November 2007 Archives

Listen, I am thrilled that Kylie Minogue should be so lucky, lucky-lucky-lucky, to get through an ordeal like breast cancer, and with such dignity. I've loved Kylie since she was Charlene on Neighbours and her and Scott's trailer with all their possessions in it exploded, and yet mysteriously the next week she was still wearing all the exact same loud sweaters and earrings. I was squealing right along with the other pre-teens when she and Jason Donovan (Scott) released that terrible, terrible love duet, "Especially For You," and was pretty convinced they needed to get married and have little neighbourly babies and be together FOREVER because CLEARLY THE SONG WAS REAL.

Anyway, my point is: love Kylie. But that doesn't mean I have to love how her hair is shaping itself now.

I'm going to ignore the glove, which is rather silly-looking -- I feel like Alexis would wear those on Dynasty if she felt like she might accidentally break a vase over the head of whatever businessman was refusing to give her the oil leases she so craves. But since I'm fairly sure Kylie isn't in any kind of criminal mood today, she should just put that thing away and keep her hand warm in a more practical, less Michael Jackson Throwback kind of way.

No, my chief concern here is how OLD that hair is. It could star in its own late-70s sitcom. It feeds on prunes, uses words like "upchuck" and "my stars" and calls Kylie "a darling girl," and gets pensioner discounts to all the tourist attractions in England. In, fact, when I first saw it, I immediately thought of one person in particular:

Christina DeRosa, the best I can tell from the information available on the interwebs, is one of those Actress/Models/Whatevers that abound here in Los Angeles like fleas on a feral cat.

In her case, the Whatever seems to involve having to dress like the lovechild of Joey Tribbiani that time he was working as the Hombre Cologne man, the weekend floor manager at the Gap, and a stripper with a gladiator fetish.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I don't know that I really hate Katie Holmes's new head suit that much:

In fact, I think she looks cute in it. Sure, it''s completely wig-esque, but it's a CUTE wig. A wig I suspect the people over at Rhonda's Wig Emporium and Hairapalooza call The Suri. And yes, I am interested to see how it looks when it's not combed so meticulously. And, sure, I had that exact same cut when I was six years old. But overall, I find it rather...kicky. There. I said it. KICKY.

I do have a small issue with the rest of this look, though:

Obviously, Rihanna is young and hip, and blessed to be born with a great figure. These are things we know. They're undisputable, alongside things like Brett Favre's badass-osity and Beyonce needing to get off my television set for a while (seriously, how many endorsements is she doing right now? Where does it end? I mean, while it's running, we might as well run that train straight through Tinactin City and Massengil Avenue).

So I'm somewhat confused as to why this otherwise youthful and fresh-faced hottie would go out in an ensemble that downplays all of those things:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

God knows I love an animal print, but not when it turns her into a walking, talking Leopard Sausage. The cut adds weight to her midriff and looks so tight and uncomfortable that, once she finally pours herself OUT of that thing, she'll be taking nothing but deep breaths for a month. And she can forget about nibbling on the crudité. The whole effect ages her, like she borrowed her clothes from Sharon Stone. Except Rihanna is TWENTY and Sharon is... not. I guess it's true that youth is often wasted on the young. 

However, if anyone ever decides to make a randy think piece called How Lily Munster Got Her Groove Back, I think we've found our leading lady.

Or am I overreacting? Does Rihanna rise above it?

Dear Joely Richardson,

I didn't like this on Mischa Barton, and I don't care for it on you. (Speaking of the erstwhile Marissa Cooper, where has she gotten to? I miss that crazy headband-wearing kid.) There's something about it that just screams Cocktail Waitress At Spaceman's! Disneyland's Misguided, Quasi-Futuristic Tomorrowland Bar, Soon To Be Replaced By a Giant Make-Your-Own Churro Stand. And surely you can understand that the only reference to spacemen that we can accept are those referring to Dr. Leo Spaceman, my favorite television doctor ever. Get back to me when you're wearing a tee shirt with Chris Parnell's face on it, and we'll talk.

Well, this is one way to officially confirm your pregnancy:

As well as your tragic addiction to bronzer, last night's eye liner and those bitchin' cropped jackets of fashion's proudest decade, the 80s. There IS something hilarious about this photo being juxtaposed with the headline, "Tanning, bleaching, botox: ARE YOU OBSESSED?" as Xtina here looks to be deeply in thrall to at least two of said vices. I'm just not quite sure what either Our Lady of the Bleach or Marie Claire were thinking: Christina's been nothing if not sexily classing it up since marrying her baby daddy, and while there is a less tacky way to pose nude on the cover of a magazine...this ain't it.

Our roller-coaster of a relationship with Kristen Bell's fashion sense continues apace:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

Nice cleavage, babe! And you actually look kind of tall with that empire waist. Your makeup also perfectly complements the red in the dress, and in case I didn't mention it strongly enough before, I really meant it: Nice cleavage. Enjoy not having to wear a bra while you can, little girl. Gravity will chafe your navel soon enough.

Still, I do spy a few wrinkles -- I do still think there's a REASON "satin" is only one vowel away from being "Satan" -- but I'll let it slide because the overall effect is so good. Furthermore, the satin isn't nearly as crinkled and crunched as I've seen it before, and really, it's hard to hide from that fabric forever. Sometimes it's unavoidable, like a pimple, or Brad Garrett. You just have to accept it as part of life, learn to live happily anyway, and hope you own a really wicked travel steamer. For the satin, that is. I've never known a travel steamer to work on Brad Garrett. But then again, maybe it's just that nobody has tried.

So, I've never actually watched Kyle XY. I only barely know what a "Matt Dallas" even is, except that he has an amusingly fake-sounding moniker, like his real last name was something sort of kinky and weird -- or, something taken, like Perry or Damon-- and so he threw a dart at a U.S. map and picked the city it hit as his new alias. Other than that, though, the man who could've been Matt Rambo Riviera is an enigma to me. Well, okay, I've seen him shirtless on all show posters, designed to help us marvel at Mr. XY's lack of belly button, but I'm assuming that's not an affliction Matt Chocolate Bayou contends with in real life. So this leads me back to him being a total blank to me.

What I definitely did not know about Matt Loveladies is that he apparently wears carpet samples on his head.

Seriously, that might well be Matt Gaylordsville's real hair, but it looks like you could lift that thing off and cast it as Toto in a community theater production of The Wizard of Oz.

So, I thought Lily Allen was cute to begin with, but I have to say she's been looking great lately. I know she's lost some weight because she allegedly has a heart murmur or something -- and I want to stress that I certainly didn't think she needed to lose it in the first place -- but apparently the introduction of cardio to her life agrees with her, because she is looking fantastic. I should remember this next time when I'm playing my favorite game, Tostito Or Treadmill? (Tostito usually wins. The treadmill is boring, while chips are FASCINATING.)

ANYHOODLE, she's looking cuter than ever lately, except for how I am really not sure what the deal is with this dress:

Like, from the collarbone up: AWESOME. From the collarbone down: Wow, that's a lot going on. The color is good on her, but I can't help picturing several kindergarten classes slaving away to cut out all those leaves to exactly the right specifications. Won't someone think of the children?

We've noted several times that we're pretty sure Trinny Woodall has made herself a walking What Not To Wear, so as to underscore more emphatically the whole point of her show. In that, I have to admire her consistency, at least. And her commitment. Not many people are as determined as she:

I mean, in order to get this dress in an adult size, she would've had to take the version she obviously found in the Harrod's children's department clearance rack and have a tailor recreate it as skintight as possible. THAT is dedication. If only she were as devoted to opening her mouth and dumping chocolate malts down the hatch.

Long johns are great: They're warm, they're comfortable, and they will get you through a frigid winter when your boiler breaks and the house is freezing and you're out of firewood and you're forced to blow-dry the layer of ice that has grown on the INSIDE of your living-room wall because the nice men replacing your heating system are taking two weeks to figure out how to get the ruined one up the basement stairs. Indeed, given my history with broken boilers, it's fair to say that I truly love long johns. [And Slim Jims. And Long John, as in Silver. Not only was he literature's most influential depiction of a pirate, but he started a very special chain of fried-food restaurants.]

I would not, however, declare my love of long johns by wearing them on TRL.

Keyshia Cole has actually put together a top here that defies visual comprehension.  It seems to be a stretchy camisole, a tank top, a wool sweater, and a corset all in one -- like if Eddie Bauer and Victoria's Secret merged and created a line of lingerie you would wear to seduce a man in an igloo. And hey, if you ARE going to leave the house wearing your thermal finest, that is a great shirt to pick, because 90 percent of people will be too busy staring at it in consternation to notice that you're not wearing pants.

But the thing is, I am in that ten percent of people who can't stop wondering whether some mischievous rapscallion convinced Keyshia that in winter, long johns are the ONLY true pants. And then suddenly all I can think of is how much she reminds me of that tired time when you get back to the hotel after a day of skiing and you are peeling off your layers to take a shower, but it's taking FOREVER because you are so bundled up, and OH my GOD, how it is possible that you've still only gotten as far as your long underwear, and it's all so exhausting that you're forced to take a quick break from the undressing and then suddenly you have accidentally spent the last two hours on the couch in your room watching the entire International Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament on ESPN 4 and rooting for the dude in the pirate outfit.

Which brings us back to Long John Silver, and finally, full circle to long johns. Which, despite the length of my digression, STILL ARE NOT PANTS. Listen, the holidays are right around the corner. Can't someone gift Keyshia with a nice pair of jeans?

Why, it was just last week that I was all, "oh, Kelly, what's wrong with your make-up? Oh, Kelly, what's wrong with your hair? Kelly, why are you dressing up like Liza Minnelli? Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly." (Sorry, that was just a reflex.) And it's like she was LISTENING:

How adorable she looks! How pixie-like! How prettily made up! I feel like a proud mama, although not like her proud mama, because if I were to suddenly start feeling like Sharon Osbourne...well, I guess now that I think about it, Sharon could actually probably very easily step in for me here if I were to have both of my arms broken by Jessica Simpson in a tussle over the last butterscotch pop down at See's Candies or something.

