February 2009 Archives

Victory in our time! We KNEW we needed to do a test run before Fug Madness began in earnest; it appears the glitch has been ironed out, and the post below is now accepting comments. So go ahead and nominate your favorite (or least favorite) fugged-up celebs!

Yes, that's right: Come mid-March, The Great and Powerful Bai will lower her magic curtain to reveal the brackets for the second annual Fug Madness tournament, in which we go all democratic to determine the fugliest-dressed celebrity. We're positively giddy 'round here at GFY HQ. Intern George has been bouncing off the walls, sleeping with last season's bracket under his pillow, which wears a case that's been silkscreened with a Photoshopped image of Karl Lagerfeld wearing Cher's head on one shoulder and Bjork's head on the other. And we are pretty sure that defending champion Bai Ling brought out that wig at the end of the eligibility period just to make sure she got another high seeding. Smart girl. She knows us well.

But this year, the rules are slightly different, and today we're soliciting your help. Want to know why? Read on after the jump...

File this away under, Things I Never Thought I Needed To Specify (a document I begin during a long-ago season of The Amazing Race, wherein we learned that one of the racers was dating someone whose mother still trimmed his toenails for him, at age 20-something. I wasn't aware that I had to add, "capable of cutting one's own toenails" to my list of man requirements, right behind, "alive" and "does not live in car"):

Get ready for the return of shoulder pads, guys. According to the New York runways, they're hot for fall; according to Mary-Kate Olsen, they're hot for NOW.



These aren't even that extreme, but on her they're like tiny little end tables glued to her shoulder, on which someone taller could rest a cocktail during the party. I'm not sure I'm ready to revisit the times when we all looked a helmet and a mouth guard away from throwing a block or sacking the quarterback, but if my shoulders could be in service of, say, Intern George's margarita habit, then maybe I can get on board.

You guys, I think Solange has finally gone off the deep end.


[Photo: WENN]

This is like a gentle homage to Michael Stipe, with a dash of those crazy glasses Meshach Taylor wore in Mannequin when he played Hollywood -- you know, the window-display designer who seemed to think it was totally fine if Andrew McCarthy made out with inanimate women in the bathroom, just as long as he kept figuring out a way to make the mannequins move. If Solange shows up at Saks tomorrow in a giant classic convertible with a pink cover on it and pitches a "Losing My Religion"-themed display, all while trying to call Kim Cattrall's agent, we will know for sure she is broken. Or possibly a disturbed genius.

I just... I wish so many things. I wish I had a Diet Coke in my hand. I wish all the daytime soaps didn't suck right now. I wish those Charmin commercials with the dancing cartoon bears who flaunt their wiping habits had never been made. And I wish Nicole Kidman would stop wearing white.



I also wish she hadn't done her hair that way, but let's get back to the clothes: White DOES NOT WORK FOR ME ON HER BODY. Although Nicole has done what she can with makeup, I think it totally washes out her beautiful skin, especially without the darker red hair to balance it. As a fair skinned person myself, if I wore this, I suspect someone would come up to me and say, "I'm so sorry to see that you apparently have been locked in an attic for five years. You must have very strong WiFi in your house." Not to mention how the gown itself seems overly slouchy, and as if it's some sort of dying exotic bird that is about to molt its last feathers. I mean, seriously, if I yanked out the tails of some of my old My Little Pony toys and crimped them, and glued them to a skirt, it would be a pretty decent approximation of what's happening down around her feet. It saddens me. Bounce back with some color next time, Nic. I know you can do it -- you once wore chartreuse, woman! Be bold again.

If there's one thing I love about Paris Hilton (hint: there isn't), it's that she's really mastered the art of subtlety:



So UNDERSTATED, right? She's just about to blend into the wall, poor dear. It's really rather sad.  

Another season of The Hills, another column in which we pick apart the trailer in an attempt at reality show prognostication:

"AUDRINA AND JUSTIN BOBBY:
What They Want Us to Think: BUT WHERE IS JUSTIN BOBBY?
What's Really Going to Happen: Just because you can't see him doesn't mean he's not there. Justin Bobby is like a cockroach: The Hills could be hit with a nuclear bomb and he would crawl out of the rubble just in time to tell Audrina something that sounds really deep but is actually meaningless, and then convince her to take off her top."

Swing on by NY Mag.com to watch the trailer and join us in making fun of Speidi. You know you'll miss them when they're gone. Eventually. Maybe. If that ever happens.

So...is Maggie Grace dressed like Sandy from Grease on purpose?



Even if she is, this is...well, a bit terrifying. It's giving me chills. They're multiplying. You guys, I'm losing control, because the combination of pantyhose and sateen is LITERALLY ELECTRIFYING. In that there is no way she's not battling the worst static cling of her life right now. You know, in addition to looking kind of like a 75-year old matron who's appearing in Del Boca Vista's Annual Tribute to the Masterworks of Olivia Newton John (you should see their Xanadu routine). 

Mostly, the people who swapped outfits after the Oscars were ladies who had really dramatic trains that risked getting ruined -- people like Marisa Tomei or Penelope Cruz, who clearly did not want to look down and see a plate of shrimp, half a glass of red wine, and Madonna's shoe-print all over their beautifully elaborate hems. However, Alicia Keys joined the ranks of those who changed just because.

Here's what she had on for the red-carpet portion of events:



I love that pinkish-purple, and her lipstick complements it nicely (I cannot thank her ENOUGH for not doing a nude or pale-pink lip, because I am generally tired of those), although that shiny eyeshadow does contour her a TAD too much -- sometimes I had to blink to make absolutely sure it really was Alicia Keys, and not some lookalike who only got in because she hummed two bars of "Fallen" to the security guard. And I admit to being semi-distracted by the bodice; when she was on-screen, I'd immediately wonder why her right boob was higher and two cup sizes smaller than the left, and then have to remind myself it's just a trick of the dress.

But in the end, there's something undeniably floaty and romantic about it. Her actual loveliness often gets lost by some weird ensemble or other -- skintight jeans, jumpsuits with lumpy crotches. Not so here. For which I am ALSO profoundly grateful, because if she'd shown up wearing a spandex jumpsuit with a biscuit-sized bulge in exactly the wrong place, I'd have gotten an attack of the vapors.

This dress didn't make it to the after-party, though. Here's what did:

From The Desk of Etta James:



"Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009. Afternoon. Watched Oscar red-carpet. Read in Us Weekly that Jessica Biel's stylist wanted her to start the day with a hike and a sauna; noted that lack of mention of scheduled shower time might explain her coif problems. Suspect stylist should not have said that out loud to a reporter. Saw that cow Beyonce doing her thing, waving her stupid hand, holding her stupid robot pose where her other arm doesn't touch the rest of her body. Took vitamins with shot of tequila. Nice to see that, at last, Beyonce's dress sense has not come along. HA HA. I slay me. Looks like she took a black gown and did a brass rubbing over it. Paid pizza delivery boy. Still can't fathom why that Beyonce diva is toting a tuffet around behind her. Who does she think she is, Little Miss Muffet? I wish she would Little Miss MUFFLE-It! DAMN, Etta, you are on fire tonight. If that woman sings so much as ONE LINE of my song at the Oscars, vow to throw knives at my damn wall. HATE."

"Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009. Late evening. Woke up from rage-induced coma. Now spackling holes in the wall. Plan to send disrespectful strumpet a care package of curds and whey with a tarantula in it. Must remember to water plants. Also, add arsenic to curds. Just to keep it interesting."

Oh, RACHEL WEISZ. She's normally so pretty, but this weekend...well, we had some issues. Let's start with her look for the Vanity Fair party, AKA Night of A Million Networking Moments:



I saw this on the runway like two days before she wore it -- this sounds so glamorous, but please believe me when I tell you that seeing it on the runway was book-ended by, like, spilling coffee all down the front of my Gap turtleneck and being serenaded for twenty minutes on the subway by a man who seemed to specialize in soft, yoga-inspired flute-jazz that did not, in fact, make me want to find my deepest chakras but actually brought me to the brink of flute-inspired MURDER -- and it looked much better there than it did on her, even with the white tights and shoes.  I've been trying to figure out why for like the last three days, and I think it might be HER shoes. I love the dress, but I think the cut of the skirt is fighting with the strappy strappiness of the shoes, and, as that ancient proverb taught us, when your lower body can't agree, truly fugly you might be.

And then we had the ensemble she threw together for the Independent Spirit Awards:

MALIN AKERMAN: Hi, Carla! Can you believe this thing is finally coming out?

CARLA GUGINO: By "thing," do you mean this movie, or that dress? Because I DEFINITELY cannot believe the dress.

MALIN: What's wrong with it?

CARLA: You have to ask?

MALIN: I will be interested to hear, coming from someone who looks both kind of stumpy AND washed-out.

CARLA: Eh, but I've been around forever and I'm still totally hot. Plus, I've never shown up anywhere looking like an ice-dancing prostitute. Seriously, for a second, I thought those were giant furry boots, and that you were about to explain to me how a triple salchow can involve handcuffs.

MALIN: It's a ruffled skirt, I'll have you know.

CARLA: But kid, you're, like, 50 percent naked and covered in glitter like a child's art project:

When Anne hit the red carpet, Jessica and I turned to each other and went, "Ooooh, I... don't know." The dress made her look bottom-heavy in a way that we all know full well she is not -- seriously, I'd be surprised if she weighs as much as the jewelry some other people had on that night.

But now that I've gazed upon it in photos, I've completely changed my mind.



