeled for when she was young. But the series was rather saccharinely named "Sweet Dreams," and I couldn't remember the title of the book; without photographic proof, I might have sounded like a raving lunatic.

So when some eagle-eyed readers, none of whom were clad in leggings at the time (so they claim... so they claim), provided us with a copy of the book cover... surely we couldn't be expected to resist sharing it.

Meet our intrepid and very pastel star debater:

From the premiere of Snakes on a Plane last night,  totally-adorable-from-the-neck-up starlet Sarah Lind:

Too...many...thoughts. Can't....compose...post.  Send help.

CLAIRE DANES: Billy, do you think I look sort of like Gywneth Paltrow with my blonde hair?

BILLY CRUDUP: You wish.

CD:  Shut up. Have you seen your mustache? You look like Pancho Villa.

BC: You don't even know who that is.

CD: Hello, he makes Colombian coffee. I've been to Starbucks.

BC: That's Juan Valdez.  You're wrong either way, my mustache rocks. It's better than your pants.

CD: These pants are fierce.

BC: Okay, Stumpy McSaddlebags.

CD: Do you want to talk about your shoes?

BC: Do you want to talk about YOURS?

CD: Drop dead. I'm a serious actress.

BC: Yeah, okay. Nice try.

CD: I was the toast of my generation, asshole. Who the hell are you?

BC: Um, you were the toast of your generation like twenty years ago for like five minutes. Are you going to be throwing My So-Called Life in my face for the rest of our lives? All you did was sign up for a show with a good script.

CD: I am UNIFORMLY EXCELLENT in everything I do, asshole. Did you see Little Women? I rocked that.

BC: You're not uniformly excellent in dressing yourself. That shirt makes you look like a shift manager at Islands.

CD: Do you EVER SHUT UP?

BC: DO YOU?

CD: Aren't you glad we risked everything to be together?

BC: Don't I look like it?

Tablecloths: the lucious new neckwear for fall 2006.

We have an apology to make.

In all the brouhaha over Courtney Peldon's engagement, possible secret marriage, or devastating breakup, we completely overlooked one thing -- one wee, brown, pointy thing: Ashley "Brown" Peldon herself, the other vital cog in the family fug wheel.

Don't worry, Brown, we would never abandon you -- your leggings, skirt, and baggy orange eruption of a shirt are just as misguided as ever. So dry your eyes, okay, our darling Sateen Queen? We didn't forget. Couldn't forget. Our barbed, prickly embrace will always, always, be open to you. Welcome back to our acid harbor.

Folks, we've got more disturbing evidence in the case of Crispin Glover and Courtney Peldon's Doubtful Nuptials.

Exhibit A: Courtney Peldon was out AGAIN last night, with Brown in tow of course, attending the opening of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels here in Los Angeles. It appears she is back to her old schedule of attending the opening of anything she can. (No offense to cast and crew of that fine show, of course. I just suspect that La Peldon wasn't there due to a deep love for Lady Fanny of Omaha as much as she was there because her old habits, PRE-ENGAGEMENT habits, require that she go out every night. Lady Fanny of Omaha, naturally, deserves all we can give her and more.)

Exhibit B: She's out, and she's not wearing her engagement ring. Look:

NO RING. (Well, she appears to be maybe wearing one on her middle finger, but that doesn't count.) That's two sightings in a row, in one week, AND NO RING. My friends, I fear that her betrothal to Crispin Glover must be finitio.   [In her defense, this outfit is not bad - I mean, it's basic and kind of boring, and for whatever reason, everything she wears always looks made entirely of polyester, but it's a Tuesday night at the theatre, and all her bits are covered, and overall she looks kind of sweet. She'll find a new man soon enou -- oh, God. I can't take it. I can't believe she and Glover didn't make it! I mean it. I was really, really looking forward to seeing the photos from that wedding. I was gleefully anticipating her maternity wear. I wanted to see them grow old together.  God, I'm SO DEPRESSED NOW.]

Big Brother in the UK ought to be a lot more watchable -- I mean, any show whose Web site features the summary, "The housemates just aren't satisfied with the amount of booze" they were given in exchange for writing and performing BB: The Musical REALLY ought to be a brilliant show.