In other news, there's Kimberly Stewart:

Nicole Kidman is many things: a fairly talented actress, allegedly the author of a yet-to-be-published tell-all about her marriage to Tom Cruise, and best as a redhead. She is not yet, however, to my knowledge, an Upper East Side matron on her way to the board meeting of her favorite charity. Not that you'd know it from this:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

I once worked at a company we'll call The Button Factory, although it was not a factory and buttons weren't involved, unless you were telling me which ones you wanted on your custom, $25,000 ottoman. And at The Button Factory, I worked for a woman we'll call Mulva. And Mulva was awesome. She swept into that office every day looking like a million bucks, in short little Chanel suits and very high heels and expertly coiffed hair, generally carrying a package that had been FedExed to her from Gump's in San Francisco containing a tiger-shaped broach with rubies for eyes. She had booze at every business lunch and she once stared deep into my eyes and said, "honey, the whites of your eyes are the whitest I've EVER SEEN." She would have snapped up this entire ensemble from Nicole, shortened the skirt, and worn the heck out of it.

Of course, she was also seventy-five years old.

And here, ladies and gentleman, we have Miss Lindsay Lohan:

[Photo: Splash News]

From the neck up, she's all Incognito (hat AND sunglasses! I wonder if she left her fake mustache in the car). But her boobs have not signed off on this whole Media Attention Is Overrated and Unwelcome thing. Oh, no, they haven't. And those boobs, they are INCORRIGIBLE. They will NOT be contained.  They pop out of things of their own accord and they are FIGHTING the concept that they -- and, by association, Lindsay -- want to take things easy and be low key now. No, those boobs have been locked up in Utah for MONTHS, and now they're MAKING A BREAK FOR IT.

And they're bringing the leggings with them.

Sarah-Jane Clarke provides the "Sass" portion of Aussie label Sass & Bide.

She also looks as if she'd happily provide a scoop of Tiramisu-flavored delights at a trendy burlesque club/gelato bar. I hear its take on a banana split is something to behold.

[Photo: Splash News]

"Hi, Nicky, it's me. Your sister. The blond one who isn't you. Some people call me Paris, although I made that one guy call me Lady Cleavage of the Nude the other night and I kind of liked that better because I don't have to share that name with anyone. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I went through your lingerie drawer after I read your diary -- um, not that your diary has anything to do with this, but I did think it was funny when you wrote "Mary-HATE"  instead of "Mary-Kate" and then drew a devil face on the "O" in "Olsen." Where was I, though? Oh right, your vibrator drawer. I borrowed a slip from you, because after all that itchy, sweaty stretchy velvet, I couldn't handle the idea of that much fabric. YOU know how much I'd always rather be naked. I mean, for one thing, you read it when Man-Paris glued that "I'd Rather Be Naked" bumper sticker to my ass and I kept it for a year just so people would know. Plus, I figure that I wore more material in that one dress than I had the entire YEAR put together! I totally earned the right to wear your nightie with tights. So just deal with it. What's yours is mine, anyway, because I'm older, and that's how it works, which is why I also copied David Katzenberg's number out of your cell-thingy. Okay? Sweet! So... uh, yeah. Call me back when you get this, or one of my other messages. Whatever. Do you have my number? I don't know it but I know it has a three in there somewhere. Bye! Love, Paris. Oh, P.S., I got my shoes from Goodwill. HA! Take THAT, all you people who think I don't do charity work." 

Clothing designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada is apparently not shy with color.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this was once a giant ribbon dispenser attached to the wall of Candy Spelling's reserve wrapping room (used mostly when The Help are busy dusting the other one), and sold on eBay so she could replace it with something larger that might also act as some kind of booby trap against the prying eyes of her children.

We're not strangers to Agatha here at GFY HQ; in fact, we've featured her before as a prime candidate for an "It's A Fug World, After All," ride in which creepy and inanely attired dolls croon hymns of fuggery while you ladel shots from a booze river designed to help you convince yourself it is all a terrible, aggressive hallucination. This outfit might have to appear at a special vodka bar, where you can dock your boat and hold your glass under taps dispensing any number of flavored spirits.

And yet, it might also be considered one of her tamer ensembles.

MATT CORBY: Hey, Natalie, congratulations on beating me out to win Australian Idol. Nobody thought you would, of course, but you did, and that's nice for you.

NATALIE GAUCI: Thanks, Matt! Gosh, I'm just so thrilled. I do think maybe this is an occasion where you could've tucked in your shirt -- maybe that was bad karma?

MATT: Oho, don't you worry about me, lady. I'm going to make it HUGE as a Zac Efron impersonator. Just a little bronzer and some dilated pupils and a little off the back, and I'm there. But what are YOU going to do?

NATALIE: What do you mean? I'm going to sing!

MATT: I was referring to your dress. What is anybody going to want from someone who looks like she got knocked up by a plastic-lei factory?

NATALIE: I don't think...

MATT: I GUESS you could sing your new single at luaus. Meanwhile I'm CERTAIN I'll be doing, like, High School Musical 10 and Hairspray 3 and all that stuff, because even though Zac Efron won't be fresh forever, those stories will be!

NATALIE: We'll just see, Matt. We'll just see.

MATT: We will. Call me, Zac! I need to know what kind of self-tanner and straight-iron you use!

You know, Paris Hilton takes a lot of crap -- including from us -- about all kinds of things: cultivating a public persona of vapid vacuity as though that were a state to be aspired to; public drunkenness and driving under the influence; and all the needless nudity and sex tapery. But you can't say she never did anything for us:

Frankly, it's downright brave of her to demonstrate the dangers of stretch velvet in public like this. Think of all the people she's saved from heinous crimes of figure-assault this holiday season alone!

I know this is one of those dresses that I'm supposed to look at and go, "OH MY GOD, DARLING! It's so chic! So now! So very very! So too too! So fall fall! I MUST have it! Have you seen that cater waiter? I need another glass of champagne."

And yet, while I love the fabric, it really just makes me say, "Damn, girl, invest in some Static Guard! Have you seen that cater waiter? I need another glass of champagne."

On this delicious Thanksgiving holiday, we here at GFY HQ give thanks for many things: the vast amounts of Diet Coke nestled coolly in our refrigerators, our  lovely and extremely good-looking readers, and the fact that this woman currently resides on American soil:

Posh, we don't care what anyone else says. We love you, and want to take you shopping. Although, to be frank, we DO expect you to pay.

And we expect our American readers to enjoy a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, during which you stuff yourself full of terribly caloric delights and spend several blissed-out hours in front of the television. In fact, we wish all of our readers a lovely, lazy couple of days, because we believe that a hearty appreciation of delicious treats and mind-numbing televisual sweets is a global trait that should be encouraged, if only so we all are together in wondering why our pants feel so darn tight come Monday morning.

We'll be back with more bitchery then. Happy Thanksgiving!

Rebecca Cardon here is probably best known to you as one of two things: 1) for dating a man whose MOTHER cut his TOENAILS for him, DESPITE HIM BEING OVER THREE YEARS OF AGE (as I noted to my friend Carrie at the time, "I didn't even know I had to SPECIFY that I was in the market for a man who was capable of cutting his own nails") and then taking him on The Amazing Race, and 2) being a trainer on Work Out, which I find strangely compelling and also feel guilty about finding compelling in the least.

She looks almost unrecognizable here -- new extensions? Yes. New facial features? I'd never say either way definitively, but something looks new and different and I can't quite put my finger on what, so I thought I'd take that digit and point it accusingly. Of course, the biggest issue with her is that she's wearing the dress equivalent of oatmeal -- bland, too-big, and overly long. Wait, that has nothing to do with oatmeal, and also makes no sense. In fact, I rather like oatmeal, and who doesn't like a nice oatmeal cookie? Maybe this is more like the dress equivalent of gruel, in that it... is something you might be given if you woke up one morning in a Dickens novel? No, that hardly ever happens anymore. Perhaps it's like the dress equivalent of...um... mucus.... in that... it.... Oh, forget it. I don't know. It's almost Thanksgiving and I am fresh of out of similes and/or metaphors. All my metaphor space has been taken up with yams. Hey, maybe this dress is like a yam in that -- okay, I'm just going to shut down that train of thought. Let's just say that I don't care for this dress, and I don't find it flattering, although I suppose it makes sense that someone who dated someone whose mother -- did I mention this? -- was still trimming his toenails might have laps of ye olde judgement from time to time.

Miranda Richardson is seriously fantastic. Of the bajillion things on her resume that are recognizable, I think my all-time favorite is her hilariously awesome take on Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder II. I'm sure my sisters would prefer that I hadn't picked up so many superb tips and tricks on being a brat from my childhood exposure to this series; they're just lucky I didn't respond as well to how fun she made it look to run around ordering people's necks to the chopping block.

I would, however, dearly love to send this dress to Tower Hill to meet a violent end:

Queenie would knock her block off on charges of high treason against England if she saw Miranda swanning around the red carpet in that hideous maternity sack, which also appears to be an ill-advised tribute to wicker chairs. Indeed, before coming down hard against this self-bloating junior-level caftan, I decided to double-check that she's not pregnant -- which presumably she is not, as she and her marvelous skin are almost a very youthful fifty. Way to go, Moisturizer. So there's really no good reason for her to look stumpy and bloated, other than the unwitting purchase of a fun-house mirror that had her convinced this thing fit like sausage casing.

Incidentally, in doing all this careful research about her womb, we also learned she has a cuddly pet axolotl -- a.k.a. a Wooper Rooper, if you live in Japan. (Not to be confused with waterdogs, though, no matter how tempting it is to make that mistake.) All of which means absolutely nothing here, unless she has been dabbling in a little family planning of a different sort, and simply forgot to change out of her axolotl-husbandry smock. Maybe yellow blotches, wrinkles, and phantom fetuses really get a pubescent neotenic mole salamander in the mood for love. At least that way, SOME creature would approve of this dress, although she should really act on the advice of a human next time.