I think I love it on her. It doesn't make her look bottom-heavy at all -- it makes her look curvy, or at least curvier, because the cut gives her hips. All those paillettes catch the light in a really fanciful way, and she did an artful job of being restrained with accessories on a night where the folks at Harry Winston -- or some other Beverly Hills bling emporium -- were on their knees begging her to put on another $2 million or so. After the year she's had, this is a fitting climax, especially because she seemed to enjoy herself so much. Hopefully next time she's honored at the Oscars, it'll be for a movie that didn't look like it was going to make me want to slit my wrists.

What's going on with the not-quite-skirts, y'all? First Marion Cotillard, then Madonna, and now Gwen Stefani:


[Photo: WENN]

Seriously, it's like she stole the thatched roof off someone's tiki hut, dyed it black, and hit up a funeral luau. Has she traded in Harajuku for Hawaii? I'd just appreciate a little warning so I can prepare myself mentally, in the event that she shows up on American Idol in a grass skirt and a coconut bra while a posse of 14 women in leis carry in a pig on a spit.

Sheryl. Sheryl, Sheryl, Sheryl. SHERYL. You are debunking your own lyrical statement that if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. Because I think this IS that bad.



If you thought we'd be too consumed with the Oscars to notice that your petticoat is showing underneath that skirt that looks like an ancient world map drawn by someone who thought we floated in an ocean of blood -- or that you are wearing a bright white bra as a shirt -- then you were sorely mistaken. WE SEE ALL. Thanks, in part, to you wearing a transparent sweater. It's kind of like playing Hide and Seek by standing behind a lamp. Remind me never to tell you a secret, because it seems you're not great at keeping things under wraps.

[First, just a quick house-keeping note: our Oscar coverage is long this year, so if you haven't been checking the site a lot recently, you may have missed the pieces that have fallen off the front page. So make sure to click to the next page once you get to the bottom. More procrastination material available!]

As much as I love Paulina Porizkova on America's Next Top Model -- and I love her A LOT -- I don't think I've ever fully gotten over losing Janice Dickinson here:



Paulina is like the man you marry: You adore her, she's funny and insightful, and you're thrilled to be with her. You know she is the right fit for you. And Janice is like the crazy hot dude you spent one wild summer with, on whom you look back with great fondness, a bit of wistful longing, and a huge sense of relief that you're not tethered to him for the rest of your life because, as hilarious and fun as that summer was, it was also mildly scary because he was nuts, and you knew that at any moment he could show up drunk and start humping Tyra's leg. But that doesn't meant that when you see him, you don't think, "Man, GOOD TIMES." Which is what I think whenever I see J. Dick. I mean, look at her here. From the waist up, she looks great -- if a bit Futuristic Amelia Earhart. From the waist down, she looks like a department store mannequin circa 1991, when someone at the Mannequin Factory decided that it would be awesome if Macy's had to display its wares on something with no head, no hands, and silver skin. So we could all more accurately guess how that blazer would look on the alien on our Christmas list. Which is kind of what Janice is, after all, anyway, isn't she?

Yes, that's right, you read the headline correctly -- this is probably going to be a really unpopular opinion, but I don't care. I am going to defend Miley Cyrus' Oscar dress. Because the more I read how much people hated it, the more I'm like, "... Wow, I really didn't think it was that bad at ALL."

To do it, though, I'm going to start with what she wore last year. Remember this?



At the time a lot of critics -- including me, and I still stand by it -- thought this was overly aging. Like she was trying to be a demure 25-year old, and while I appreciate the instinct not to skank it up at her first-ever Oscars and ESPECIALLY at her young age, it came off more like she borrowed a dress from her mother. Under extreme duress. At the time Miley was 15 and whether you like her or not, she's got a really lively personality. She banters with Ryan Seacrest better than people twice her age, even if occasionally that banter is about how bummed she is that she got a hand-me-down Porsche for her birthday. (I mean, I hope she can also have her tight diamond shoes stretched so they don't give her blisters -- seriously, I've had the same Honda since I was 20, and I just found out the front undercarriage is being held together by a coat hanger. For real. I have no idea how it happened.) Yet somehow she hits this oddly entertaining combo of acting her age AND being personable, and this dress really wastes that.

So, now let's jump ahead to this year's Oscars and take a gander at what she picked:

Regardless of how I feel about her gowns, I have to confess that I freaking love Taraji P. Henson. First of all, her haircut is very cute, and I am easy wooed by good hair. (Just ask Patrick Dempsey.)  Plus, she seems so funny and charming any time she's interviewed. Also, according to Wikipedia, during college, "she worked two jobs--in the morning as a secretary at the Pentagon and in the night as a singing and dancing waitress on a dinner cruise ship," and if that's not the set-up for a charming sitcom, I don't know what is. But let's talk about the gowns, anyway. Here's Taraji's Oscar dress:



Like so many Oscar-going ladies, Taraji changed for the parties. This thing is getting long, so click through for the rest.

Ugh.

Clearly, Madonna is the master of reinvention, but I just wish she'd DECIDE on something already. Either she's going to compete in the Miss Jacked-Up America contest by bench-pressing a pile of tires during the talent/formalwear portion...



... or she's slowly becoming Liza Minnelli.

SJP: And what are YOU giggling at, Matthew?

MATTHEW BRODERICK: I'm just... hee... suddenly craving gumballs.

SJP: Very funny.

MATTHEW: Do you think your sister Glinda the Good Witch could conjure a few for me?

SJP: Ha ha...

MATTHEW: Or some Milk Duds?

SJP: Right, or how about some Junior Mints, I'm telling everyone my dress is a gentle "barely mint" color? I get it. You are SO hilarious.

MATTHEW: Look, I told you not to wear a giant boob shelf that had sprouted a tutu. You are not in a ballet called Silicone Valleys.

SJP: THESE ARE VERY REAL.

MATTHEW: Yeah, and you managed to make them look fake. That's quite an achievement.

SJP: Can it, Ferris.

MATTHEW: That reminds me -- just WAIT until you hear my stash of "cans" jokes.

SJP: Sigh.

First, I tried addressing Kate Winslet and Reese Witherspoon's dresses separately, since they're not exactly identical, but I kept wanting to say similar things about them. Both gowns have in common the concept of a basic idea embellished with black overlays, and both of them have me firmly on the fence. Which is not a comfortable place to be. Too many splinters. So while Intern George fetches some iodine and the tweezers, let's first take a look at Kate's choice:



I really like the bluish-gunmetal color. But with the hair and what she appears to imagine is her regal bearing, it all just seems a bit OLD to me. Or rather, mature. Like she is planning to get together with Carolina Herrera and Princess Anne after the Oscars for a brandy. The other issue is that neckline. The pleating over her left boob is lovely, but there is something funky happening under the shoulder strap -- almost like there is a shoulder pad stuck in there acting as a nipple shield. And finally, the front overlay feels a bit randomly glued to the waistband. Adding up those elements and the fact that the back is black satin, it's just... a lot. Kind of like a valentine made by a very depressed fourth-grader, who is pretty sure that the little red-headed girl is never going to like him if he can't even kick a football without landing flat on his back. I wanted Kate Winslet to embrace being young and hot, as opposed to taking the whole Greatest Actress Of Her Generation thing so seriously that she's aging herself into some kind of Tinseltown monarch.

And then there's Reese:

Only Sharon Stone could prompt the comment, "Sharon Stone looks great, even if she is essentially topless":

I keep imagining how I would address this were I a character on The Hills:



JESSICA: [long, blank, unblinking stare]

LC: Hey.

JESSICA: Hey.

LC: So....

JESSICA: [long, blank, unblinking stare]

LC: [long, blank, unblinking stare]

JESSICA: How do you feel about that thing that happened with that person?

LC: [tears begin to fall. Her mascara runs...beautifully] I just want us to be friends!

JESSICA: I know. It's so hard. What are you going to do?

LC: I don't know.

JESSICA: Your hair looks depressed.

LC: [long, blank, unblinking stare]

JESSICA: And your skirt is uncharacteristically short. Are you okay?

LC: No! I'm really upset, Jessica! I have relationship problems! Are you NEW?

JESSICA: [long, blank, unblinking stare].

AND SCENE.

So, THIS didn't go according to plan:



I assume the plan was to look like a glorious mermaid -- a delicious siren! -- and not like a woman who'd actually been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. If I've got that reversed, though...well, mission accomplished.

Having just seen Rose Byrne looking perfectly happy at rag & bone's show during Fashion Week, I can't figure out why she always seems to be dying inside whenever the cameras are trained on her. It's possible that she's just secretly in love with Jimmy Fallon, with whom she arm-wrestled and giggled at in the front row, and whenever she's not in his orbit her soul feels cracked and broken.



But I guess she could just be depressed that everyone keeps checking his or her makeup in her crotch. I imagine the last thing you want is for Mickey Rourke to see himself in your nethers.

Rumor has it that Ms Marion here has appeared on several Worst Dressed lists, and I don't know, you guys. I kind of fell in love with her at the last Oscars and I might STILL be in love with her.



It's pretty! Of course, I historically: (a) love black and blue together, (b) have a secret weakness for sequins (that is, in fact, the name of my autobiography: A Secret Weakness for Sequins: Not Without My Paillettes; The Jessica Morgan Story), and (c) I think she's pretty, so I'm biased. I'm terribly, terribly biased. Because I might love it. Or I might have some kind of fever. The kind that needs more cowbell, obviously. But there's not a cowbell to be had in my apartment right now, so I probably need your help.

A lot of ladies who wore long trains changed their dresses between the Oscar telecast and the parties. Since she wasn't wearing one, I can't figure out why Jessica Biel swapped her Prada for Oscar de la Renta -- unless she, too, realized that wan nuptial sack was fashion narcolepsy, or she has a storied history of dumping caviar and red wine down the front of her dress at industry fetes.