But, for one thing, it's ages and ages of what seems like uncut footage, which to a child of spit-shined U.S. reality TV like me becomes awfully interminable when you're asked to witness five plodding, paceless, unedited minutes of diary-room action. Not to mention the part of one of the episodes I saw in which the adenoids-blessed narrator helpfully filled us in on what little the housemates had been doing: "Pete has been sleeping in the bedroom for 20 minutes. [Pause to watch.] Nikki has been sitting quietly in the garden for 36 minutes. [She gazes vacantly into space.] Richard has been nowhere for 12 minutes. [Pause to show him decidedly somewhere, but staring at a wall.] Imogen has been sleeping in the living room for 45 minutes..."

You might be pleased to know that Imogen woke up.

Woke up, but opted not to shirt up (apt, considering there is a porn video circulating that claims to feature her). That is not so much a viable garment as it is an abdominal sheath.

I wonder how Jesus would feel about the fact that she is furiously exposing herself, all in the name of having enough chest space to accommodate the enormous cross hanging around her neck. If you believe my somewhat sacreligious Sunday-School teacher from my grade eight pre-Confirmation classes, Jesus would have loved this, because he was always a party animal and the first one out on the dance floor with the whores (I'm not kidding -- he said that). But I prefer to believe that Jesus would a) have bristled at the unflattering cut of her bra, because it doesn't give enough love to the female form his father busted His ass to create, and b) resented giving a cross the same genre and acreage of real-estate one would afford some $0.50 Mardi Gras beads, in part J.C. knows how people come by Mardi Gras beads and I really don't think he dug the word "tits" or "titties," which goes to show that Jesus is/was a smart guy indeed, as I know no woman who finds "titties" adorable or charming.

My point? Well... I hate what she's wearing, really. Isn't that enough?

Here at GFY HQ, Heather and I have a few guilty pleasures. No, I'm not talking about 90210, or Dynasty, or the fine, fine writing of Ms Francine Pascal. Those are pleasures we scream from the rooftops. No, I'm talking about GUILTY pleasures, like the fact that we both might secretly -- just a little bit -- want to see Hilary and Haylie Duff in Material Girls (I don't know what happened, but I seem to like Hilary again. I KNOW. I can't help it. She's so winsome. Also, I watched that movie with her and Mr Big and Amanda Woodward a couple of weeks ago while I had an incredibly high fever and I think it burned her Disney Channel Charm into my brain permanently), and our love for the SoapNet production, I Wanna Be A Soap Star, which is sort of like America's Next Top Soap Opera Star.

Okay, here's the thing: IWBASS is HILARIOUS. Part of that is because the contestants often find themselves in a position where they have to act like they have amnesia, or get drinks thrown in their faces, but the truth of the matter is that the cast members are also hilarious in and of themselves, like the dude who responded to one of his fellow finalist's sad-sack stories about her tragic childhood with the sensitive response, "these are really good lamb chops!," the same man who informed us that he had "a regurgitation technique" to make himself cry on camera. He then attempted to gag himself in order to bring tears to his own eyes and ended up giving himself the hiccups. Oh, god, it's the funniest show on television. But apparently the rejected castmates do not learn anything about fashion whilst they are sequestered on a soundstage learning how to slip drugs into their lover's wine glasses. Meet Shamika -- at the premiere of, yes, Material Girls! It's like a perfect storm of Guilty Pleasures!:

Shamika! You're more interesting that this beige extravaganza would indicate. See, Shamika, although apparently into wearing tablecloths as long tube shirts, is actually a pretty good actress. She even recovered admirably from the indignity of having her boob pop out of her top during a Hate Sex scene with the orangest man in the cast. But she was constantly being reprimanded by the judges for not being "sexual" enough. She was always being told that she needed to "become more comfortable with [her] sexuality," and that she had to "embrace her sexual side," and that, once more with feeling, seriously, she really needed to "learned to become COMFORTABLE with [her] SEXUALITY." This is Soap Opera Casting Director Code for "you're a good actress, but we don't think you're hot enough, and if we're going to cast you on a daytime drama, we're going to have to want to bone you more than we do right now." Tragically, this outfit does not really bone-iffy her up, does it? The aforementioned tight long shirt plus the granny sweater plus the fact that somehow your head looks too big for your body all of a sudden equals: we're sorry, Shamika. We're going to have to kill you off.

And it's such a shame, because she is really very pretty. But you can't be a soap star in something this bland! Would Erica Kane wear this? No, she would not. Put on some color, Shamika, and show off your hot bod, and the next thing you know, you'll be burying your enemies alive and faking paternity tests with the best of them.