There's a lot I don't understand about Alicia Keys. Like, say, why I am so sick of all her songs, or why she's on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and I still can't muster up the energy to read anything more than the headline on her story before I flip ahead to the big ol' dishy piece on Gossip Girl (although I'll grant that last one probably says a lot more about me than it does about Alicia, and parenthetically, if that show would just give in already and hire Joan Collins to be some kind of grande dame of English society trying to infiltrate the Upper East -- possibly as man-whore Chuck's unexpectedly British grandmother -- I would die happy).

Chiefly, though, I don't understand why Alicia would decide to change out of this:

[Photo: Splash News]

To this:

Listen, we all know Beyonce is bodacious -- or bootylicious, if you want to get into quoting Destiny's Child, which I'm sure Those Other Two Girls would appreciate since otherwise they're not getting a tremendous amount of love these days. And I remain eternally pleased that, rather than keep to the Dreamgirls-era stories of "How Beyonce Gave Up Fried Chicken" and "Beyonce's Sexy New Body," Miss B has in fact put the ten pounds back on and returned to her sexy OLD body, because she is not mental, and thereby understands that a life without fried chicken is not a life anyone should have to lead.

Still: Why satin, B?

This woman should look glorious in everything, all the time, and instead she gravitates toward the kind of grandiose satiny confections that end up buying property and building a mansion on the trashy side of divalicious. Also, Beyonce, you're all lovely and curvy, so don't detract from that by wearing a dress that bunches and pulls like it's a size too small an your mom struggled to sew you into it an hour ago, and told you not to DARE drink or eat anything, or else GOOD LUCK GOING TO THE BATHROOM.

Not to mention that the poor, brave halter strap is doing heroic work up there. I hope she's encouraging it with a lot of compliments and other positive reinforcement, because the second it feels bitter and taken for granted, it's going to pop and then the club won't be the only thing that's bouncin', bouncin'. (You're welcome AGAIN, Those Other Two Girls.)(Edited to add that, apparently, they won't be thanking me because the club is "jumpin', jumpin," which is a whole different chestal-region issue indeed. Oh well. You get the point: They're going to fall out of there, and I don't like Destiny's Child.)

Apparently sartorial tragedy runs in the family -- no surprise since mama Tina Knowles fancies herself a designer and stylist. Check out what that other forgotten girl, Beyonce's sister Solange, decided to wear:

Oh my god, Rihanna:

I'm pretty sure this is...supposed to be layered over something. Like an actual shirt, say.  In a way, I have to commend you for going all-out with your theme here (apparently, it is Clothing Items Which Are Missing Whole, Vital Pieces of Themselves LIKE FINGERS Or A THIRD OF YOUR BOOBS) and I appreciate how fresh and relaxed your hair and make-up is, but...okay, listen. I'm going to cut the complimentary crap for a sec. Sure, you're cute and young and have a huge hit song and are probably now richer than God, but all that means that you have FAR MORE resources than the rest of us schmoes (like money, and advisors, and the best reflective surfaces said money can buy and the best handypersons available to hang them) , and, ergo, should not find yourself out in public with a quasi-vest non-shirt that comes complete with clear plastic straps designed to prevent your nipples from making a desperate run for it.

For someone who seems like kind of a classy girl -- she doesn't talk much about her personal relationships in the press, she seems to wear all the appropriate undergarments, and she can certainly wail -- sometimes Carrie Underwood shows up places looking like she just raided Tabitha's Tack-o-Emporium and Ice-Dance Fire Sale:

I mean, okay, I'm glad she's not showing off her traditional Bustier-With-Train-Over-Jeans look, and, sure,  her legs look fantastic, but Lil' Miss Before He Cheats here also looks like she's about fifteen seconds away from strapping on ye olde figure skates and showing us all how to perform a proper double axel.

Dear Kid Rock:

WE GET IT. We didn't love it when you did it in stained tank tops and a quasi-mullet, we didn't care for it when Keith Urban took on the partial version of this look, and we STILL think it's stupid and vain even though you have cut your hair and borrowed Timberlake's fedora. The brunette, who looks like she's wearing a matching sling on her back for you to slide your hand into when it's cold, is not helping either. We GET that apparently you want us to look upon your life as one long beer commercial, okay? POINT MADE. Now can you please INVEST IN A SHIRT? Seriously. LOOK INTO FABRIC. YOU ARE MAKING ME SHOUTY. LOOK HOW LOUDLY I AM YELLING NOW.

A keg would quiet me down, though, I think. I'm just saying. It's not that I can be bought -- it's that I can be made too blurry and confused to notice that your chest is not a shirt.

I was originally resistant to the concept of Amy Adams's new movie, Enchanted, on the grounds that it looked really corny. Then I remembered that I am really corny and will at the very least end up watching it on HBO one night and possibly crying into my kettle corn over an as-yet-unspecified moment in the movie. I mean, I cry at Whirlpool commercials, so there you go.

If I do burst into tears, I will probably LONG to have A-Squared's dress here within arms' reach:

A bit spit-ball inspired, no? But it looks like it would be nice and soft on my nose, at the very least, and certainly it's convenient to have what looks like 750-900 wadded up balls of Kleenex collected in one handy garment.

PS: I'm not going to make some kind of groan-inducing WHITHER YOUR GLASS SLIPPER, PRINCESS?!?! crack here, I promise, but....next time you think about going out in a creamy sack of any ilk, I would suggest maybe a metallic shoe. Less breakable than glass, less jarring than these, right?

Oksana Baiul just turned 30 on Friday, and as I made this same decade-change three months earlier, I feel like I have a lot of valuable wisdom to impart to my favorite fugtacular figure-skating sprite. For instance, I might suggest binning her entire wardrobe and starting from scratch -- for real; its not good.

[Photo: Splash News]

I also might have sat her down and said that, while dressing like a pregnant eggplant sure SOUNDS like a fun and memorable way to kiss off one's twenties, she might regret it later in life. Like when she is only known among pre-schoolers for her series of moving home-video figure-skating presentations entitled, "Play With Your Food," in which she stars as a friendly aubergine attempting to demonstrate the nutritional value of mixing things up by associating with different parts of the pyramid. The stirring pas-de-deux between her and the dude who plays lasagna noodles will be worth the price of admission. So, hey, what do I know -- maybe this outfit is going to make her a bajilionaire. But I'm still more concerned it will instead make her the unwitting virtual president of a food fetishists' club.

If you are styling a 16-year old British actress starring on a show called Shameless, please don't let her out of the house in an outfit that attempts to prove her show title is apt:

[Photo: Splash News]

This kid is going to look at this picture in five years and be like, "Seriously, you people let me wear that? Why? What is wrong with you? I WAS NOT DANCING IN THE NUTCRACKER."

Still, don't worry, Rebecca. We ALL wore stuff when we were 16 that would make us cry today. Like vests, or cropped sweaters the likes of which Valerie on 90210 would wear with extremely high-waisted, possibly pegged jeans. So when you DO flip past this photo in your family album in several years' time, comfort yourself with the knowledge that -- while it IS a misguided deployment of a tutu -- it's not any of those other things. And hey, if a foot-breaking epidemic sweeps through the entire cluster of ballerinas slated to play Clara this year, you can step in and save Christmas.

I really do like Parker Posey, if only on the strength of her performance in Dazed and Confused. Sometimes, I think of the scene in which her character is hazing incoming freshman and screaming at them, "Fry like bacon!", and reflect that, truly, we've all wanted someone to fry at one point or another in our lives. Usually, it's our boss or someone we're no longer having sex with, but I wonder if Parker is going to wake up this morning and wish a heated, crispy fate upon her stylist:

From the neck up, she looks as winsome and youthful as ever, but the rest of her resembles a woman sneaking out of her house first thing in the morning to grab the newspaper, clutching some kind of medical waste disposal bag, perhaps because she's embarrassed to toss it into her own trash and has decided that, as long as she's outside first thing in the morning in her bathrobe to get the paper, she might as well toss it into her neighbor's cans.

To which I say, if you're going to go that way, might as well toss all your empty wine bottles while you're at it.

Everybody loves Heidi Klum! Project Runway is so entertaining! She's so pretty! She seems really happy with Seal! She's a savvy business woman! She's got great hair!

And so I can't ding her for wearing something shiny and sparkly and short to a Victoria's Secret function. For one thing,  Victoria's Secret is all about shiny and sparkly and short. For another, she's totally pulling it off.

Unfortunately, kind of literally:

Oh, MK. When first I saw this, I thought, "Oh, MK. Why are you wearing a high-fashion version of the beach over-up my Great Aunt Doris bought in San Juan in 1986?"

I mean, no offense to my Great Aunt Doris -- she was awesome, and used to buy me acid-washed Guess jean jackets and other items deeply coveted by junior high school students without regard to what my mother would allow -- but she was a sun-worshiping, chain-smoking septuagenarian. And MK is...well, 21.

And then I realized that this is not merely the high-fashion version of my Great Aunt Doris's 80s Puerto Rican Vacation Cover-Up, but it is also A ROMPER. Did you hear me? I said it was A ROMPER! This moves her from the realm of Something Your Elderly But Still Sassy Relative Would Wear on a Tropical Jaunt and into What The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Wears On Summer Vacation.

You know, if he were taking strip class there. That's quite a pair of shoes.

It's hard to imagine that dating Ashlee Simpson might have been the apex of Ryan Cabrera's short career and life, but seriously, would anyone have known that he's in the studio working on his third album -- or that he even has more than one album out already -- if Wikiepedia weren't around to clutch our sad, ignorant heads to its ample virtual bosom?