Here's what she ended the night wearing:



All that loud shiny satin is a little achy on the eyes, and I don't like the lines of the skirt. And would it have killed her to fix the hair? THE HAIR. STILL. KILLS ME. It's TERRIBLE. Dry shampoo.  A brush and a ponytail. Philip Seymour Hoffman's knit cap. ANY of these, at this point, would've been acceptable solutions to the fact that her hair looks like she was just in the dressing room for three hours pulling sweaters on and off over her head.

But for me, this dress is hugely preferable to the other -- in fact, I'm not sure why she didn't wear this from the get-go. She'd have stood out more on the red carpet, for better or worse (and frankly, she stood out for the worse already, as it was). She would've looked bold, as opposed to boring. And maybe wearing this dress, with the heavier neckline, could've forced her to do something else with her hair to hide the grease factory. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. She is a GROWN WOMAN. Is it that she wants us all to know she can barely make time for the Oscars, amid the constant stream of sexercise she's getting between the sheets with Justin? Because that's great, kid. We get it. Congratulations. You have afterglow in your hair. Your mother will be so proud.

Um.



Words fail me. Seriously. I have been looking at this thing for like twenty minutes. It...is not flattering.  I even had one terrible moment when I thought it was BLOOMERS. But it's not. (Right? It's not bloomers. It can't be bloomers. It's just a skirt, right? RIGHT? IT'S JUST A SKIRT.) I know Salma just got married -- mazel tov, Salma! -- but just because she's off the market, it doesn't mean she has to start dressing like a stumpy little Hefty bag. Salma Hayek looking like she's wearing a deflated weather balloon just isn't right.  She's supposed to look glamorous and saucy. Anything else makes me feel like the universe is a bit out of whack.

I'm beginning to think -- okay, well, actually, I've suspected this for years, but go with me on this -- that there's no pleasing me when it comes to Lisa Rinna. She'd wear leopard all the time and it annoyed me; she then shook it up with some solids in bright colors, but I couldn't be pleased because she traded it for showing off her Brazilian and other assorted bits, and I am not particularly interested in her private flesh tones.

So she fixed it on Sunday:



She's wearing a great color that keeps all her groceries in the bag, AND she was just quoted in some magazine as being (correctly) semi-horrified by her own cheek implants, but I still cannot climb aboard. Because, aside from how it looks like much of her face is straining simply to achieve getting her mouth open, can we discus the hair? What is that? Even Ryan Seacrest got rid of his frosted tips a year or so ago. And the style... when I look at it, all I can think of is this:

I really loved the whole yellow dress/red shoes thing several years ago, when Reese Witherspoon did it, but there's something about Dita's look lately that has made her look much older than she actually is. Like, how old do you think this woman is?



She's only 36. She looks about ten years older, all of a sudden. I think Dita's stringently retro make-up, combined with the shorter, prim hair (the sort that many young women had fifty years ago, but which we're currently accustomed to seeing on our grandma), is something that a very young person can pull off nicely -- because the juxtaposition works -- but as she ages, it starts to look less like a statement and like she's just out of touch, even if that's not actually the case. Also, I think I preferred this dress better in its first iteration as curtains at the Waldorf.

On the red carpet, Vanessa Hudgens told Ryan Seacrest that when she first picked out this Marchesa dress, it was cocktail-length and they extended it for her. But E!, as was the problem almost all of the night, never panned down to show us the proof.



Even as a cocktail dress, it looks a tiny bit like a crow and a dove made a suicide pact to fly smack into her torso. But also, is that not the laziest way ever to turn a short dress into a gown? I'm sure Georgina Chapman was a little knackered from getting her Fashion Week collection together, but still: "Oh, sure, we'll just... hmm. GOD, I need a nap. But I can't keep putting off Harvey by telling him I have to work, or I have a headache, or my appendix is throbbing... Blast. Well, I think I have a yard or three of black left over from making the Fall 2009 collection, I'll just bung that on the end and we'll call it a fishtail so maybe I can get some shut-eye before he comes in with the blindfold."

A twofer from us over at NY Mag.com today. First up, Heather and I look back on Fashion Week. Don't you want to know which show prompted this reaction?

"[It] wasn't just a wickedly disorganized crush of angry women, it was a wickedly disorganized crush of angry women and frightened children, making us feel as though we were getting a small taste of what it must have been like trying to get onto a lifeboat on the Titanic."

You can get the answer to that question -- as well as who looks terrible in person, who looks glorious, and what we've done to avoid the Wrath of Kanye (like the Wrath of Khan, but with more sunglasses), right here.

In Oscar-related news, if you're interested in checking out our live-blog of the red carpet, you can get all up in that drama here.

That's right, Aniston, prepare to be shocked and amazed: We totally dug this dress on you.



It's not black! It's not plain! It's downright glittery! It's completely flattering! And frankly, you have every right to look happy, since you stood up there in front of Brangelina -- knowing full well that the entire time you and Jack Black did your comedy bit, the telecast directors would be squawking about cutting to as many shots of them staring up at you as possible -- and you nailed it gracefully and as if nobody in the room had ever divorced you and then knocked up the world's most beautiful woman two times. It's a shame you're dating kind of a douche. A funny douche, and a personable one, sure, but still, isn't it a tad fishy that John Mayer was supposedly asking for "space" and "breathing room" and other commitment-phobe cliches about a week or two ago, then conveniently decided to be all over you at the post-parties for the Academy Awards? Although maybe you see right through it. Maybe you wanted it that way -- seriously, bring a date who appears smitten with your yoga-sculpted hot ass, just in case you bump into Angelina at the bar. Maybe you are a genius. Regardless, you looked gorgeous, so bask in the glow of our collective affection and then go find a nicer, more reliable boy toy that you are not in danger of needing to enroll in Tool Academy. That Zachary Levi is cute, AND tall. John Stamos is single -- who doesn't love Uncle Jesse? Ben Roethlisberger needs a nice lady friend to remind him about wearing helmets on his motorcycle. See? There are options.

For some reason -- I cannot quite put my finger on why -- I feel strongly that this outfit is merely fair.



It's neither hideous nor magical on Kate -- simply average. The fix, I think, might be simple: letting her hair down so she looks less like a milkmaid, and then applying some actual makeup to her face. There have been great, monumental advances recently in this arena. For instance, they make this great stuff now called "lip gloss," which you can put on your mouth to give it a color that doesn't match the tone of your skin, and there's also these weird pencil things named "eye liner" that you can use with this sort of pigmented shadow-stuff that goes on your lids. You can even use a giant brush to put stuff on your cheeks to make it look as if you are blushing naturally. I know it sounds like a crazy, brave new world -- like we just got dropped into an episode of The Jetsons -- but it's all real, and it's all happening. Somebody please take her hand and show her the way to Sephora.

I'm sure Melissa George is thrilled and relieved now that she's away from the rat's nest of gossip and dead-fiance-macking nonsense that is Grey's Anatomy.



But I question the wisdom of picking a dress that expressed the "floating on cloud nine" concept quite so literally.

So, if I'd had a dollar for every time I turned to Heather last night and shrugged and said, "I think I need to see a picture," we wouldn't have to sell advertising anymore. I could NOT make up my mind about anything. OR get a decent look at many of the dresses, it felt like. (In part, I think, because both E! and TV Guide had like no room on the red carpet to get their camera back far enough for a full body shot of anyone. TV Guide, in particular, had their camera, like, perched on the top of Lisa Rinna's head.) So I almost feel like this is the first time I'm getting a real look at Tomei's frock:



I....like it? I think. Maybe. I mean, sure: The bottom looks like a series of very involved cocktail napkins, as spread out over a bar. (In fact, we actually had a reader email us during the red carpet to bemoan the fact that Tomei's dress was giving her flashbacks to a time when she worked at a restaurant as a napkin wrangler, and I can see how this would give such a girl the vapors. I once worked at an insurance brokerage and if someone showed up on the red carpet wearing a liability waiver as a hat, I would probably have a breakdown.) But at least it's sort of interesting and it's not like the napkins are all waving around her face in a distracting and crazy fashion. In fact, I think my biggest complaint is that the one strap....is almost too big to even be called a strap. And yet it's obviously not a sleeve. It's a...slrap. Her slrap feels a bit WIDE to me. I keep staring at it and trying to decide if I would like it better were it less slrap-like and more strap-like, or if I would just chop it off and make the whole kit and kaboodle strapless (and slrapless). Oh, what to do, what to do....?

 

"Damn it."

I actually like this better now than I did when I first saw it last night:



When Freida Pinto -- whom I love, and whose shiny hair I covet madly -- first appeared on E!, Heather and I both gasped in horror. The whole thing felt so old lady. Kind of mother-of-the-bride. A rather dramatic MotB, to be sure, but still. You know: lacy sleeve, quasi-BeDazzlement, the hint of tulle. It all seemed a little too close to Jordon almonds and place cards. In fact, in our tizzy of dismay, we may have confabulated a story we had both thought we read, in which we allegedly learned Andre Leon Talley had taken Freida under his wings and taken her to Oscar de la Renta, a la Jennifer Hudson. There was a lot of hand-wringing over how, as much as we love ALT and his custom-made man-furs and glittery caps, he has become THE ANGEL OF RED CARPET DEATH for first-time Oscar-going starlets and how could he do this to her after what happened to Jennifer Hudson and The Bolero of Doom and why, God, WHY WHY GOD WHY? And then Freida explained that the dress was Galliano and we both started to think that maybe we dreamed the whole ALT thing in a Fashion Week/Oscar Night fever, and we ate some dip and calmed down. And this morning, I am considerably less alarmed. In fact, after a good night's sleep, I can recognize that I like the color quite a lot. And there is something vaguely sari-esque about it, which is kind of brilliant. And yet...and yet. And yet I still wish she had worn something younger. I do. I have decided.