I've always kind of liked Courteney Cox-Arquette. All rumors of her rather, er, particular nature aside, her marriage to kooky David has had staying power despite what polar opposites they seem(ed) to be; she had better comic timing on Friends than anyone gave her credit for and it got lost amid the increasingly slavish praise heaped upon Kudrow and Aniston; and I'm sorry, but "Dancing In The Dark" is a really, really catchy song, and if you were of that age and didn't want to be yanked up onstage by Bruce Sprinsteen, well, you are lying.

In addition, I'm pretty sure she was a cover model for a series of stand-alone teen romance novels -- published under the banner "Sweet Dreams" but all by different authors -- that I read when I was young, and which all had titles like "Dial L for Love," "P.S. I Love You" (which had a young Jeanne Trippelhorn on the cover), "Never Say No," and "Playing To Win." I don't know which cover was Courteney's but I do know it was on a purple background and she had a spiky short hairdo and an argyle-ish sweater, her hand on her hip in a jaunty fashion. It may have been the one where the girl was at some kind of math camp or debate camp -- ooh, I think it was debate camp -- and her brains won over the hottest guy at summer school, who just so happened to have a real sensitive side and a penchant for smart girls. I always snuck these from my sister's collection and would hide them under my bed in case anyone caught me with these books -- so rife with rampant hand-holding and endless first kisses -- and deemed them too mature for me.

Ahem. I've said too much.

At any rate, I've always had a soft spot for CC-A. Not least because she usually looks rather put-together on top of her exciting history in teen fantasy novels.

And then... oh, and then:

Sadly for Courteney, this outfit looks as if she accidentally drank too much bourbon and got trapped in the softer side of Sears. Fortunately, her inability to correctly own and operate buttons does at least reveal that she might be wearing a rather cute shirt underneath those shapeless layers. But the fact that she's shrouding herself in them to begin with -- paired with matronly shoes and baggy, tapered, ankle-length pants that might well be holdovers from her Sweet Dreams Springsteen days -- is a matter of some vexation.

Monica Gellar would be furious, because the only way she'd be caught dead in something this sloppy would be if she'd been mugged. Then Phoebe would gleefully recall a story about how when she lived on the street, she taught her oldest urchin pal howthe best way to mug a bitch, then write a song entitled, "Miss Priss Didn't Need All Those Shirts Anyway." There would be friction. Chandler would convulse slightly while trying to deliver a punch line. Rachel would cut up her credit cards out of terror and then go into severe, growly withdrawal, neglecting even to flat-iron her hair, which is how you know it's bad. Ross would sympathize and then fall in love with, marry, and promptly divorce the mugger. Phoebe would insult Pottery Barn. Joey would buy a ferret for no discernible reason and name it Maxwell. And Monica would have a therapeutic fantasy about Little Debbie dessert treats, which teaches her that she should forgive Phoebe for her mean-spirited ditty and buy her mugged and ex-sister-in-law a really big coffee, because that's what happens on Friends even when normal people would justifiably be slapping the bejeesus out of each other's irritating asses.

All of which is to say: Somebody please (figuratively) smack some sense back into La Cox-Arquette. She doesn't seem wholly awake.

Hey,  remember Roswell, that show that was on The WB like a really long time ago? It was about aliens? And there were, like, four or five teens on it, and two of them actually were aliens, or half-aliens, or something? Izzy from Grey's Anatomy was one of them. I think. And one of the boys looked a lot like David Duchovny? Which was funny, because of, you know, the alien angle. Although I don't think he was one of the alien people. I can't really say, since everything I know about Roswell comes from the commercials they used to run during Dawson's Creek. Anyway, there was a whole mess of teen actors on this show, most of whom have totally fallen into obscurity. I think one of them was named the Spanish word for "orange."  So, are you with me now? This is ringing a bell?  Sort of? Good.  So, remember Shiri Appleby? She was one of the four or five teens , and to this day, I have not been able to pronounce her name with sneering the "Shiri" part really, really nasally.

Anyway, she's alive:

Although I guess she's not doing very well, since she's going out wearing one of the paper gowns they give you at the gynecologist.

Proof positive that it's not just us: Even heiresses suddenly find that they hate every single thing in their closets and absolutely can't consent to wearing any of it in public.