As it is, I only know Ryan Cabrera is still around because he is having severe hair trouble.

Oddly, this look now represents the good old days:

Hair tall enough to lose a Ben Roethlisberger action figure in, tips more frosted than a Canadian window in December... at the time we thought, "Wow, this kid is really trying his best to challenge Chad Michael Murray to a duel. It can't get any worse for him."

Then the brunet curls came along:

Jessica already covered our shock and initial mental trauma upon seeing this photo, but it bears repeating: No. And put away the scraggly chest hair.

But instead of moving away from hair that only Johnny Depp should ever try, Cabrera has attempted to gild this wilted, rotting lily:

Listen, Liv... your son isn't even three yet. Isn't he a little young for you to be tromping around in Mother Of The Groom couture? This isn't Tudor England, where little infant babies are betrothed to each other before they can even say the word. Also: I know I just wrote about how all those old fashion rules are passe at this point, but I still feel like it's rude for the M.O.G. to wear white to the wedding. It kind of upstages the bride. Plus, those Tudors can be CRANKY; you don't want them to knock your block off and put it on a spike.

[Photo: Splash News]

SCARY: Listen, I just want you all to know that if a tango threatens to break out, I'm here for you.

BABY: I'm just here being cute! It's what I do!

SPORTY: Alexis Colby, reporting for duty. I WANT THOSE OIL LEASES.

GINGER: I wish they still made Skating With Celebrities. Although, I  just had a marvelous idea. Think of it: Spice On Ice!

POSH: These people disappoint me. Why WEAR the dress when you can tie it to yourself?

SCARY: How about Dancing With The Spice On Ice? Oh, wait, my paso doble would MELT THE JOINT.

BABY: Hey Sporty, can I play Krystal in this scene? Or Amanda? Can I? I love you! I just want us to hug.

SPORTY: Do what I say, Baby, or I'll fire you and replace you with a band member that will. I hate you, BLAKE. Make love to me, DEX.  You're mine in the boardroom AND the bedroom.

GINGER: I am a little frightened standing between these two, I'm not gonna lie. Especially if Sporty is itching for a catfight.

POSH: Seriously, WHAT is the point of supporting a lingerie store and its bloody expensive stuff if no one's going to see it in public? SIGH. Nobody understands. I'm five years ahead of all these bimbos.

SCARY: I wonder if this tour is going to be a bad idea. What if I win my dancing show? What if the world needs to see more of me doing the rumba instead of explaining what to do if you wanna be my lover?

BABY: Oh, don't leave us, Mel, I love you! You're so pretty! Here, take Sporty, she'll beat some sense into you! Lovingly!

SPORTY: You're nothing but a second-rate lounge act, Dominique! King Galen, every time you come into my life something awful happens. Krystle, I can't wait to see you leave here with the same cheap plastic suitcases you came in carrying. YOU KNOW THE WAY OUT.

GINGER: Does anyone know what's going on? God, leaving looks pretty smart now. Was I dumb to come back to this thing?

POSH: Bollocks to these boring glittery idiots. I give up. But if anyone wants to make Pretty In Pink 2, call me. It'll be may-jah.

KRISTEN: HI THERE!

HAYDEN: Hey there, Kristen... um... that's an interesting look.

KRISTEN: Let's be friends! We have so much in common. We're both tiny. We're both blonde. We're both wearing black and white. We're THE SAME.

HAYDEN: Not quite the same, maybe, though, huh? For one thing... no offense but I look kind of great.

KRISTEN: But... but I don't look stumpy!

HAYDEN: No, but the ruffle is not good, hon. It looks like a terrible bib.

KRISTEN: What? SHUT UP.

HAYDEN: I'm just trying to help. I see where you were GOING with it, but it just kind of looks like you were sniffing glue one night and decided to use it on one of your little black dresses.

KRISTEN: I don't have to put up with this. I'M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED.

HAYDEN: Good luck with that. What with them saying "Claire is the key" a lot lately and making a whole SLOGAN about how they couldn't save the world without saving me first, well, I am pretty sure they are going to laugh in your face, babe.

KRISTEN: OH, well, THEY WILL COME AROUND. Once I pitch them my promo package where they show clips of me being all sparky while "Electric Youth" by Debbie Gibson plays in the background, I will be the queen of the show and you will be FIRED and I will clean out your trailer myself with this dress.

HAYDEN: That's fitting, since I'm pretty sure the bib ruffle cost you about as much as a rag. Have fun! I'm going to go take some pictures with Milo that will make people think we might be dating, so that we can deny it some more.

KRISTEN: Oh yeah? Well I'm going to go find Evil Sexy Sark because WE are dating ALLEGEDLY and he is way hotter and more interesting, and his fake accent will make the whole world's loins explode.

HAYDEN: You have a point there.

KRISTEN: You will never beat me, little girl. GAME SET AND MATCH to ME. Bib and all.

Dear Rachel Bilson,

Hi! How are you? I am fine. You were cute on Chuck this week. I think you are pretty. I also have a favor to ask.

Would you mind writing a little pamphlet called, say, Fashion For Shorties or Dressing the Heightually Challenged or Little Ladies Looking Like [Complimentary Word Starting With an "L" -- you'll think of something], or...whatever, you can title it whatever you want. Anyway, it'd be about how you manage, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, to show up places looking totally relaxed and chic, but not at all stumpy or overwhelmed by your clothing, despite the fact that you're only, like, three apples high. There are some people I need to send it to (KRISTEN BELL but don't tell her, I want it to be a surprise).

Thank you!

Love,

Jessica

Okay, I already know how this is going to go. I'm going to write this, and then I'm going to get like nine emails from dudes being like, "okay, but Petra Nemcova is HOT." And I just want to say, here and now, that I am totally aware of this. I mean, I have eyes. She's definitely hot:

Great legs, good dress, AND she seems really nice. I watched that sort of more-realistic version of Top Model she did for TLC, A Model Life, and she was all kind and supportive and every time she talked about being in the tsunami, I totally cried. She seems to be truly lovely. HOWEVER. While she does look tres sexy here, the hat makes me think she's about to burst into either a spirited tap routine, or a recreation of Kim Basinger's striptease in 9 1/2 Weeks (warning: that's not particularly safe for work, or for people who are easily depressed by how terribly Mickey Rourke has since f'ed up his face). And while both of those activities ARE pretty hot (if you are human, or a wild tap enthusiast), neither are particularly red-carpet-approved. You just can't walk around looking like a welder one bucket of water short of a striptease, after all.

But maybe it's a trend that's spread more widely than I thought. After all, Fisher Stevens was out and about last night wearing nearly the same hat:

If it's been approved by someone who was in Short Circuit, who am I to complain?

Kelly Osbourne has been looking pretty cute lately. Just look at her and Jack at a recent event:

Cute! Love the make-up, love the hair, love the body-conscious but not trashyola dress. Cute without looking cookie-cutter starlet-y, and thank god for that. (Jack looks cute, too. Clearly, not having to live through their young adulthood on television is agreeing with them.)

And she looks cute at this event last night  -- if a little maturely dressed for her actual age:

Well, okay: she looks cute from the neck down.

Now, don't get your culottes in a twist. I'm not talking about her ACTUAL FACE -- for one thing, I've always thought Kelly was very pretty, and even if she weren't, it would be kind of 8th grade of me to be all, "SUCKS ABOUT YOUR FACE!" And I have reached at least the maturity of an 11th grader.  I'm talking about her MAKE-UP:

I never thought we'd see anyone else attempt this type of thing, but apparently I forgot that Dita Von Teese was married to Marilyn Manson and therefore might not have peerless judgment. 

[Photo: Splash News]

In fact, I wonder if she slipped, cracked her head on the toilet seat, and regained consciousness under the delusion that she is a wedding cake (after, of course, sketching a rudimentary flux capacitor). Although I suppose that thing is keeping her ears incredibly toasty. Now I know that next time a winter wind is threatening to gnaw off my lobes, all I need to do is throw over the nearest flower shop. Maybe if Eliza Doolittle had figured this out, she'd have been a more profitable saleslady.

Someday, Shar Jackson should donate herself to science. Because she is living, walking proof that you CAN be twice fertilized by Kevin Federline and still wear panties, not ruin yourself on television -- and that's saying something, considering Shar was most recently spied participating in and WINNING Celebrity Rap Superstar -- and not leave your kids with your parenting coach to go shop for light fixtures while what's left of your brain leaks lazily out your ear. So while I still question her taste in men (what, exactly, about K-Fed had her thinking he WOULDN'T disappear one day and take his Bavarian nooky-swing to richer and stupider pastures?), I have to give props to her coping skills and ability to cling to mental health.

If only she would unclench her talons from her Ugg boots.

[Photo: Splash News]

I know it gets chilly in L.A. at night sometimes, but seriously, WHAT IS UP with the furry dead-of-winter boots in Southern California? They make sense if you are hanging out in a ski lodge drinking a Kir Royale by a roaring fire after a day on the slopes, and they're a Godsend when you have to stagger back to your chalet after a few too many glasses of bubbly bliss. I could even MAYBE understand it if she was part of celebrity fitness fad Dancing With The Stars, and had just come from her fourth rehearsal of the week and her feet were totally killing her to the point where she couldn't shove them into proper shoes. But otherwise, on a red carpet in a non-frigid climate, I just don't get the thought process. She might as well be wearing her slippers. Throw in a dressing gown and the random discovery of Cruel Intentions on cable and you've got a great movie night... on the couch.

But of course.

When you're wearing a cute but VERY BUSY dress, does it makes sense, I ask you, to top it with a cute, but VERY BUSY neck-scarf, or does it look more like she got dressed, checked her make-up in her hallway mirror and then realized that, oh my god, she TOTALLY HAS A HICKEY/A SCAB WHERE THE VAMPIRE BIT HER on her neck, but she's got to leave NOW, there's no time to change, what's this in her bag? Oh, thank god, it's that scarf she usually wears with her black wrap dress, whatever, whatever, it's fine, it'll look like some kind of fashion statement, let's go!?