The small mercy: SWINTON is at least wearing lipstick, to prevent her looking like a zombie.



The larger mercy: SWINTON, period. Last year she went with the garbage-bag caftan; now, it's her very best funeral sarong and what I think may be a summer poncho she turned into a blouse with the aid of a strategically placed hair elastic.

Sure, okay, she could have added a lei made of Creme Eggs and a blazer woven from porcupine quills, but we have plenty of time for her to rise up the bonkers scale. We're only in the first third of 2009. Isaac Mizrahi just sent handbag hats down the runway, so she's probably just working up to the day when she'll swan into a premiere at Cannes and start stuffing people's business cards into her millinery before kneeling in front of the valet so he can find her wallet. Believe.

I hate to step on Tim Gunn's lines, but this IS a whole lot of look. Also, I'm concerned. Gather round:



Klum, of course, is one of those women who can get away with wearing a lot of things, and I admire her work on behalf of heart disease in women (which is why she's wearing red), but this looks a bit...overworked, shall we say? It's kind of like what would happen if origami had a baby with those aluminum foil swans they wrap your leftovers in at various restaurants. And then got dunked in a vat of nail polish. And took a drunken lap through the accessories department at Excessive R Us.  And then...okay, I guess that's it. But isn't that enough? Or, rather, too much? I thought so. Thank you. Carry on!

VIOLA DAVIS: I am so excited. I can't believe I'm here!

DUDE BEHIND VIOLA DAVIS: Holy cats. That woman is FOXY.

VIOLA: I had twelve minutes on the movie screen and my nose was totally running for at least half of it! But I still got nominated, because I kind of stole the hell out of that scene from Meryl Streep!

DBVD: I could play her like a viola, if you get my meaning. She could come join my string quartet, if you hear my drift.

VIOLA: I'm 43 years old and I never thought this time would come, but it did!

DBVD: She's 43?!?!? HOT DAMN. Shoot, somehow that makes her even finer. I cannot stop checking out her ass. I may need to Twitter her, if you know what I'm saying.

VIOLA: I am going to WORK THIS, fools! Drink it in, but it won't be your only sip!

DBVD: Sip? Why, I could tap that entire cask of finest vino and chug it in two minutes, if you smell what I'm steppin' in, succulent lady!

VIOLA: 'Cause, see, I have a rockin' bod and a killer face, this dress rules on me, and I don't look a day over 35. So after my big nomination, I am NOT going to disappear into the ether or do Botox ads like that Virginia Madsen person. Hell no, Hollywood. I am here to STAY. GET READY TO LOVE ME, Y'ALL!

DBVD: Yeeeeeah, baby, that's right -- I already love you. I could love you all night. Maybe even until sometime in the early morning, before I have to sneak back home and get in bed just in case my mother checks on me and notices I put a blow-up toy under the covers. Which.... shoot, my curfew is in fifteen minutes. At least this will make the AWESOMEST Facebook status update EVER.

THANKS FOR MAKING THE EFFORT, HOFFMAN:



Seriously, it's THE OSCARS. You're not running down to the corner store for a gallon of milk and the racing form. You're not skiing. You are not, presumably, heading off to rob a bank after the ceremony wraps. I know this year must have been bittersweet for Supporting Actor nominees. They all knew they would never beat Ledger, and if they were disappointed about that, they then probably felt like assholes for feeling disappointed and then there was a whole big emotional spiral and I get that, but dude: a knit cap? To the Oscars? REALLY? Things are that bad? I heard a rumor that you've got dreadlocks for some role you're doing, but...seriously? A knit cap? SERIOUSLY? You couldn't have just rocked the dreads? Otherwise, for real, A FEDORA would have been a better choice. I would have accepted a BERET before this cap. You could have talked me into A SOMBRERO. But this? Honey. No.

Okay, Adams. You get credit: I figured you would go for a strapless dress, but I was certain it'd either have a fishtail hem, or be a straight up-and-down shift with very little to recommend it. I'm not sure why, exactly. But apparently, based on what she did wear, I can't trust my gut -- which makes sense considering I allowed it to convince me that I needed to eat a bunch of artichoke dip before plowing through several slices of pizza, and that may have been a bad decision.

All of which is to say, my gut told me at first that I really liked this dress, and now I don't know if I can believe what it's saying:



I love the detail on the bodice, no question. It's interesting, it's flattering, and it gave the dress a cool extra dimension without resorting to haphazardly ornate flourishes or unpleasant fabric tongues. What has given me pause is how the skirt connects back up to the bust -- part of me thinks it breaks up the nifty effect that bodice has going, and the rest of me thinks, aw, screw it, she looks pretty, and at least it's a trend nobody else went for that night. Not to mention that the fabric isn't white like practically everyone else's gown (AND Mickey Rourke's suit). And finally, I am divided on the necklace. At first blush I thought it was a funky and unusual choice, but the more I stare at this photo, the more it seems to fight with the gown -- and resemble a commemorative mosaic someone's mother made out of a bunch of broken marbles, which her child shattered during its first and most hilariously memorable tantrum.

Ergo, my gut is conflicted. Usually that ends in a sandwich somehow, but even a sandwich doesn't help with my immediate problem.

I don't know where to start, so I think I'll take "People Whom Justin Timberlake Either Has Dated, Or Is Dating, Who Refuse To Do Their Hair And Who Wear Weirdly Constructed Bridal-Looking Gowns To The Oscars" for $200, Alex:



Tragically, this photo does not quite do justice to how mangy and faintly greasy her hair looked, like she threw it into a half-updo right after she finished a rigorous course of squat-thrusts and lunges. Do we think maybe J.T. is to blame? After dating Pop-Star Britney when she was spit-shined and squeezed into bikinis with snake accessories, maybe he's decided he prefers his girls a little rumpled.

The dress itself doesn't get any more interesting when you see the whole thing, either:

I have lost all sense of space and time, which is why I kind of forgot that the Oscars are THIS SUNDAY and we will be live-blogging the red carpet for The Cut, starting at 6pm EST.  We are praying that Amy Adams wakes up on Sunday morning and decides that, because she's been listening to a ton of Bjork lately, she's going to wear this:



I am 100% not joking. I really want her to wear that.

Everything is confounding me today:

What is HAPPENING?  Why does it look like Andie MacDowell is trying to smuggle some table linens into the party? Is the economy such that there is huge black-market demand for filmy special-event napkins?

Oh my god, I love Pat Field:

WHAT is going on here? And -- more importantly -- what does this mean for the second Sex and the City movie, not to mention the poor fools on Ugly Betty? Have all our dreams been answered and Pat Field is going to do for the turban what she did for giant ass fake flower pins and necklaces that spell out your name in script font? Are we going to see knock-offs of this item at Claire's and Forever XXI, and on the heads of every young girl who works at the Cinnabon? And is it going to be AWESOME, or are all we all going to find ourselves standing in line at Starbucks muttering to each other, "If I see another f'ing hipster in a damn Pat Field turban, I am going to BECOME UNHINGED"? I can't wait to find out.

It is really, really hard to argue with this. I mean... is there a human being alive, sexual orientation aside, who doesn't think Halle Berry is freaking beautiful in an almost genetically unbelievable way?

I know, from past e-mails we've gotten about other people, that some readers out there will think, "But LOOK, she's got that armpit-flab thing going on! It doesn't FIT!" But I'm not so sure it means the dress doesn't fit. I mean, maybe it could hit her in a different spot or something and it would help, but here's the thing: Most of us have meat there. If her entire BOOB were falling out the side, that's one thing, but otherwise that soft squish happens at one time or another to almost everyone, ever, on the face of the planet, who has worn a strapless dress. Unless we are crazy gym rats with guns like Madonna's, we ladies are going to have a varying amount of skin there. I would rather Halle Berry stayed the lovely, curvy, glowing, healthy way she is, and had a little of nature's armpit folds, than eschewed food for six months so that she could look like Nicole Richie and not have any flesh left. Know what I mean?

So, my first reaction to this dress was: She looks hot. It would be kind of awesome to worm my way inside her head for a day, Being John Malkovich-style, and know what it feels like to walk around looking like that.

There was, however, an extra detail in the back:

I feel like I've made multiple cracks about people (okay, Kellie Pickler) showing up places looking like Oksana Baiul this week, and then Oksana Baiul had to go and show up looking like Oksana Baiul and I feel like that joke has just collapsed in on itself and we're through the looking glass and suddenly living at the apex of the universe or something:

Interesting.

It's like she's giving herself to somebody as a wedding gift, but did a horribly sloppy wrapping job. I think she should've just stayed on-registry and gone with the chafing dish.

Courtney, Courtney, Courtney.

[Photo:Splash News]

Actually, I don't know that I have much to complain about right now. i am weary of the baby-pink lipstick everyone is wearing these days, which makes it look like they are mouthless mannequins. But the dress -- or coat; whatever -- isn't offensive necessarily. It's SHORT, but you know what? I'm really tired. Fashion Week is ending and the Oscars are on Sunday, and I'm all tapped out of crotch jokes. I need to save whatever mojo is left in that arena, in the event that Meryl Streep wears a buttock-scraper this weekend or Mickey Rourke decides to put on a gown with a giant slit up in the vicinity of his business. Know what I mean?

Instead, let's look at her shoes:

 

I do not understand this.

Wow, Anne of Green Gables would've loved this.