Of course, the difference between us and Nicky Hilton is that we tend not to solve that problem by saying, "Screw it, I'll just wear my slip to the club." But it's probably a good thing that we're not suddenly beset by "Heiresses: They're Just Like Us!" comparisons that are completely accurate.

Side note: Could somebody please sneak into her closet and steal all the hideous transparent plastic shoes, and donate them to Goodwill -- or even possibly burn them, because they'd be nothing but a blight on the shelves of the altruistic Goodwill organization? We've seen her in them now several different times, occasionally with different colored-piping, confirming that she does indeed own at least three pairs of these cramped monstrosities. They don't fit her snaky toes, and well, they're hideous, transparent plastic shoes.

Anyone? Paris? Kevin Connolly? Weekday Maid? Come on, surely somebody can engage in a little shoespionage -- it's for her own good, we swear.

Lest you be wondering, yes, the world is still turning properly on its axis, and I've got the photographic proof: Courtney Peldon, alive, well, and fuggin' it up, the way Mother Nature intended.

She is a delight, showing up in a shirt that doesn't even come close to fitting her. I guess that's what happens when you try at 25 to wear the same clothes you wore when you were 10 and thought you looked so grown-up in your fake pearls and pseudo-satin shirt, which you wore because your director on Harry and the Hendersons was your childhood crush Scott Baio, who was so convincingly and dreamily in charge for half of the 80s. ["I want Charles in charge of me," she would weep to her sister as her tears blurred the "Mrs. Courtney Baio" doodles on her Trapper-Keeper.] But, seriously, it's like she found this in her closet, finally rinsed out the leftover cologne smell that she's sworn she would never wash away until they got married, and donned it -- never once actually looking at how poorly it sits on her torso. You can tell by the hem -- low in the back, higher in the front because it's bunching on her breasts and straining to fit them. So what she imagines as a flirty, jaunty little exposure of navel and waxed pelvis is actually just a mistake.

And, not to stir up scandal -- but, Us Weekly won't, so I will: Check out the status of her left-hand ring finger. Last we saw, she was sporting Crispin Glover's engagement ring, but here, her finger is as naked as her abdomen. What gives, CP? Did you clean it and forget to put it back on? Did you loan it to Brown, and she lost it down the back of the couch? Did you pawn it for that prize breeding rat he so coveted, only to find out Crispin sold the rat to buy you some hair extensions? Please tell us your perfect union hasn't faltered, because we were really looking forward to your wedding dress, and to the arrival of wee baby Crispney.

And also... if that's what you chose to wear on your big night out back on the singles scene, then you need more help than we originally thought.

The purpose of our Well Played feature is to spotlight somebody whose clothes we like, but it's also to commend an unusual choice -- a choice we still might not love -- that a celebrity is managing to make work for them. It could be subtitled, "When Marginal Taste Works," except for how that phrasing is incredibly clunky.

So, we were throwing Kristen Bell a bone this morning. And although we don't like to feature somebody twice in one day, it does appear Kristen Bell has thrown it right back at us and cracked us in the nose. [She's a wee thing but her aim is deadly.]

Here she is at the premiere of something called Pulse:

What moldy costume shop ejected this? I'll give her that she looks very slim in it, but the collar-and-cuffs detail looks nappy and worn, and the bottom half of the skirt -- from which there is a thread snaking out onto the red carpet like so many cobras on a jetliner -- bears the wear-and-tear of a thousand high-school actresses dragging it around backstage and inadvertantly stomping on it as they tread the boards.

She's also not doing herself any favors with the bright white purse and that abdominal explosion of a flower at her waist -- when you put something that stark next to a dress that's a few shades darker, the effect makes the outfit look like it hasn't been dry-cleaned since somebody's great-grandmother wore it to her wedding.

It pains me to rip the "Fastest Backslide" award from Tara Reid's grubby hands after her recent and speedy skid from unfugging to uberfug, because what else is Tara Reid going to win? And yet, Kristen takes the prize.

Carrie Underwood and her lovely hair showed up at the Today show this morning evidently thinking she was there to play Daisy Mae in an improvised modern-day retelling of Li'l Abner.