You make the call.

Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay, may I be frank?

[Photo: Splash News]

While I definitely got all up in arms about your recent very bad behavior, what with the terrible driving and the drugs and the "That's not my coke because...um...THESE AREN'T MY PANTS, YEAH!" excuses and all the rest of the stupid-ass, knife-wielding drama you got up to this past summer, I must admit that -- as if you were an ex-boyfriend who was really self-involved and destructive and kind of totally CRAZY, but who was also kind of fascinating and intermittently hilarious -- I am totally ready to take you back, in a defiant but also moderately ashamed kind of way.  What can I say? If it were 2006, I would joke that I can't quit you. You are one f'ed up girl, but at least you're never boring. And while under normal circumstances, I would make some snide comment about how I'm SO SURE you're having lunch at the Ivy for the food and not because you totally thrive on the media attention you get there, and then I would gently wonder if maybe low-heeled ankle boots are generally unflattering on most people,  including maybe you, I truly am rather pleased that you're back in fugulation but not yet back in those pantaloons, or wearing a sequined tube top as a belt. Maybe you HAVE made progress.

Of the current crop of runway models, Agyness Deyn is one of my favorites. She's cool on the catwalk, she's got a unique look that stands out among all the long-haired bed-headed models with interchangeable pale faces, and I'm incredibly amused by the fact that Wikipedia tells me the celebrities she'd most like to meet are Queen Elizabeth II and Jordan -- yes, that Jordan -- whom Agyness reportedly claims seems super funny and real. Which is exactly what I would say about a woman who deliberately slices up her skirts to be no longer than nine inches. It's like we're soulmates. I wonder if she ALSO likes putting potato chips in her peanut-butter sandwiches.

But:

Yes, distinctive fashion style is an asset at times, but this one caught me by surprise because I don't see her dress like this all the time. Indeed, when I saw the thumbnail for this photo, I thought, "Holy hot DAMN, Macaulay Culkin hit his head and thinks he's in Duran Duran." And I'm not sure that's a clever style choice as much as an ill-conceived VH-1 holiday rock opera, which will run in deadly infamy this holiday season in a marathon alongside A Diva's Christmas Carol.

Looks like Daphne Zuniga is having a Chico's kind of day:

Better than a Melrose Place kind of day, I guess, considering that her character got kidnapped on a boat by her drug-dealing boyfriend, had to kill him, lost custody of their baby THREE TIMES, and was forced to walk around in overalls a lot.

Oh, God, Raven-Symone. I REALLY don't want to have to do this to you. For one thing, this outfit is actually REALLY cute on you. Except for one thing:

I mean, guess, technically, it's two things. Other than the breast-plate issues, this dress is great on you, and goodness knows, we've all gotten pictures back from, say, the time we went to have Jackie Collins sign our first edition of Hollywood Wives, and found out that WHOOPS,  that shirt was sort of sheer. But you've been doing this red carpet thing since you were in pre-school, so I would have thought that you might be hip to the concept of the high-wattage flash, and, accordingly, put on a black bra.

All that being said, there is also a part of me that is thrilled to have to feature you, because now I have an excuse to tell the world about your web site, which is full of crafty instructional videos like, "Raven teaches us how to make an assortment of mini-sandwiches," "Raven teaches us how to make a party invitation using mini clothes," and "Raven teaches us how to fix a bra when the underwire pokes out." Who would have thunk that little Olivia from The Cosby Show would grow up to be a miniature-loving bra wrangler? 

Well, I guess she's still sort of working on the bra-wrangling, isn't she?

Dear Brad,

Listen, I feel you. I have these two waffle-knit cotton shirts from The Gap that have been my go-to lately for bumming around the house pecking away at my blog and watching Brothers & Sisters and Days of our Lives. Speaking of which, don't you think they should have Marlena get possessed by the devil again? Soaps are in trouble. That would probably help. Everyone loves Satanic undereye bags, contact lenses, and levitation. Some folks might just call that "Thursday," but I think it makes for compelling afternoon procrastination material.

But that's not why I'm here. My point is: I know how it feels to be in a rut of wearing comfortable clothes. I do. And yet, I also don't live on the red carpet. Here you are at the Beowulf premiere:

It's not that you DON'T have a nice coat. Or a nice shirt. I'm sure your pants are lined with angels. Expensive angels that you can only borrow from Heaven because you and your half-wife, "Angel"ina, cooked up and squeezed out the undisputed (until Suri Cruise rises to power) savior of our land.

No, my concern here is that I saw this picture and thought, "The hat AGAIN? I feel like all he does is wear this hat." You do seem to have been leaning on the newsboy cap rather a lot lately. What gives, Brad? What's the breaking story?

Um. What is going on here?

Are those tights? Weird boots? A terrible calf-fungus for which she needs to see a specialist, like, yesterday? Is she some mythical creature -- half woman, half lizard-woman -- come to Earth to destroy us and/or feast on our vast array of exotic insects? Does she just have like REALLY BAD razor burn? I can not rest until I figure out the deal with Callie Thorne's lower legular area.

Byrdie Bell looks a little bit like she got mauled by an overzealous Project Runway contestant trying to impress Tim Gunn with ten different ideas: "Tim, it's going to be GLORIOUS. The top will have a RUFFLE but the shape of a vest at the waistline, and then the skirt is going to be black shot through with SHINY SILVER in a pattern with pointy bits, but then it turns ROMANTIC with a GIANT SASH made of two shades of orange!" At which point Tim Gunn would scratch his chin and furrow his brow and say, "This worries me. I'm worried here, I'm not going to lie. I'm feeling concern." And the designer will say, "What if the sash ties into a GIANT BOW???" and then Tim will purse his lips and go, "I'm just not sure what you're trying to say with this," and the designer will say, "Trust me, Tim, I believe in it and it's going to knock your socks off," and Tim will cough, "Well, carry on then, make it work as best you can," and then scuttle off to a corner where he can wash the stain of disaster off his hands.

It's well-documented that we hold a fond place in our hearts for Tori Spelling, on account of the important social contributions she made as Donna Martin, to a lesser degree as Screech's snorting girlfriend Violet on Saved By The Bell, and of course to a MASSIVE degree through her catalog of Lifetime Television For Women movies. We now know that the answer to the question, "Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?" is a resounding, "Not unless you want to get stalked and nearly meet a violent end on a pier somewhere in the country." Ergo, we wish Tori only good things in life.

I am not sure this dress is one of them.

Outwardly, aside from how destroyed it got in the car on the way over, it's not that bad. The color is great. But the bodice is making upended ostrich eggs of her boobs. Everything is tight and squished and uncomfortable-looking, like she was so excited to squeeze herself into a size zero that she was HELL-BENT on getting those puppies into the top, whether they whimpered at her the whole time or not. I also enjoy that every time I get a passing look at that clutch purse, I mistakenly think it is a really old-school calculator, like she brought it with her in case she's seized with the urge to write "BOOBIES" on it in numbers and then hand it to reporters with a giggle.

Although... is it just me, or has Tori dropped a little too much weight? I know she was always really lean, but something about her looks a tiny bit too shrunken. Almost bobbleheaded. Which, incidentally, I think you could ALMOST also write on a calculator if the window were long enough... and if you left out the a... and the ds, too. But that's not a very good reason to give up carbs (or forsake spelling). Somebody please get Donna a Megaburger, stat. Where is Joe E. Tata when you need him?

Look, everyone knows I love The Hills. Never have I watched a show on which so little actually happens with so much pleasure. Also, the clothes are often cute.

Except in this case:

[Photo: Splash News]

Oh, HEIDI. Why? What are you thinking? Is this bizarro shorts/lingerie/boots outfit some subtle attempt at driving Spencer out of your life by assaulting his optic nerve until he can no longer stand the pain? If that is the case, I say, carry on and good luck -- I can't wait to see the episode where he runs screaming out of your apartment into traffic. But if you're just wearing this for kicks, my usual urge to shake some sense into you has just increased ten-fold. You look like you're sporting three-fourths of a moderately unsuccessful Sexy Robin Hood costume.

All that being said, thank you for appearing on the cover of US under the headline "REVENGE PLASTIC SURGERY." That was hilariously soap operatic, and I can't wait to see the sequel "REVENGIER PLASIC SURGERY"  -- after you and Spencer dramatically split on camera, obviously.

When we got an e-mail this morning titled, "The Most Heinous Jumpsuit Of All Time," I thought to myself, "Well, that is coming up against some pretty stiff competition." It's like saying you've found the world's foulest-tasting Brussels sprout, or the douchiest-ever Chad Michael Murray facial expression: There's just too much competition to know for sure.

But, once I laid eyes on the jumpsuit befouling wee pixie Jaime Winstone (British actress, daughter of the actor who is currently trying to make us care about Beowulf on film despite the fact that 99 percent of people who had to read that in English class -- as I did, THREE TIMES in my life somehow -- wanted to hurl themselves off the nearest bridge), I had to concede that this one is probably pretty close to the top of the list:

Listen, we all fondly remember Madonna's crazy conic-bra phase. But the only person who should attempt geometric boobs in this lifetime or anyone else's is Madonna herself. Also, I am pretty sure that thing is made of 150 thread-count sheets she picked up at a Marks & Spencer clearance sale. The tailor presumably had donated his or her hands to science before getting around to finishing this with nothing but feet and his/her teeth to do it, and it's so waistless and borderline dowdy that it resembles nothing so much as wearable fashion for the incontinent -- Depends by Talbots, or something. And finally sweet god, she caught Stumpophrenia from Kristen Bell. It couldn't be worse.

Could it?

It was just the other day that we were bemoaning the fact that we haven't seen hide nor hair of either of the Peldon sisters in forever. How nice of them to hear our pleas and leave the house! With adorable animals in tow, no less!