Just look at those puffed sleeves. Of course, someone like SWINTON probably wears stuff like this to cook pasta or clean the toilets, or eat Triscuits while watching Can't Hardly Wait on the USA Network and wondering why the hell Jenna Elfman is in it, and where she went. But Estelle is not SWINTON. Estelle looks like a deranged Mary Poppins fan who is trying to inflate her dress at the sleeves and take off on the spot over London's red roofs, and as a bonus, avoiding horrible limo traffic.

At Proenza Schouler on Wednesday night, Leighton Meester debuted some brand spanking new bangs that I think we all need to discuss:

I feel a bit like I did when Rachel Bilson cut hers, which is to say, that the hair curtain is totally unnecessary and is kind of interfering with the rest of her face.  I wonder if they're done filming Gossip Girl yet, because I have a hard time imagining Blair Waldorf would cut bangs unless she lost a bet with Chuck Bass or was going incognito as... well, as Rachel Bilson. I mean, for one thing, it's going to take a LOT of work to pin those suckers back under a headband without tons of spiky little flyaways poking up in the wrong direction.

But maybe I just hate change, and just as with Posh's myriad dramatic haircuts that shock and alarm me at first blush, I will grow to love the bangs and eventually become unable to imagine my life without them.

Every time I try and write this post, it comes out like a congratulatory blurb for a terrible movie that's clearly been created by removing salient words in a negative review. You know, like, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets is...amazing." Or "Christian Slater was...in Kuffs." (Kuffs being the worst movie I have ever paid to see in a theatre. It's terrible. I can only defend myself by pointing out that I was in a full-on hormone rage for him at the time, having recently seen Heathers like 9 times in a row at a friend's house.)



Like, "Brigette Nielsen dressed...for an event." Or, "Brigette's jumpsuit was...for her." Or, "This makes me feel...again." Or, "This...is....spectacularly....on." I kind of feel like that last one covers it.

OKAY, KATY PERRY:

I feel like Zoe McLellan was TRYING to make this a scrolldown fug so that we'd conveniently miss what going on in the middle:

[Photo: WENN]

And it WAS a good effort, putting socks on with her pumps like she's a refugee from Square Pegs or something. But nothing is going to distract me from the fact that she's clearly wearing Scrooge's old nightshirt, after spending all night bleaching the age, drool, and time-travel stains out of it. Great for a Tide commercial, maybe, but not for out in the world.

Yesterday, we mentioned Paris Hilton's obsession with texting while the William Rast models stomped past her. Well, she's at it again, and this time she's got company This photo was taken DURING a show on Tuesday:

REALLY? Fashion shows, once they start, generally last a maximum of ten minutes. You can't put that thing down for TEN MEASLY MINUTES? I seriously doubt they're being paid by a media outlet to Twitter their ways through the tents, especially if it meant not even watching the clothes. If I were your mother, and right now I'm so thrilled not to be, I would march right up to your busy little fingers and rip those stupid machines right out of them. You were invited to attend a show. You are probably being PAID to be there. Paid ACTUAL money. DURING A RECESSION. I'm so sure the designer forked over cash for the privilege of having you look bored in the front row the whole time. If you don't want to be there, give your seat to somebody who does. If you do, well, then SHOW A LITTLE COURTESY, APES.

I realize this has nothing to do with their clothes -- we could talk about Paris's dopey white fishnets and giant tie, though; it's what a four-year old might wear in an Olan Mills photo, posed next to a large tree -- but truly, bad manners make you fuglier than anything you could put on your body.

I feel like I've said all there is to say, for now, about The Hair. And how Taylor Momsen seems to be glaring at the camera in most photos as if it has offended her on a deeply personal level. So instead I will say that I don't hate this outfit, which she wore to the Marchesa show on Wednesday. It's young and funky and fits the aesthetic she's going for -- which, presumably, is Disaffected Rocker Teen Who Wants You To Think She Doesn't Care Even Though She Totally Does, And Is Not Going To Tidy Up Her Room Because That's Why We Have a Cleaning Lady, Mom, DUH -- and I figure, give credit where credit is due. Half the time she's trying to prance around in that hair with fancy ball gowns that are totally out of place on her, or else she's in terrible leggings or a sack dress, so all in all I will accept this as a mark in the "win" column for Little J up there and hope that she adopts a new coif in the Gossip Girl off-season.

Momsen also showed up at Anna Sui, just two hours after she fled Marchesa:

 

You guys, I'm worried that Lindsay is back on the sauce. Or something. Let's talk about what happened at Matthew Williamson's store opening party-thingy a few nights ago at Fashion Week. She showed up looking like this

:

She looks great, right? Okay, a little zonked out, but otherwise pretty sexy and fabulous. Which is why I think she has to be back on the sweet yam yam, because otherwise NO ONE should have been able to change out of this, and into THIS:

I... don't know about this, Kiki.

I get wearing Rodarte to the Rodarte show, but it's my understanding that they have made a lot of more attractive dresses than this. I mean, the Mulleavys are usually the darlings of Fashion Week. If you want to thwart The Man by wearing a pony tail and zero makeup, then by all means go for it -- that's my M.O. on many days, too, although it's worth noting that nobody in his or her right mind wants to take my picture. But regardless of your preference for rejecting blotting papers and lip gloss, I STILL say, beg them to lend you a cuter dress. This thing looks like you were taught how to knit by a blindfolded five-year old who was hopped up on apple juice and Pixy Stix. Not the dashing return to the limelight that I imagined for you.

So, I never really had an issue with Isla Fisher until I read a recent interview with her in Page Six Magazine, where she noted that all of the fancy outfits she buys and doesn't wear go to an 8-year old, and then she says, "I'm embarrassed I'm so small."

Okay. No, you're not. In Hollywood, saying you're "embarrassed" by your petite-itude is like saying, "It's humiliating to be this rich," or, "my incredible beauty is so awkward." If you were really embarrassed by it -- which is certainly possible, as plenty of small women stress about trying to gain weight -- you would NEVER ACTUALLY TELL THAT STORY. "I'm so small, I have to give my designer cast-offs to CHILDREN." I'm sure. It's like the way I am FORCED to light my CIGARS with HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS. Nor would you tell PSM your height and clothing size (five three, and -- of course -- size zero. Allegedly). You would not talk about it to the media in the first place, if it were something that actually bothered you. You only talk about it if it's something you're secretly dying to share, but then you couch it self-deprecatingly because you know you'll sound like an asshole otherwise. Well, I have something I'm dying to share:

 

KRISTEN BELL: Is Paris Hilton's dress in danger of dropping off, while I sit here looking like I'm running the Church Easter egg hunt?

MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Is Paris Hilton actually wearing sunglasses inside like she thinks she's Anna Wintour?

JESSICA STROUP: Is Paris Hilton REALLY wearing tights that make it look like she has a giant leg tattoo?

PARIS HILTON: ME!!!!!!!

NICKY HILTON: I'm totally not with her.

We haven't featured Roisin Murphy nearly enough on our site -- I have a strong feeling she'll be a sleeper contender in Fug Madness this year. Because for her, this is fairly tame:

I wish it were a better angle on her hair, which sits in a coil on the top of her head like a tempting fresh breakfast pastry. She and the lank-haired Nicole Richie rubbed elbows at the Diesel show on Tuesday night, at which the celeb section was cordoned off to protect the likes of Kate Bosworth from prying reporters. BORING.

Earlier in the day, we got an earful of both Khloe and Kim Kardashian at Badgley Mischka, during which Kim told a story about Reggie Bush being startled by naked models. I know, it sounded wrong to me too.

Then we saw Eva Longoria Parker's stylist try to restrain her from bad choices at Matthew Williamson, and a relatively blah Rachel Bilson in the front row at Max Azria. Finally, we rounded out the day with: a little sass and spandex at Baby Phat, where Aubrey O'Day covered up slightly more of her boobs and ANTM's Whitney Thompson picked up the slack; and Narciso Rodriguez's show, where Kanye West finally whipped out the sunglasses and brought a woman in red plastic leggings. That Kanye always gives us something we can stare at unabashedly. At a 9 p.m. show after a long day, there is no greater present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me put it to you this way: We saw Aubrey O'Day's breasts before we saw her face, and we suspect that's exactly how she wanted it.

[Photo: Splash News]

I suspect the list of Fug Files above this entry aptly describes our inner monologues when we realized that a) we were standing about six inches from Aubrey, and b) her veiny, protesting boobs were trying frantically to blow that fringed joint. Part of her nipple might have succeeded. And it's just that much more hilarious that Aubrey blithely waved about an autographed copy of her Playboy cover, which is Photoshopped so aggressively and tirelessly that the computer on which it was done has probably put in for an indefinite sabbatical. I would like to believe that it's wry self-awareness, but... it's Aubrey O'Day, so draw your own conclusions.

Aubrey attended Justin Timberlake's William Rast show, and we're not sure which was ruder: Her attire, her use of a dog wrangler, or the fact that Paris Hilton texted and/or did her makeup through most of the presentation.  

On an otherwise quiet day, we also spotted some famous faces at Carolina Herrera -- although not all the photographers did. Poor ol' Jessica Stroup was almost ignored, which is a shame, because she didn't look NEARLY as insane as she does on 90210. The girl gets out of the house and away from those head-scarves, and for what? Three cursory pictures and the chance to watch that chick from the MisShapes get all the love? Sigh.

How do I fug thee?

f

Let me count the ways:

1) I fug thee to the depth and breadth and height thy blazer can reach, which is to say, that thing is longer than your actual outfit;

2) I fug thee freely, as I strive for right -- and that formal-shorts-romper-thing, the likes of which I bought from Express in eighth grade and wore to school dances, is the opposite of right. You are not in a period-specific remake of 90210, Shenae. You're in an updated continuation of the story of the West Beverly High walls' innumerable bad paint jobs.