This is where I'd try to make a joke about updating the plot of Li'l Abner, but despite having been in it in ninth grade, all I can remember is that we sang a song by the name of "Jubilation T. Cornpone," which will make a fine name for my firstborn child but isn't terribly informative about the rest. However, I do remember finishing every rehearsal thinking, "I hope my family never speaks of this again," so I'm confident that if Ms. Underwood had ever seen Li'l Abner before, she would have stayed far, far away from any country-sweet milkmaid couture that make her an ideal candidate for a role in Dogpatch, U.S.A.

Much to the consternation of Veronica Mars fans, we here at GFY have been frustrated more than once by Kristen Bell's clothes. Unfortunately, the girl has a history of dressing like either a frump with no sense of occasion, or an old lady.

Such expressions are often met with upset e-mails from the show's supporters instructing us that we can criticize anyone we like, anyone at all, except Bell. She is apparently supposed to be exempt -- something about how every episode of Veronica Mars was massaged by God himself, largely as a reward for their devotion but also because he got bored of Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill and he's trying to show those ungrateful hacks how it's done. There's usually also something about how Bell's hair is spun by angels out of gold dust and puppy fur.

And while no one is untouchable to us here, we do occasionally like to throw a well-deserved bone to people who do things well, or at least better. That's the key here: better. Everyone has his or her day, and this is Kristen's, for all you Bell lovers out there.

There's elements of this I don't like: the bizarre strings of pearls strapped to her shirt and flapping around aimlessly, for one; also, there's the slightly high-waisted skirt, which is tough to pull off. And I'm not sure about the pattern.

But you know what? She sort of is pulling it off. She looks cute and happy; she looks her age, but without the trendy trappings of trash that so often adorn other young actresses. She is being herself without sweating about being noticed. And, as a woman, I know that is really hard to wear something that rises that far over the hips and have it be flattering, especially when you have a shorter torso, when it risks chopping you weirdly in half. But instead, this complements her wee waist and the curve of her hip.

So, yeah, I'm wondering a bit why her accessories needed to be stapled to her top. Still, while this might not be a giant leap forward, I do think that her making these elements work for her -- as in, when I saw the photo first, I saw her, and not the clothes -- is an important baby step.

Hey! I have this exact outfit! Mine's a terrycloth bathing suit coverup that I wore during the summer of 2004, accessorized with a Hefty bag full of discarded Pottery Barn catalogs and empty jars of Nutella.  But it looks pretty much exactly the same.

What I was missing, however, as I took out the trash back in 2004, was that extremely blank expression.

In all seriousness, I am starting to feel for J Simp a little bit. Her life has taken an unexpected (to her, at least) turn for the worse. Her romantic life is kind of a mess -- while Nick Lachey canoodles with Vanessa Minillo (and I must take this moment to confess that until about three days ago, I thought Vanessa Minillo was Christina Milian and vice versa), she sort of can't get a date. I'm quite sure that when she and Nick divorced,  she never considered that she might run into trouble meeting a new boy. And yet....it's not been going very well, has it? If that weren't bad enough, her younger sister -- who she'd rather effortlessly overshadowed for the last twenty years -- not only suddenly looks A LOT CUTER, she also appears to be a stable relationship. Her dad just won't stop making weird comments about her boobs.  And she seems to think this particular outfit is a good look for her, which clearly it is not, so it's possible that, to top it all off, she's losing her sight.

And now I'm depressed.

So I guess some people think she's gained weight or something and if that's true, I'm happy for her. I wouldn't know, because I am too busy LOOKING AT THIS HAIR:

What is going on here? Nicole, as regular readers know, actually isn't featured on GFY very often. She is usually impeccably put together. For example, very few starlets rock the head scarf the way Nicole does. Which is why it's so alarming to see her with these ratty extensions in. They look like they've been chewed on.

I hope that's not part of her new diet.

Is it just me, or is Mariah Carey molding herself into Beyonce Knowles circa 2004, when she was under Tina's tyrannical, hot-pants-obsessed thumb? Even the hair supports Mimi's "Destiny's Stepchild" makeover.

Except, those ladies have moved on -- even Tina Knowles appears to have ceded ground in her seemingly incessant pro-spankies war. So La Carey is a little bit behind the curve, and she just kinda looks silly. I want to whisper in her ear, "We're past wanting to see you prance around in your funeral intimates."  Except given the spandex tube dresses she's been prone to wearing lately, I have a sneaking suspicion she's back to thinking it's 1992, and I'm not sure I want to be the one who wakes her up from that delusion. Could get ugly.