Have I gone crazy with longing for them since last we saw them, or do they actually look pretty cute, notwithstanding the concept that Brown is walking around town with her cat in her purse? They're obviously riding high on the glee that comes from having a job, as, according to IMDb, they're set to appear in something called 2001 Maniacs: Beverly Hellbillys as "Rome and Tina Sheraton."  The movie also stars Talan From Laguna Beach (now his legal name), in yet another attempt to best Stephen From Laguna Beach in the acting wars, and seems to be about...maniacs? Whatever, it's just nice to see them out and about. I was worried they were getting overly obsessed with their Etsy Store and we'd never see them again and it was totally bumming me out. For whatever reason, in the three and a half years we've been writing GFY, I've become strangely attached to our Peldons, and I wish they at least had a livejournal, so I could check in occasionally and make sure that neither of them has been stabbed or has taken to her bed, distraught over news that Crispin Glover is squiring Hidden Palms. So thank you, ladies, for stepping outside and in front of a camera once more, so I can remove "wonder what happened to Peldons" from my To Do list and move on to "read the Gossip Girl prequel," like a normal person.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Just hang on for a few more pictures, kid. Don't you move a muscle.

NATALIE PORTMAN: I just feel kind of uncomfortable in this dress.

DUSTIN: You got great gams, kid. Everything's going to be fine. We just need to pose a little bit longer. You can't try to run away from these guys like that again. It's a sign of weakness.

NATALIE: I know. But I've never worn anything this short in public. I feel exposed. Do I look like Britney Spears? You'd tell me if I did, right?

DUSTIN:  You look fine, kid! Relax! Relax! You couldn't look like Britney Spears if you attacked an SUV with an umbrella!

NATALIE: My lipstick seems too red for this dress. Is it too red? It's too red, isn't it? Why did I let them talk me into any of this, Dustin?

DUSTIN: Kid, why do we let anyone talk us into anything? I think you look tastier than a sandwich in the middle of a juice fast! The real question is why you let them talk you into having Haley Joel Osment's haircut in that wackola kid's movie we just made together, but the ink's dry on that one, right? Keep smiling!

NATALIE: I do look much cuter than I do on that movie poster, you're right.  Okay. Okay, you're right. You're right. I know you're right. I should be out there working this.

DUSTIN:  That's the spirit, kid!

In case PETA isn't already plotting Sharon's death as payback for the World's Most Awkward Fur Wrap (also known as The Second Time Sharon's Shown Us That Much Beaver. ZING!), this ought to put the vegan seal on her death warrant:

That's...a lot of different animals on there. We've got whatever poor funereal emu sacrificed his feathers for her trim; whatever sad, strange animal that contributed to that collar/elbow-warmer concoction that reminds me, weirdly, of what toast would look like if it were made of fur; and, of course, the leather pants.  No matter where you stand on the old Fur Versus Faux issue, this outfit is seriously just begging for a crazed gang of denuded woodland creatures to come barreling out of the woods after her, demanding their clothes back. They have a point -- she does seem to be wearing more than her fair share.

Just yesterday I was at the hair salon, chit-chatting with my colorist about Kelly Clarkson, and how - although we love her -- she is often kind of a mess.  (This included reminiscing about how, when she first started on American Idol, she had those really chunky, very evenly spaced highlights that kind of made her head look like it was stuck behind bars in a prison of its own hair). But apparently, K. Cla got wind of our loving-yet-frustrated smack-talkery and decided to prove once and for all that, on occasion, she CAN dress herself:

I mean, is this the most hot-yet-also-revolutionary-fashion-forward-thing you've ever seen in your entire life? No. And yet, does she look super cute and comfortable in her own skin, and age appropriate, and not as though she's been digging through J. Lo's reject pile for items that make her look vaguely like an alien extra from the sequel to From Justin to Kelly, called From Justin to KellyII: Intergalatic Boogaloo? Yes. We'll take it.

Even though we largely ignore all of them now, I still remember all those old fashion rules people used to follow -- no white after Labor Day/before Easter Sunday, no navy and black or black and brown together, don't wear black to a wedding or red to a funeral... They're all things of the past now -- well, except for the "no red at funerals" thing, unless maybe you are on a soap opera, or are a complete bitch; preferably both -- but they pop up every now and then in my head so that I can chuckle at how stressed out I used to be about when I could resume plans to steal my sister's white pumps, and shove tissue in the toes so that they'd be my size.

One principle did stick in my mind a little more solidly, though, and that is the notion that red and pink are clashing colors. While obviously this can work in some specific patterns, I still find myself turned off by certain deployments of them together. Enter Mrs. Longoria-Parker:

These two just colors patched together in such brutal blocks make my head throb. I hope she is carrying some Advil in her purse. It might have been nice of her to throw fistfuls of it at her adoring public.

Oddly, the whole thing reminds me of a box of Nerds. You know, the way they'd separate two different flavors (cinnamon and peppermint, cherry and watermelon) in one box. Nerds were the greatest greatest candy discovery of my sixth- and seventh-grade life, right up there with Pixy Styx. But that doesn't mean I am loving watching Eva trot around in a color-scheme homage to those brave little cavity nuggets. Willy Wonka makes a mean sweet treat, but he's hardly a competent stylist.

It's like Nicollette Sheridan took my scolding of Goldie Hawn for going out in her robe and decided to show me what a REAL ROBE looks like:

Remember when everyone had one of these? In like 1998? My college roommate Jen's boyfriend Dave used to refer to hers as her "swobe" -- her "sweater robe" -- and every time she swept into the room wearing it, he'd say something like, "AWESOME SWOBE," and we girls would roll our eyes, but eventually, of course, we all referred to it as a  "swobe," leading to comments like, "GOD, have you seen my swobe? It's FREEZING IN HERE," and "JEN! Your swobe is caught in the car door!" and "Can I get away with wearing my swobe to the library three days in a row? Screw it, it's finals week!"

But Nicollette's swobe goes above and beyond the normal qualities of swobedom. It's like Extreme Swobe. It's not even a swobe, as much as it is a sweater crossed with a monk's habits. It's a Swabit. And while I'm sure having a swabit around is really helpful if you lead the kind of life where, say, you find yourself having to sneak into the local monastery in order to steal some kind of mystical artifact for the CIA or something, it doesn't really have a place on the red carpet.

It's got to be a little awkward when you show up at a major event and parts of your dress are the exact same color as the carpet.

But I bet it's even more awkward to when the entire crowd is speechless, trying to decide if you are paying tribute to Penicillium mold, honoring Green Week with an homage to the idea of an environmentally friendly Elizabethan England, or simply inspired enough by the concept of a Cabbage Patch Kid to style yourself as though your head is sitting on a bed of greens.

On first glance, everything seems normal with Jewel.

I mean... she's Jewel. This is what she does. She has the wavy hair and the cleavage; the hands that are small -- she knows -- but which are not yours, they are her own; and the constant threat that she'll break into a poetry recitation at the slightest provocation.

But... wait, jump back to the cleavage for a second.

If people like Ashlee Simpson, Bobby Brown, Randy Spelling, and Kim Kardashian can all get their own reality shows, then I ask you, world: Why not Bai Ling?

Think of all the insights Being Bai Ling could give us.

I love how much Bai appears to enjoy creating the illusion that she is half-human, half-exotic endangered species moving through its own wildlife preserve. When I first saw this outfit, I thought it was an elaborate, stretchy set of footie pajamas. Turns out it's just the way she's standing. But, given who we're talking about here, my question is: Why ISN'T this an elaborate, stretchy set of footie pajamas? Who dropped that ball? Which personality? We're going to need each to get its own episode, so that we might better understand how they work. Or in this case, why they don't.

Alternatively, the potentially glorious Everybody Bai Ling Tonight could just be a show devoted entirely to what's in her closet that doesn't see the light of day. I wonder what she rejected in order to embrace these little numbers:

So, how much do you want to bet that Goldie Hawn looks JUST like this when she runs out of the ashram on a cold morning to grab her newspaper?

[Photo: Splash]

I feel like she would be an interesting neighbor. You'd probably overhear some decent fights between her and Kurt -- no one is together that long without fighting, even if it's only over forgetting to balance the checkbook -- and you'd have the perfect perspective with which to provide the interwebs with constant updates on Kate Hudson's hair (which, I must admit, I think is really fantastic and deeply covet. In fact, if I lived next door to Goldie, I'm pretty sure that there would come a day when I would leap out my door and dash down the front walk to ambush Kate and demand to know what she does to make it look so good. And then she would tell me, pityingly, that she uses genetics, and then I would go inside and eat a package of frozen waffles).  But be that as it may, it's hard to excuse leaving the house for real in what is essentially satin pajamas and a fancy furry robe.

Though I guess we have to give her points for leaving the fuzzy slippers at home.

Wait a second.

We finally get Keith Urban in a suit -- a REAL one that doesn't calculatedly expose his baby-smooth, greased-up pectorals -- and Nicole Kidman honors the occasion with a dress whose color scheme more befits an airport-souvenir-stand shot glass that screams, "I Love Miami"? That is MESSED UP, Nicole. I don't care if you love Miami. I don't care if you sing, from memory, the song extolling their home city that Dorothy and Rose wrote and performed on that one episode of The Golden Girls. That doesn't change the fact that the dress is really... well, it's ugly, Nicole. It is. And it makes you look like you haven't eaten in six months. I'm so sorry you accidentally wore a see-through dress the other week, but seriously, did you have to bounce back by running straight to a neon assault on nature? COME BACK TO US.

An Open Letter to Kim Kardashian:

Dear Kim,

Okay. Enough. We get it. We all get it. The whole world was cc'ed on your memo. You are hot. Hot hot hot. Hot like fire. Hot like lava. Hot like the flames on the side of my face that erupt when I think about how I'm now supposed to find you interesting enough to have a reality show. Message received.