3) I fug thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs -- because SERIOUSLY, how many times do I have to complain about you lousy kids and your misperception that mangy laddered hose are attractive? -- and if God choose, I should fug thee better after death, which will come about because your inexplicably sloppy and ridiculous tights HAVE FINALLY FREAKING KILLED ME. 

So, we mentioned yesterday in linking to our Y-3 write-up that Kim Kardashian wore gold talons on her nails. Our New York mag colleague got a close-up photo of them ; backstage that's better than anything we could get through our channels but here's the gist: They look like the sort of thing Cleopatras stylist would have invented and then some obnoxious 'glypher -- who TOTALLY only carves on walls in his/her pajamas, never showers, and guzzles fermented Nile water -- chiseled something like, "What's with the fake nails, Cleo, did you break your real ones off in Caesar's hair?" And then some Lee executive decoded it thousands of years later and invented the modern-day press-on nail.

The best part, though -- to me -- is that she kept them on during a routine ice-cream run to Coldstone.

[Photo: Splash News]

You can just see them up there on the first two fingers of her left hand, helping clasp her waffle sundae. Reggie Bush just looks like he wants to go home and play some Wii -- can't say I blame him; on Madden '09 he probably had a way better season (and yet you never hear of anyone decrying HER as any kind of athlete jinx; why does J.Simp get all the hate?) -- but Kim seems perfectly content squiring her talons all over town. They must be useful as the only things that can penetrate those shoulder pads when she gets a wicked itch. I am pretty sure that if The CW ever gets desperate and picks up the futuristic soap Dynasty 3012, this is what Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan Flarp Mork Glarb (et al.; I can't possibly keep track of all the potentially alien marriages she will have entered into by then) will wear to the boardroom. AND possibly to bed.

Have I gone off my gourd, or does Keshia Knight "Rudy Huxtable" Pulliam" looks sort of like Janet Jackson now? A younger, very glossy-haired Janet Jackson? And, if so, do I need to start calling her Miss Knight Pulliam, if I'm going to be nasty? Is she now officially Keshia Knight Rudy Huxtable Control Pulliam? That's quite a mouthful. As is this:



Nothing makes me feel older than the fact that Rudy Huxtable is now making public appearances dressed like Lisa Rinna. I'm actually not much older than she is, but in my mind, she is a wee adorable moppet learning and growing at the knee of Cliff Huxtable. This is the same reason I was always alarmed when I got a glimpse of that show Jeremiah on Showtime, because Theo Huxtable and Dylan McKay should NOT be all stressed out in a post-apocolyptic future as far as I'm concerned. Although perhaps the sight of Rudy Huxtable in a very shiny, very revealing dress means that we're actually ALL stressed out in a post-apocolyptic future and we just don't know it yet.

KELLIE PICKLER: Why, hello, Jennifer.

J.LO.HEW: Hi.. Kellie?

KELLIE: Yes, that's my name. You might remember me from American Idol, or all those stories about how I'm besties with Taylor Swift, even though she and Miley Cyrus pretended to be BFFs at the Grammys. We all know that's a lie. I mean, I am way more interesting than Miley! I'm older! Wiser!

J.LO.HEW: Are you, though? Because I confess, I didn't recognize you, because you made the decision not to look like yourself at ALL.

KELLIE: How do you mean?

J.LO.HEW: It's all that makeup, hon. You look like you're TRYING to channel Portia de Rossi in a mediocre Gwen Stefani costume that actually came out looking way more like Mary Cherry from Popular.

KELLIE: And YOU look really short in that dress. I don't think, if I had just broken things off with my fiance and lost 25 pounds, that I would have worn something with proportions that unflattering.

J.LO.HEW: But...

KELLIE: And, HA HA, what was with that carpet cape? What, did a ghost whisper that idea to yout? Did you run around all day singing, "I'm a Berber Girl, in a Berber woooooorld..."?

J.LO.HEW: Ouch.

KELLE: See? You are not the ONLY one who can tell brutal truths, beeyotch!

J.LO.HEW: I guess we'll never be friends, then.

KELLE: Guess not.

J.LO.HEW: Okay. Smile!

It's not that often you see someone going Full Orange in a way that does not involve a mishap at Mystic Tan.

I actually LOVE this color on her; she's radiant. It makes me want to drink a tall glass of OJ, spread some marmalade on a croissant, and then eat a creamsicle -- in the very best way. In fact, the only reason I'm even remotely "feh" on it is that the fussy little thigh-length drape in the front seems a bit unnecessary, as does the train. Also, my eyes keep mistaking the the Celtic-knot detail on the chest for a big blurry spot in the photo, and I prefer evening gowns that DON'T inspire me to duck into Lens Crafters.

OH GOD MOMSEN:



This dress is lovely; WHY ARE YOU SO GLUM? Also, seriously....who is doing your face and hair? Who? And why are you letting them do this to you? Remember, a few weeks ago, when Eric Van Der Woodsen complimented you for losing the raccoon eyes, and you were all, "I know, right?" APPLY HIS CRITIQUE TO YOUR REAL LIFE. You're so very young. Even if you ARE strung out, you shouldn't LOOK strung out. It's like the best part of being young: the ability to string yourself out and still look delish. Not that I think you're actually strung out. You know what I'm saying. But you HAVE inspired me. It occured to me, looking at this photo, that VH1 would be well-served to start a new show, along the times of Rock of Celebrity Tools Rehab Academy, or whatever those shows are all called, in which a variety of troubled starlets have to live together in a ginormous mansion and improve themselves whilst occasionally having catfights and pouring beers into one another's weaves. Momsen could be there to have some stern taskmaster wash her face and cheer her up; Miley Cyrus could learn that she needs to never pose for photos, ever (seriously, I feel like she's had about nine scandals over various snaps in the last six months); Lilo can be there as a cautionary tale; and so forth. God, I want to set my Tivo for that RIGHT NOW.

Listen, J.Lo.Hew, we have to talk.

[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

Don't look at me like that, missy, because I'm only here to help. Here's the thing: I know times are rough right now. You just broke up with Liebgott from Band of Brothers, Us Weekly did a whole cover story alleging you are a neurotic mess who refused to wear anything that wasn't a size 4 or lower even when you weren't, you lost a boatload of weight you didn't need to lose in a really short amount of time that probably left you hungry and crabby all the time, you're stuck in this horrible storyline on Ghost Whisperer where they killed your hot husband and saw his spirit jump into a way less hot dude's body and your character is trying to date him, and you're in shock that it turned out that Jay Mohr was the glue of the show and that now he's gone things are bleak with Jamie Kennedy in there as his proxy. I get that it's probably really hard for you right now. And I wish it weren't, because I like you. But wearing rugs from the clearance rack at Cost Plus/World Market is NOT the answer. And it's a very slippery slope. First you're turning your throw rug into a cape, and then all of a sudden, you're hitting the supermarket in slippers with a bathmat wrapped around your boobs, and finally someone spies you at CBS parties in a Snuggie with your hair in curlers, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette stuffed with things from your spice rack and jammed into a holder you bought on eBay for twenty bucks at 3 a.m.

Don't let the bastards WIN, J.Lo.Hew. You can beat this. If you have to put on boots specifically so you can yank yourself up by their straps, then do it. Just take off the carpet first.

I just sat here for twenty minutes trying to remember if I've seen Maid of Honor, the movie Michelle Monaghan was in with Patrick Dempsey a few years ago. You know the one I mean: they're besties, he decides he loves her just as she gets engaged (or directly thereafter, though that's less flattering to him, as it implies he only love her when he couldn't have her anymore), she asks him to be her maid of honor, stereotypes of wedding-crazed women ensue as he gambols with the rest of bridesmaids, and then -- presumably after a series of misunderstandings that could have been cleared up with a simple discussion -- love is declared, her fiance is shuttled, and MM marries McDreamy. Am I close? I don't think I have seen it, but it sure feels like it after approximately 30 years of being near a television set. And now I suspect that Michelle has come straight from the set of the sequel she's currently filming, Maid of Honor II: The Servant Has Become the Master, in which the most wedding-crazed of her non-Dempsey bridesmaids finally snags a man and makes all of her own bridesmaids wear THE WORLD'S MOST HORRIFIC BRIDESMAID'S DRESS:



Holy Jordan almonds. Trying picking up a cute groomsman in THAT thing. You'd have an easier time setting up a souffle in a hurricane.

Its totally understandable that Lindsay would have to wear a Charlotte Ronson shirt -- which is what I assume this is -- if she's attending her girlfriend's sister's fashion show.

But there is nothing in the etiquette books that dictates Lindsay must consent to donning a see-through top with stirrup sleeves and a bra-strap-ventilation system which, for all we know, snaps at the crotch like all those bodysuits we bought in the early '90s. What was the inspiration here? Early Melrose Place Characters Who Were Written Out Because, Even Amid Stories About Billy's Dad Who Sold Carpets, They Were Too Boring For Words?

Actually, I might eagerly go to that fashion show. But I wouldn't WEAR it. Not until Halloween.

We DID see this man today:

After leaving us hanging on Valentine's Day, Kanye West made the rounds on Sunday, attending (at LEAST) both Preen and Calvin Klein's menswear show before hitting up Y-3 -- where we saw him yukking it up with Milla Jovovich, presumably to distract himself from the fact that Kim Kardashian had on gold metal talons. YES. TALONS.