This is, to put it mildly, either GREAT NEWS for Tara Reid, or like incredibly BAD NEWS for Nicky Hilton.

We've got exhibit A:

And then we've got Exhibit B:

Right?

Memo to Ms Hilton: when it turns out that you bear an as yet unremarked upon resemblance to Tara Reid, it is probably in your best interest to make sure that you don't ever look even mildly Reidified when you leave the house. That means you've GOT to wash and brush the hair, fight the bloat with all the tools at your disposal (if that means sleeping with your head propped up on five pillows so all the fluid runs down to your little feet, so be it), make your you've got a wee bit of lippy on, and, obviously,  control any wayward boobies. I know this seems like a lot of work when you're just out running some errands, but you can NOT AFFORD people mistaking you for La Reid. It's career suicide! (Even if all that career consists of  is sort of sometimes designing bags, walking around town with that cute little Kevin Connelly , and not being as trampy as your sister.)

Memo to Ms Reid: Hey, keep it up.  It's not like anyone is confusing you with Giselle, but any step forward is a step in the right direction.

Lauren Blake is apparently a singer who's starring in a show on the UK's Channel Four called Totally Frank. And so, in the spirit of the title, I'm going to give her a dose of honesty.

Lauren, it's a testament to how unsettling that shirt is that until right this second, I didn't even notice that you're also wearing formal shorts. And you know how we feel about formal shorts (check your OED under "Scourge of the Devil, The").

No, I'm not wild about it being so sheer -- I always feel like a bra should be silent support, so to speak -- and the puffy sleeves frighten me a little. But mostly ... well, it's the bow, Lauren. It looks like your stylist tried to throttle you when she helped you get dressed. It's bigger than your head. There really ought to be some kind of written rule that nothing wider than your face can be placed that close to it. Your noggin looks like something that's been nestled in a hideous gift basket.

And so, being totally frank, I think you should burn this.

Remember when Tia Carrere's career was all on fire, thanks to Wayne's World? When was that? Like 1992? I suspect she's had this little number in her closet since then:

It's a shame, because the rest of her is still smoking hot, but what Tia doesn't realize is that the use of an acid-washed demin in 2006 downgrades a girl from Baberaham Lincoln-status down to like, a William McFugly or a Millard Fugmore.

When did Elliot Gould become a wizened old mathematician who teaches AP Calculus to ungrateful high-schoolers by day, and at night slaves over a decades-old proof he's yet to crack while he tries to soak the sweat- and ink-stains out of his tight, short-sleeved, button-down white polyester shirts?

I can't believe I didn't know about this sooner.

"What? What are you looking at? My tiny, tiny swatch of leggings under this otherwise reasonable dress? What of it? Don't you know who I am? I was an important part of your guilty-pleasures, my friends. I am ZOE SALDANA. I was in Center Stage dancing the shit out of it with that guy who was the figure skater in real life, putting out cigarettes with my toe shoes and swearing at Peter Gallagher (you know, when he wasn't swearing at himself off-camera, trying to figure out what exactly he was doing there and how quickly he could fire his agent). I dominated that movie. And I was in Crossroads -- I am IMMORTALIZED next to Cute Young Britney Spears, so don't JUDGE me for my LEGGINGS, because me and lispy Taryn Manning are practically the last people to revel in B's fresh-faced glory before she got tainted, and at least I did not leave that movie set and rent out my woman-parts to an overly fertile functionally illiterate pig-tenant.

"So really, considering all that, if I want to keep those extra two inches of leg extra-warm by putting on leggings that really only kind of show and that I probably didn't need at all and which are not that attractive a trend ANYWAY, then, well, POPO-ZAO to you -- I don't care and I AM GOING TO DO IT."

The Lord giveth, and then He taketh away.

Tara Reid should probably have that tattooed onto her pelvis. Not only is it an apt statement for her life in general, but she also wasted no time in undoing the gracious -- albeit skeptical -- unfugging bestowed upon her on Friday:

One thing that was givethed that He should have takethed away from her hot little spray-tanned hand was the Manic Flowbee of Terror she borrowed from Tom Cruise, and apparently refuses to give back. Now more now than ever, Tara Reid's hair looks like half of it was ripped out at the root in a horrific head-Hoovering accident, which clearly has left her dazed and unable to focus her eyes. It also has pulled up the right side of her face into an eternal stunned smirk. (Who knew Flowbees could do this? If she'd just done the other side, BOOM! Instant Botox, without the needles. Nicole Kidman-Cruise-Urban must be dying that she didn't think to extort this thing in the divorce.)