[Photo: infdaily.com]

And here's a little message for you, just a little tip, something that I think will serve you well in years to come: When we can all essentially see the seams of your Spanx, it WON'T HURT YOU TO GO UP A SIZE. No one can see the tag on your dress but you and the individual who unzips you at night! And if that person makes some kind of sizing-related commentary, you best eject him or her from your boudoir and consider that time saved. So, unless you've accepted a position as the spokesmodel for Casey's Sausage Casings and Meat Accessories, there is absolutely no need for you to go out in something this tight, and it actually seems like it might be injurious to your internal organs. Let's give the girls a little breathing room, shall we?

Julianne Moore is lovely and beautiful and she seems like she'd be a totally delightful person to be stuck in an elevator with (which is often my measuring stick of People I Do Not Actually Know. It is surprising who you realize might be entertaining in an elevator. Like, I think it might be amusing to be stuck in an elevator with Kid Rock, for example.  But I don't really want to be stuck in an elevator with, say, Oprah, as famous and all-powerful as she is. I don't think she'd be very chatty). And she looks great here, along with fellow chic hot ass Ellen Barkin:

But earlier in the evening, La Moore was kind enough to demonstrate for us The Heartbreak of Stumpitude:

I have been staring at this photo of SMG for like twenty minutes, trying to decode the mystery of her bottom half:

[Photo: Splash News]

Is that merely an aggressively pleated skirt, or is our girl Smidge wearing CULOTTES? And if she IS wearing culottes, does that mean we shall all soon be implored to return to the wide wonderful world of the culotte, or what I normally refer to as "sixth grade"? In a way, being magically whisked back to sixth grade through the magic of skirt-pants might be relaxing. Sixth graders generally don't have to pay taxes or worry about the weird noise their garbage disposal is making or fret about interest rates. Although on the other hand, sixth graders also have several years of increasingly complicated math ahead of them, not to mention acne. Why risk it? Just say no to culottes.

[Photo: Splash News]

"No, Marc, let them talk. Let them guess! It is my little dance, my sensual gossip tango with the world. Am I pregnant? Or is this just a beautiful toga party? Is Robert Cavalli in trouble for revealing my little secret, or does he not know what he is talking about because he is MUY TONTO and a steaming pile of pureed idiot? Do not worry, Marc. Do not speak. Just take your vitamins and let me lead this rumba of mystery. IT IS MY GIFT TO MYSELF."

Sometimes, maybe even twice a day if things are really slow and Intern George is out on a cheesecake run, conversation at GFY HQ turns to the whereabouts of Courtney Peldon. What happened to our wee platinum mascot/stabbed horror-movie actress/contented coattail rider of her budding perfume-mogul sister?

The answer is: We have no idea. I once saw the sisters Peldon at the Century City movie theater taking in a flick with their parents -- I wish I could remember what movie we were seeing, but I do recall that I was nervous they would catch me gaping at them, and  I didn't have my cell phone with me and it was AGONY not being able to text anybody RIGHT in the moment that I realized I was staring at the people who for so long were our fugspiration -- but that was probably six months or so ago, and since then, nada.

We can, however, check in on what's up with her crazy ex-fiance, Crispin Glover, which in many ways is just as thrilling considering that he was once her density.

So, it's Melbourne Cup time again, and here at GFY HQ, we LOVE Melbourne Cup time. For one thing, the outfits and hats associated with the event are almost always awesome, terrible, or awesome AND terrible. For another, we always hear from a higher percentage of our Australian readers than usual during the Time o' the Cup, and generally those emails include entertaining and salacious tidbits about whichever Australian star we've featured, along the lines of, "until 2004, she was a man," or "and then his character on Home and Away fell down a well!"  This time, however, said Australian is well known to us all as the girl who was surprisingly entertaining on the surprisingly entertaining but ill-fated Thieves with John Stamos, and who was surprisingly terrible on a surprisingly uneven season of Alias, and who is not making, shall we say, her first appearance on this website. Ladies and gents, Melissa George:

I truly am torn. On one hand, she appears to be in costume as an ostrich. On the other hand, you have to give it up for someone who commits so fully to the Fancy Horse Race Get-Up concept, and god knows I love a hat that looks like it could also be a cake. No, I really do.

Shannyn Sossamon was REALLY grateful to be invited to this premiere. Really.

But if she seems distracted, you have to excuse her. Because between raising her wee son Audio Science (seriously) and appearing on the so-bad-it's-occasionally-amazing Moonlight as a vampiress who bit the husband that subsequently left her and then later watched her burn alive only to learn that she might have survived that little incident (SERIOUSLY seriously), Shannyn has almost NO precious time left over for butter-churning. What's a girl to do when she can't be cloned? It's a Country Crock tragedy.

My first thought when I saw this dress on Patti Labelle was, "Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before Laura Ashley started hitting the bong."

Seriously, if there were a Broomcorn Farms Harvest Pageant Barbie, she would be wearing something like this for the talent portion. And Patti wants you to DRINK IT IN, GOOD PEOPLE, like it's the bourbon you keep in your hip flask (or in the fully stocked wet bar she's got stowed away somewhere in the neighborhood of her pelvis). I'm sitting here begging her to pick a silhouette and go with it -- cocktail-length frippery or sleekly silhouetted evening wear, but not its mutant bastard child-- and Patti's out there all, "TA-DA! That's RIGHT! I'll be here all week, folks! Tip my publicist."

But then I learned that she actually DID have a magic trick up her sleeve -- or skirt, as it were.

Here's what I want to know, looking at this cover:

Does Julia's MOST INTIMATE INTERVIEW EVER! include tips and tricks on how she manages to turn her head around 270 degrees? Because that, I would be interested to read.

If this were anyone but Christine "Emily Valentine" Elise, I would make some comment about how less is more, or some such.

But Emily Valentine has never been a master of subtlety, you know? I mean, she: drugged Brandon Walsh with U4EA at a rave, inadvertently causing his car to get destroyed by drugged-out thugs; threatened suicide when he broke up with her, in addition to burning down the homecoming float he and the rest of the gang had slaved over; left him multiple threatening/obscene voicemail messages; gave him what Brenda suspected to be POISONED BAKED GOODS; inadvertently semi-seduced him when in town on her way to France (?) to become a marine biologist (?!), while his then-girlfriend Kelly was caught in the basement bathroom of a burning building with a semi-obsessive lesbian who actually would have proved to be a better mate than Brandon, who is a douche; and finally, and most damningly,  willing sported the following haircut:

So, it appears the Avril Lavigne Desperate Cry For Re-Invention/Alleged Press Tour of Great and Intense Boredom is back on track, and this time, what I am assuming is her cruddy attitude (since she looks so consistently cranky and bored), is infecting even outfits that might have been cute if she, you know, gave the proverbial rodent's derrière:

Snoooooooooore.  Hasn't she worn this, like EVERY SINGLE TIME she's left the house since 2002? Admittedly, I think this dress is kind of cute in a sort of high-class Hot-Topic/I Made This As My Senior Class Home Ec Project, Oh My God, Do You Want To Come Over and Listen To My Collection of Rare Save Ferris B-Sides?  kind of way, but does she look unenthusiastic about it, or what? I guess I would be cranky, too, if I were going out in the same sort of things I was sporting five years ago.

Buck up, stumpy, this dress would look divine if you hadn't styled it as though you were heading out to a Halloween party dressed as  "Avril Lavigne":

Welcome home, Lucy Davis. It's been a long road. Like, seriously long. Imagine being forced to rewatch every episode of Heroes' horrible second season in one sitting without a bottle of wine, a cheesecake, a remote to fast-forward through the Wonder Twins and Mopey Lovelorn Hiro In Feudal Japan, or a blunt object within reach. That's the kind of frustration and agony we felt sometimes.

So, it's nice to have you back:

[Photo: Splash News]

And with new hair, to boot. Hair that does not look like it recently caught on fire, perhaps while you were using your actual iron on it. And your skin no longer appears as though you waxed it with a melted pumpkin candle. I am thrilled about this, because you seem very lovely, and it was horrible seeing you parading around town styled like somebody's drunk, chain-smoking granny who holidays in Cornwall by the sea using nothing but baby oil -- that is, when she's not glued to her pub stool.

I'm not comfortable calling off the alert altogether yet, because as I've noted before, you cannot be trusted with consistency. Still, we can find it in our unbronzed hearts to take you down a few notches on the terror chart -- let's say, to Guarded from High/Severe. We're not ready to call you a sane person until you've gone several consecutive months without dipping even a toe into the Bronze Sea.

Appendix: TANOREXIA WATCH TERROR CHART

[Photo: Splash News]

I don't know how Jennifer Connolly does it. She is undeniably stunning, and yet she manages to detract from her amazing genes at every opportunity. If I were as gorgeous as she is -- oh, uh, which I TOTALLY AM, though, of course -- I would endeavor never to do any of the following:

a) look totally severe and as if I am minutes away from smacking your upturned palm with a ruler for the impertinence of speaking out of turn in class;

b) make myself up so that people are worried I will collapse due to a rare chronic wasting disease;

c) wear something one would only find on Jennifer Love Hewitt when her Ghost Whisperer character is going to bed/running downstairs to investigate ghostly noises without turning on any lights/walking to the window in the middle of the night to have a vision that then totally surprises and scares her, even though one of them happens EVERY SINGLE TIME she indulges her desire to walk to the damn window.

d) all of the above.

Oh, J.Co. Please take this test the next time you leave the house.

Listen, Christie. You are lovely, you're in amazing shape, and you seem so nice that it actually pains me to serenade you with anything but hymns of praise carried to your ears on the wings of angels who look like golden-retriever puppies. But:

[Photo: Splash News]

Uptown girl,

Why drag your pants into an uptown world?

It is a crime against your upper thighs

So please go shopping for a downtown rise.

You've got to try

For your crotch's sake.

That mile-high waistband was a huge mistake.