No such dramatic attire at Miss Sixty; well, not on the guests (like Mischa Barton and Kristen Bell), anyway. The models wore some wacky stuff as usual, and one of them cracked up three times. How can they not, going from thousand-dollar gowns at one show to strapless denim jumpsuits and parachute pants here?

We also got a glimpse of Lucy Liu, wrapped in an Herve Leger bandage dress just like every other actress in attendance at that show Sunday morning, and even amid the wicked photographer melee we could tell that the woman is really freaking attractive. If we hadn't been stopped in our tracks by the discovery of a bar called Burp Castle (the "temple of beers") near our hotel, it would've been our best sighting of the day.

We did not see this man at Fashion Week.

It wasn't for lack of trying; he was supposed to show up at the United Bamboo show, but alas, he left us all hanging. In fact, it was sort of a frustrating day: The Barbie show, the purpose of which we never understood in the first place, ended up being a complete soul-sucking nightmare -- and that was just trying to get inside. And it took 45 minutes to come in from the cold outside Alexander Wang's show; at least our perseverence there was paid back by a sighting of Sarah Jessica Parker yakking it up with A-Dubs. That helped heal our wounds.  What better Valentine's Day gift than some sweet quality time witth Carrie Bradshaw and Countess BobsYourUncle? Maybe vast quantities of gin. But hey, we'll take what we can get.

Fall Fashion Week always begins with the unabashedly cheesy -- and thus delightful and star-studded -- Heart Truth Red Dress Show, in which famous folks don clothes designed by bigwigs and do their best runway saunters. It's a relaxing way to kick off a hellish week, which is why we're crushed we couldn't make it this season thanks to a 14-hour travel odyssey and some high winds in New York that kept us trapped in LAX for too many hours. We missed Lynda Carter -- Wonder Woman, for all you fetuses out there -- and Jennie Garth! AND Tori Spelling! And Cicely Tyson wearing some serious sleeves!

We also missed this:

We had a LOT of e-mails about this dress waiting for us when our day ended, and we agree it's deeply problematic. Not that she is unaccustomed to wearing tiny Mariah-like -- or Mariah-lite, if you will -- skirts, but this one is particularly microscopic. If you stapled it at the crotch, it's instant Betty Boop. In some circles it might even count as underwear.

To be fair to Amanda, though, she's not necessarily wearing this by choice -- Swarovski designed the dress specifically for the Heart Truth show, and although I am sure the companies know in advance what celebrity they're getting (so that, say, Liza Minnelli doesn't show up on the day-of and find out she's wearing a loincloth while Hilary Duff is in a caftan, or something), it's hard to say whether Amanda would've had any input at all in the final product. Clearly whoever did failed to consider that she might be strutting down a slightly raised runway, thereby giving the entire first row, and maybe more, a rather stark Vision of Love.

That same person ALSO probably didn't count on the belt looking like a giant bejewelled pretzel. Then again, maybe the person was hungry, and at the same time assumed nobody who attends Fashion Week would even know what a pretzel LOOKS like to make the comparison.

** Oh, Amanda. Since we wrote this, E! News reported that she did indeed have a hand in creating the dress. Well, Amanda, we tried. We really tried. You're on your own now, kid.

Here's a look at the shows we DID get to catch on Friday:

• It was a starletpalooza at BCBG, and -- SURPRISE -- Solange did not look insane.
• The unexpected belle of the ball at Rag & Bone? Why, Jimmy Fallon, natch.

We'll be posting updates all week, plus regular fuggings -- and rest assured, we'll catch up on what we missed in the last two days, plus whatever comes down the pike this week. But if we're slower than usual, please bear with us -- it's just because we're stuck somewhere trying to flag down a cab and having the worst taxi karma imaginable. We aren't sure what we did to a cab driver in a past life, but it must have been hellacious. Maybe one of them designed Amanda Bynes' dress while he moonlighted at Swarovski, and Friday we simply paid the cosmic price in advance.

GWYNETH: Hi, Jack!

JOAQUIN: Who is Jack?

GWYNETH: You're not... oh, sorry, sir, I thought you were Jack Black preparing for a role in some kind of movie about the Amish. My mistake! A thousand apologies.

JOAQUIN: It's okay, Gwyneth. I understand if you didn't recognize me. I'm a rapper now.

GWYNETH: I'm sorry, do we know each other?

JOAQUIN: It's me, Gwyneth. Joaquin Phoenix. From Gladiator. And Walk The Line.

GWYNETH: Ha ha ha, you are such a kidder. You think I'm going to fall for any old name now that I've screwed up once? Nice try, mister.

JOAQUIN: Quills? Signs? Inventing The Abbotts? Ring any bells?

GWYNETH: Well done, trickster, you've memorized Joaquin's IMDb page. Clever prank. Now please disengage from me.

JOAQUIN: Listen, lady, why would I lie? You're wearing plastic Mom shorts and giant grey hooves. Why would I want to impress you?

GWYNETH: .... You're RIGHT! It IS you, Joaquin!

JOAQUIN: No, I've lost interest now, it's too late. Be gone. You will be hearing from my lawyers, to make sure that it's okay that I pour my feelings about this encounter into a new rap song.

GWYNETH: Not if Coldplay beats you to it. GAME ON, furry little man.

JOAQUIN: GAME ON.

Aw, Keira. You're like the best-dressed granny in all of France:



Truly. Later in the evening, I hope you give me a Gauloise - the Werther's Original of France -- while you read me a story.

In all fairness, I actually feel like I kind of get what she's going for here, and it COULD be kind of saucy and insouciant and chic, but she just looks SO GLUM and her shoes and her bag are so OLD LADY (I know that bag costs like a billion dollars and BLAH BLAH BLAH -- I just have a personal distaste for small quilted bags with chain straps [I presume it's Chanel, but I have been wrong before] because I feel like they always make you look like someone who sleeps on a donut-shaped satin pillow to preserve your old lady hair) that it's all kind of depressing. I don't want to scamper through the streets of Paris, stealing Vespas and laughing charmingly at boys with her, I want to take her to a bar, sit her down in front of a fire, feed her a giant, cheesy sandwich with some fortifying wine, and make her tell me what's wrong.

The message emblazoned on Anna Friel's dress aptly expresses how I feel about the cancellation of her show, Pushing Daisies.



Fittingly, it also sums up my reaction to the dress itself. It's so kind of her to make sure the appropriate word would not fail me.

It's not often that I think to myself, "Wherever Courtney Love is going, I want to go WITH HER." And yet:


[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

I love the idea that she's pursuing a new career as some sort of fortune-telling Swami, and I want to be there when she starts some impromptu soothsaying. Like, we could sit down at a banquette and then I'd be reaching for a pig in a blanket on a tray, and she'd grab my hand and say, "The road to enlightenment doesn't go through cocktail weenies, you f**king crazy motherf**ker! When you crawl into the bottom of a beer barrel and wake up the next morning on your floor covered in Sharpie and wearing a diaper and a Fez, and then you go McDonald's for two sausage biscuits and a bucket of hash browns, THEN AND ONLY THEN will you discover f**king spiritual peace, you crazy asshole. Meditate on THAT. And get me a f**king Fiji water."

GWYNETH: Come on, ladies, stand up straight. Be demure. My suit demands it.

COURTENEY: Guess what? I'm 44. And I'm HOT.

RITA: WHERE THE LIDO DECK AT, BITCHES?

GWYNETH: Now now, Rita, let's not be crass. I don't believe in such flashy impropriety.

COURTENEY: Excuse me, Legs McTinyskirts? You spent all summer in skirts that were shorter than my pinky finger. You wore one to the Grammys the other night. Now you put on ONE suit and you're an 80-year old etiquette mistress?

RITA: TWO-FOR-ONE DAIQUIRIS WILL HELP!

COURTENEY: Seriously, Gwyn, that suit is all wrong -- here, take another look at yourself in it:

It's been quite a week of fuggery, hasn't it? M.I.A. and Mayisha at the Grammys, Roisin Murphy's pants, Zooey Deschanel's saggy dress, and Alice Dellal's eye-searing number that almost made me cry blood... And it's only Thursday. We still have ONE MORE DAY and we've already been exposed to enough strong fug rays to get a screaming burn. Too bad they dont make fugscreen lotion.

Let's see if this is the next best thing:



Yes, that's right, The Rock -- oops, I mean, Dwayne Johnson; sorry -- YOU just might be the cure. You are ridiculously smooth. And soothing. You are charming eye candy, a lozenge in these sore-throated times of pained screams at the sight of Alice Dellal's crotch trying to peek out from behind a strip of spandex. Thank you for being you, Dwayne. Thank you on behalf of all Dwaynes in the world for making the name Dwayne cool (get back to me when you can bodyslam an angry dude in tights, Dwayne Wade; and sorry, Dwayne Wayne, but you didn't quite get there either). And thank you for lowering my blood pressure. If we are ever hiring another intern to help lighten George's workoad, we promise to consider your application.

And now, buoyed by the calming sight of his mug (and the memory of what it looked like when he wore his WWE spankies), I am ready to confront another day. Bring it on, Friday. DO YOUR WORST.

At the Elle Style Awards, Alice Dellal pulled out all the stops in displaying her innate mastery of subtle fashion.



She looks like a footsoldier in an alien army from a body-hair-fearing planet, sent to Earth to wax the bejeesus out of us and then replace all our clothes with things made exclusively of shoulder pads and black netting.

Never have I been so thankful for that stuff, by the way. Whoever invented it should be knighted.

Oh, SWINTON, you are such a treasure.



I don't even really have a beef with this. How can I? It's you! In a velvet coat over velvet pants, with a massive fur hat, wearing heels even though you are eleven-foot-twenty and probably have your own beanstalk somewhere in the South of France!