Alas, though, Tara's problems don't stop with her wan mane. Poor little Nips Akimbo, Child of Chestal Tragedy, has chosen yet another shirt that not only emphasizes the mesmerizingly shameful work of her plastic surgeon -- seriously, when he put in her implants, did he use ACTUAL sandbags? -- but which is also just sort of inexplicable. I'm not sure what those shoulder flaps are, but the way they drape on her shoulders looks like the shirt is pressing down on her, giving her a weird slouchy look that only enhances the fact that her expensive mounds of hell are already flying south for the winter.

Tara, Tara, Tara.

It's  a warm evening in New York, and Maria Bello has a premiere to attend. It's the premiere of her film, World Trade Center, which is about, as you might have guessed, September 11th.  After looking through her clothes, she realizes that she has but one ensemble appropriate for the premiere of a film about such a serious -- and to many, especially New Yorkers,  still sensitive -- subject:

Yes. Yes, an outfit designed as some kind of Victor/Victoria man/woman tux/ballgown hybrid. Because nothing says "sensitive and potentially ultimately uplifting film about our nation's tragedy" like a jaunty, undone bow tie. Oh, wait. "Jaunty undone bow tie" actually says "handsome, rakish cad knocking back a G and T during the last hours of the Governor's Ball."

Listen, I'm not saying that Maria Bello hates America, or anything.  And I didn't need to see her in, you know, widow's weeds and a veil, or some such. I just feel like the flip, winky gender-bending outfit is maybe not the one you ought to be wearing when you're posing in front of a big poster of the Twin Towers.  That's all I'm saying.

Today is apparently the day I say nice things about people I usually slag.

Take Tara "Hot Mess" Reid:

Have I suffered a massive head injury, or is this better than usual? I really think it's better than usual. I mean, I am not wild about the shoes, and the scoop neck is a tiny little bit more scooped than it ought to be, and those roots are the sort pulled off only by Amanda Woodward, but overall she looks really kind of pretty. No, I mean it.

Which shouldn't be as surprising as it is, really. I mean, prior to the current era of drunken boob-flashing, T.R went through a period of being really pretty cute and fresh-faced. Remember? Like this:

I mean, I'm probably talking crazy here, but it is possible that this ho has, as requested, sacked up?

We've said some mean stuff about Maggie Gyllenhaal's wardrobe in the past. In fact, she once wore a gray mechanic's jumpsuit that still causes me to wake up in a cold sweat.I may never recover from the horror of the jumpsuit.

But hold onto your hats and glasses, because I'm about to say something nice: I LOVE what she's wearing to the World Trade Center premiere.

In fact, I like it so much, I'm not even going to get into how tired I am of her wearing this sort of Heidi on the Mountain, Crossed Braids On the Top of Her Head hairdo. I know she's pregnant, and it's hot out, but there are certainly coiffures which are as cool -- and probably easier -- than this one, but which also have the added benefit of not making you look as though you're campaigning for the role of Swiss Miss.

But that is a nitpick! Because I love, love this dress on her. Personally, I am currently on a big navy blue kick, and the color is gorgeous with her complexion. The cut is tremendously flattering, from the sleeves to the hem, and the neckline makes the most of her knocked-up boobs. Her make-up is chic, and clean, and her shoes are adorable. She looks just lovely. Is it simple? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Not in this case. In fact, it's classy. So well done, Maggie.

And, if I may say so, there's something about the fact that Peter Sarsgaard (on whom I have a secret crush) is giving the camera finger guns that just delights me.  His finger guns, plus her subtle "here we go again with the finger guns" smirk, make this the sort of celebrity photo I love, because it's one where you actually see the celebrities acting like real people, people you might you know. Because everyone's had the boyfriend who loved sarcastic finger guns, and almost everyone has acted perturbed by this display of juvenalia whilst secretly also finding finger guns hilarious.

So this entire package pleases me. It pleases me very much. There is much hope for the Sarsenhaalette after all.

Kristy Swanson has a serious problem. She's addicted to black gauchos. Check it:

This is from an event this week. From the waist up, she looks better than usual. Waist down? Black stretchy gauchos.