And there's no way that your poor groin enjoys

Those creases pinching at your girly toys.

Hear its sad voice:

Ow-ow-ow-ooowww-ow

OOOOOWWWWW-ow

Ow-ow-OWWWWWW-ow

Ow-ow-oooowwww-ow.

You get the idea.

So, seen from the front here, Joss Stone looks, well, relatively normal. Sure, her skirt is short and might be featuring a mosaic cross right over her junk (what is she trying to tell us? Are her ladyparts possessed?),  and she's wearing terrible jewelry and bad eye-make-up and her hair is half-corn-rowed but at least she's wearing shoes. She looks kind of cute, actually. You know, comparatively.

Oh, except, wait. What is she pointing at? Joss, turn around:

The Children's Defense Fund is a very worthy cause, I'm sure -- thank goodness someone is thinking of the children, after all -- and their annual dinner is definitely not an event at which you ought to show up, like, with your boob hanging out. And yet, I don't know that all Serious Causes out and out require you to show up at their events looking Oh My God So Serious And Hence Terribly Drab, as pictured below:

Two beautiful girls stand before me, with all the potential and good skin in the world. But only one of them can continue on to be America's Next Top Serious Issues Spokeswoman. The girl whose name I do not call must immediately go back to her posh condo in West Hollywood, put on a bunch of make-up, take off her bra, and go out and get hammered, giving up her dream of being taken seriously as Someone Who Cares.

Elisha, you do look incredibly serious in this picture, thanks especially to your I'm Taking The Veil Next Week hair, and your I Only Wear Hemp-colored sweater dress. But you seem to have forgotten that leggings are solely the purview of body-shots-taking starlets, and I think your shoes might be slippers. However, I salute your I'm Not Here to Have a Good Time expression, and you have a really attractive -- yet, importantly, not slutty -- collarbone on display here. But I must also consider that you are single, and therefore might get distracted from Serious Issues of Great Seriousness by dudes.

Keri, I have to commend you for looking incredible after having a baby, like, yesterday. You, too, model very unfrivolous hair, and appear to be wearing something that we might possibly see on a lunch lady at a very fashion-forward middle school. However, you still look sort of sexy, despite wearing no make-up.

Girls, this was a very tough decision, one of the most difficult ones ever at America's Next Top Serious Issues Spokeswoman. I commend you both for making an effort and thinking of the children, as well as realizing that part of breaking out of the starlet mold is Actually Kind of Caring About Stuff....

Keri, congratulations. You're still in the running to be America's Next Top Serious Issues Spokeswoman. The fact that you've managed to look so good with a newborn at home makes us think that you are up to the challenge of talking Seriously about Serious Issues while still looking approachable and, also, your dress is, yes, Serious but still rather attractive. We commend you.

Elisha, girl, don't give up on your dreams of being taken Seriously. You came so close here. In fact, had those mischievous leg-coverings had feet, you might have snuck in. But leggings are just TOO frivolous. Surely, you understand. Now, get out.

While I appreciate the logic behind wearing a velvet suit that begs people to touch it -- like, maybe tall, strapping, hot people, or even better, a tall, strapping hot person with a bottle of champagne in his pants (for real, not euphemistically, you filthy people you) -- this one makes my eyes burn:

All I can think of when I see this is a HORRIBLE sunburn I got on my face in grade ten, when I went to visit my friends in Miami and decided to sunburn with no protection but baby oil. In the middle of the day. Next to a big light-reflecting swimming pool. The blisters on my face were almost as big as her earrings. So when I look at this suit and its poorly cut pants, I can't focus for more than two seconds or else I am forced to take two Tylenol and go dip myself in aloe. It's like one giant acid flashback. Does Pepto Bismol cure those too? Because she kind of looks like a fancy bottle of it. Say, Elizabeth Taylor's lucky bottle. Which she will drop onto a poker table amid smoky, sexy shadows, purring to a muscular male card player, "This has always brought me luck," before breaking into the signature symptoms jingle -- complete with jazz hands! -- and then retreating to the nearest loo.

ABBIE CORNISH: Yep, still a serious actress. A SERIOUS ACTRESS. Not anyone's Other Woman.

GEOFFREY RUSH: Let's see. I can't look at Abbie, because I called her Kate the whole time we were shooting because someone told me she was Kate Bosworth and then someone ELSE told me she was Tom Cruise's wife and what the hell do I know...

CATE BLANCHETT: I'm just proud of my work!

ABBIE: But seriously, what is Cate doing down there? I'm here in a suit, and she's wearing, like, a sparkly denim bag with strips of shiny crap studded with a bunch of buttons. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. It's like that chick from Pretty In Pink discovered a new color palette before anyone could cut off her hands.

GEOFFREY: ... but I can't look at Blanchett either, because I am allergic to things that look like a three-year old made them in pre-school...

CATE: Yep! Proud of my work and my hair! Life is good!

ABBIE: This is making me so mad. I have ONE series of suspicious moments with Ryan Witherspoon or whatever his name was, and nobody will talk to me; she wears THAT thing and all anyone can say is, "She's so talented!" I seriously need an Oscar. That thing is a free pass.

GEOFFREY: I kind of miss being in the pirate movie. With Depp and Bloom, I never had to avert my eyes ANYWHERE.

CATE: Abbie looks pretty. Geoffrey's shirt makes me crave celery. I'm having a very pleasant day.

ABBIE: It's not even a LEAD ACTRESS Oscar, either, though, so it doesn't even COUNT. She's in, like, Marisa Tomei-land. Which is practically a made-up place.

GEOFFREY. My eyes hurt. I have nowhere to go. This is so awkward. I need a whiskey.

ABBIE: Maybe Cate really IS pregnant again. She kind of looks like it. And it would explain the tent dress. Does pregnancy make you blind, though? Because seriously, she has to be blind, right? How sad. Maybe I can play her in the movie. And win a REAL Oscar. IN A REAL DRESS. God, it'll be sweet.

Y'all.

Um! Look. I don't know WHY y'all are all acting all WORKED UP every time I leave the house, but I was taught that just because things are going all backasswards in your life like when OLD FAT JUDGES decide that just because you can't always tell your kids apart maybe you should stop doing drugs, it doesn't mean you're not allowed to dress up like a P-I-M-P and get your drink on, okay? I saw on Judge Joe Brown yesterday that it's NORMAL for people to use ALCOHOL to solve their problems so why don't all y'all just LEAVE ME ALONE. But take my picture first.

Whatever the opposite of LOVE is,

BRITNEY.

Alex Curran is, according to Wikipedia, an über-WAG -- meaning she, as the spouse of Liverpool's rather cute Steven Gerrard, is considered a Queen Bee of the wives and girlfriends of English footballers. And by that I mean soccer, which I am not clarifying because I think anyone out there does not realize this; rather, because whoever styled her for this photo shoot may have mistaken her as being involved with America's version of football:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

Many of our nation's linebackers would covet shoulder pads like those.

I think my favorite part of the photo, though, is the very FACT of it: that OK! magazine is pairing up with this woman to hawk a perfume. Have you ever read a tabloid and thought to yourself, "I would give any amount of money to smell like this publication's magic essence"? And what exactly would that smell like? Ink? Sex and drugs? Dirt, since that's what they're peddling?

Further, I'm unclear as to what her dress is doing in the front there -- it LOOKS, from this angle, as if it has formed a shelf onto which she can set the bottle of perfume when it becomes too heavy (or stow a football, or a baby, or a thermos full of cosmopolitans). It's like a built-in table. How handy would THAT be at cocktail parties? Maybe somebody should explore making this an actual party trend. Because sometimes you can't hold a drink AND eat your finger-food at the same time, and that is one of life's real tragedies that a dress-desk would ably address. Come on, Lagerfeld, let's get on this.

Wow, since when did Jessica Simpson lose every single line in her face?

Please please please please tell me this is what we old fogies used to call air-brushing (every time I use the phrase "air-brushing," I get an email which reads, basically, "IT'S CALLED PHOTOSHOP YOU IGNORANT OLD BAG!!!!" and I do understand that almost no one actually "air-brushes" anymore, but it's just such an evocative phrase that I like to keep it circulating) and J. Simp didn't get an eyelift and beaucoup Botox. I spent ten minutes at my corner market today staring at this cover, Diet Coke in one hand and a bag of half-off Halloween candy in the other, trying to figure out if she looked good here or not. And then I realized, if I have to think about it, the answer is probably no.

How appropriate that, on Halloween, Miss Tyra was snapped starring in what I hope will be expanded into a stirring documentary, Even Supermodels Get The Polterwang:

[Photo: Splash News]

This whole ensemble would appear to be Tyra's very finest version of, "I want you to want to look at me, even though I don't want you to look at me, except maybe for five minutes or so, and if you ARE looking at me, I want to be able to look at you without you knowing I'm looking at you. CARRY ON. NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Except for my boobs. And my lower half. And my neck. Because neck is what separates me from the actresses. Now GO AWAY. But not too far."

And, about eight inches below the bottle opener that appears to be dangling from the aforementioned Neck Of A Thousand Photographs, lies a whopper of a sausage roll. A spectral scrotum the likes of which some men might even envy. WHAT was she thinking? Those leggings -- I refuse to believe they are in any way related to actual pants -- expose a multitude of sins and even truss up some saintly deeds as minor misdemeanors. Ty-Ty, Mr. Jay would NEVER have let you leave the house like that, and as charming as she seems, even Twiggy probably would've drawled, "I love your face. The camera loves you. You're very photogeeeeeenic. But you just don't look like a model to me."

It's a whole different battle of the bulge than Tyra fought in January on the cover of People; hopefully we can look forward to a similarly touching episode of her talk show in which the entire male audience wears identical leggings with their inch counts printed on them in unfriendly white digits. But in the meantime, yes, fine, it was the scariest day of the year, but PLEASE send that package via special-delivery STRAIGHT into the nearest dumpster. Happy Hallowiener!