You might think this was an isolated incident. You would be wrong.

Hard-working starlet and Smallville regular Sarah Carter is the latest victim of Where Do I Position My Belt-itis:

(see also Knightly, Keira.)

This just looks perplexing.  An adorable dress, belted at the waist? I love. A cute pair of pants, belted? Classic.  But this...is wrong. She appears to be wearing a wide belt meant to cinch you in right at the waist (very current), slung around her hips with no respect for the Power of the Belt Loops at all (very last summer). It's all just so disorienting.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a nap after this.

And...does her shirt say "Jesus," upside down? Because if we're going to get into talking about what Jesus would do, I'm pretty sure that the list does not include faux-religious halter tops. I mean, it's entirely possible that as soon as I publish this entry, a booming voice will pierce the sky, and it will say, "ACTUALLY, MY CHILD, I LOVE HALTER TOPS. ALSO, TRY NOT TO BE SO JUDGEMENTAL," but I wouldn't bet on it.

Dear Dyan Cannon,

In situations such as this:

We here at GFY HQ suggest a chic little cami.

This is one of those instances where you have to wonder if this shirt was rendered see-through by the camera's flash. Which is certainly possible.  But then you start to think that, surely, someone who's been in the public eye longer than you've been alive is aware of the Powers of the Flash, and wouldn't risk it. Right?

Then you start wonder if maybe working on Ally McBeal warped her poor brain. But, no, you think. Calista Flockhart seems to have bounced back: she's on some new show, she's gained some much needed weight, she's got that cute little boy, and she's dating Han Solo. So she managed to pull through. And look at Portia di Rossi. She was really, really funny on Arrested Development, she's gained some much needed weight, and she's dating Ellen! Who doesn't love Ellen? We love Ellen. And Courtney Thorne Smith -- well, we don't know what she's up to, other than the fact that she's gained some much needed weight and is on one of those shows where the wife is really together and the husband is a schlub. But since she's not drifting into alcoholism (as far as we know), or mooning after Andrew Shue (as far as we know), or getting chewed out by Heather Locklear (as far as we know), she's clearly thriving as well. So we can't blame David E. Kelley -- not for this, anyway.

Maybe it was the flash, after all.  Beware the flash, girls.

The success of High School Musical has taken even star Ashley Tisdale by surprise. Everywhere she goes, she encounters fans and loving homage to her work in the Disney movie. For example, the outfit pictured below, worn recently to some kind of event that we didn't really pay any attention to, inspired several high school musicals of its own:

Westridge School for Girls in Pasadena, California, mounted an all female version of West Side Story, called Weird Skirt Story, a tragedy about the forbidden love between tulle and leggings. Senior Jennifer Monroe was particularly moving in the role of  Boots,  Legging's sassy sister. Her rendition of  "A skirt that like, it killed your brother/ forget that skirt, and find another/ One of your own kind/ stick to your own kind," brought the proverbial house down.

Across the country,  Robert F. Kennedy High School in Hackensack, New Jersey,  found great luck with a musical titled Leather Todd: The Demon Wristband of Fleet Street, in which Tisdale's wristband (thrown away by a Tisdale impersonator in the first act) goes on a killing spree, destroying headbands, anklets, and other defenseless accessories -- all in a desperate cry for attention from Tisdale, who tragically ends up in a meat pie at the conclusion of the play.

Tisdale's ensemble inspired even high school students in other countries. Toronto's School for the Performing Arts hosted a two-week long, sold-out run of the student-penned musical  The Music Boots, the story of a pair of boots that leaves his past as a con-man behind, redeemed by the love of a blonde actress/librarian named, appropriately, Ashley. The dance routine in which Boots convinces Ashley to leave her buttoned up past behind and do fan kicks on top of her library desk was so well-choreographed that rumor has it, it will be performed by the National Ballet of Canada next season.

No, Heather and I have not fallen into a carb-induced coma, unconscious amongst empty cans of Pringles and bottles of Jim Beam: the internets here at GFY HQ have gone -- well, I believe the technical term is "kerflooey." Our army of helper elves is hard at work (in other words, I have called our service provider and yelled at the hold music before being told they're working on it), but posting may be sporadic until it has been properly repaired.

Please stand by. Dont go putting on any formal shorts while we are distracted.