Actually, at first, I thought the headgear was a crazy-ass bouffant wig the likes of which Amy Winehouse would wear if she got the lead in a Cleopatra biopic. And I admit, now that I know it's NOT, I'm a bit lonely for what -- in the immortal words of Tiffany -- could have been so beautiful. I mean, look, if there is anyone in the world whom I want to see playing Wino-as-Cleo, it's SWINTON. Dear, sweet, wackariffic SWINTON. Long may she reign.

I do so love a redhead in blue; I'm just not sure I love THIS redhead in THIS blue.



Not that there's anything wrong with the shade. In fact, it's rather fetching, but for the strange spot near Amy's left armpit. (And the hem, too, I see. Did someone attack her with a fiendish eyedropper?) My beef with the dress is how it manages to be both boring and a bit haphazard at the same time -- almost as if she woke up one day and barked at her stylist, "I love this shirt. Make it into a cocktail dress, please. The tighter the better." So the stylist ran out and sewed a skirt onto it, and Amy smiled and wore it to do the cleaning with all her roach friends from Enchanted, then shoved it back into her closet until the BAFTAs rolled around, at which point she grabbed it and said, "I love this dress. Make it floor-length. With a FISHTAIL. SO FRESH." And voila.

I know this happened over the weekend, but I just dug it out from underneath the giant pile of stuff from the Grammys and the BAFTAs and Sarah Jessica Parker's starring role in Camel Toe Run. And I screeched in horror yet anew:



On one hand: enjoy standing that close to an Oscar honey, because that's as near as you're going to get to one, unless you break into Meryl Streep's house next time you're in the neighborhood.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Name Twin. That was unkind. I just could not resist. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm right. But look at Hilary Swank: when she was best known for being the Girl Karate Kid and making out with Steve Sanders, we never thought she would end up having two Academy Awards. And I have been wrong before. So....good luck with that, is what I'm saying. Because unless JT ends up writing some mangy tune for some animated -- I'll stop now. I'm sorry. Really. Forgive.

In fact, I feel so guilty about making all these jokes about your skills that I won't even mention that you're wearing a sofa. Are we square now? You're the best.

I suppose it's apt that Robyn's bejewelled purse resembles some kind of exotic fruit, given that her own forbidden goodies are moments away from dropping out of the tree. The question is which land mass will be exposed first: The northern end, or the Garden of Eden down south. You just KNOW somebody at the Grammys started a betting pool.

OK, Angelina. Baby steps. We're taking baby steps. Which I guess is appropriate, since you've got seventeen actual babies running around your house showing you how to take them.



We've got a slice of color here, AND presumably a dress that is on the right way around (unlike her blue SAG dress, although I'm not entirely sure I blame her for that, considering the deep plunge V in the front -- which she made the back -- would have exposed pretty much her entire torso and 95 percent of her breasts).

And yet I'm not sure I can get on board the SS Sunshine Strip here. I keep wishing she'd had it hemmed just a fraction above the knee -- or, alternatively, worn saucier shoe with a more painfully high heel to sex it up a bit. As is, the ensemble comes off slightly dowdy. It's all an example of an interesting theory not particularly well executed -- I can see fab elements that, regrettably, for me don't add up to an unforgettable whole.

Things DO get a bit cheeky when we switch to a rear view, though:

These pictures have been floating around for a while now, but with all the hullabaloo with the Grammys and the BAFTAs and trying to shake out all our winter clothing so we don't freeze and die at Fashion Week, we hadn't been able to get to them yet.

For those who aren't aware: What looks like just a regular photo of Sarah Jessica Parker out running errands in New York...


[Photo: Splash News]

... turns into a Mephistophelian nightmare.

Let's go in for a close-up:

Wow. It takes a special conglomeration of items to create a look that makes your posture look this Igor-lumbering-around-the-lab level of terrible:



Listen, if you're going to wear those pants, (a) think twice, (b) then once again, (c) then have the common decency to pair them with a top that doesn't make you look as though you're spending the entire evening hunched over at a sixty-degree angle. The last person who could pull off a shawl-bodice concoction was Jessica Fletcher, and unless Roisin Murphy here was attending the Elle Style Awards solely to confront Mickey Rourke in an abandoned stairwell about some terrible crime she's fingered him for (insert joke about his criminal plastic surgery here) (insert joke about "fingering" here) (insert apology for gross "fingering" joke here) (insert apology to Mickey Rourke here) (insert heartfelt explanation that I wouldn't be nearly so upset about what he did to his face if I didn't think his first face was so nice to begin with here), then I confess to being at a loss.

I have it on good authority that Miley Cyrus is quitting Hannah Montana to become Mother Goose's chambermaid.



If she allows TV cameras to follow her new career, we can look forward to countless exciting, conflict-packed episodes, as the lazy Lady of the Manor tries to figure out what rhymes with "Foo Foo," eats bonbons while penning soon-to-be-classic poems like "I Don't Want To Go To Mexico," and gleefully clapping as she pays a monkey $10 to make a weasel explode -- all the while poor Miley is on her hands and knees picking up scraps of mulberry bush leaves, patching up Jack's broken crown, and explaining to an uncommonly stupid spider that it's just asking for trouble by climbing the spout AGAIN and AGAIN. An instant Disney classic!

My friend Grant and I had a whole conversation about this outfit this morning:



We covered a variety of issues, including but not limited to: our general distaste for Kim Kardashian; why she is even invited to the Grammys; if she's got an album coming out, how we'll just kill ourselves; the fact that in spite of all of this, we might kind of like this dress; how we do think it's something that would look better on, like, Kate Bosworth or something; and how, despite all of that, we still think the dress is rather too short on her. Obviously, we came to no real conclusion and then started talking about peanut butter pies.

It's a miracle, you guys:



Kylie Minogue, who could probably fit into most people's coat pockets, looks almost TALL. I love the dress on her, think the hair is a huge improvement over her bleached-blonde locks of yore, and want the shoes so badly that I am tempted to offer her some kind of trade. Like, my house. Maybe we could do a temporary swap: She can move in next time she's in Los Angeles for however long she needs it, and I will live in my car and wear those shoes all over town and warm myself with the sun's rays glinting off their sparkly gloriousness. Sounds fair to me.

Separately... is it just me, or is this pretty much what Madonna thinks she looks like now?

Well...her lips seem to have (sort of) deflated since the last time we saw Nikki Cox:



But she seems to have had an Elizabeth Wakefield-esque accident at some point over the last few months and instead of waking up believing she was her own twin sister, she came out of her magical coma believing that she's her character from Las Vegas, but with more nightgowns and stripper shoes. Presumably, eventually she'll run into Josh Duhamel and he'll do her a solid and crack her on the head with a coconut (or whatever's at hand) to bring her back to herself, at which point I suspect she will feel forced to begin an investigation of any crimes she may have committed during her period of derangement. Activity of Interest Number One: how the hell she got this dress to stay up, and what was involved in keeping her nipples wrangled. I suspect the answer might be Super Glue. 

Good old Carrie Underwood. No matter what's happening in the world, you can count on her to wear at least three different things on any given awards show night, and generally they all leave me scratching my head and wondering if any of them are secretly cute, or overtly awesome, or obviously evil. It's like I have no fugdar with her. That's why the Fug Justice System exists. Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It's time for Exhibit A in The People vs. Yet More Carrie Underwood Outfits.



The prosecution opens by noting that this looks like what a witch might wear to her local planetarium. Excited, the defense's second-in-command jumps up and announces that this has given him an excellent idea for his child's Science Fair project and asks to be excused. A prosecutor sneers that, if the idea if stomping on empty aluminum cans and then gluing them to a trash bag, then by all means, go, because then the defense will lose the Science Fair too. Dejected, the defender sits down and swigs from a hip flask. The judge holds him in contempt for not using a flask that straps to the ankle, which is more interesting.

Moving onto Exhibit B:

Sweet, sweet Bai Ling. After all that relatively staid formal wear, THIS is more like it:



For, see, you ARE a gift. You are the proverbial enigma filled with a mystery dipped in a candy-coated puzzle, topped with a shredded pile of Care Bears, drizzled in melted My Little Pony toys, and then all wrapped up in a giant ribbon hanging over your privates as though they are the Lexus that mysteriously appeared in front of your house in Christmas morning. Never leave me.

Lord knows I love Jennifer Hudson. There is not a lot her voice can't do -- I mean, I am a national anthem purist, so I hate it when people put in all these extra vanity bells and whistles, and she kinda did that toward the end at the Super Bowl... yet I STILL got misty and thought it was powerful and pretty. So clearly, something about her and her talent really gets to me. I also think she's gorgeous and am so relieved she's actually proud of her curves -- unlike most of the people in Hollywood who say, "I am proud of my curves," and either (a) are stick-straight size 2s, (b) immediately lose 20 lbs in two weeks, or (c) both.

So let's get the unpleasant part out of the way:



This thing brings a new and aggressive meaning to the concept of a Kleenex pocket pack. And how did she resist the temptation to lean down and blot her lip gloss every twenty minutes? It's RIGHT THERE. I also can't figure out why there appears to be a cummerbund made of tissue paper strapping the offending white linen to her torso. Maybe the Kleenex company and the good people at Hallmark decided to join forces to create the world's first strapless dickey.

Happily for J.Hud, it gets better:

This is Maiysha, who -- as I just learned from Wikipedia -- has a "progressive/Soul/R & B" album, was nominated for a Grammy this year, graduated from Sarah Lawrence with a double major, and is a Ford model. In other words, she's crazy accomplished and good-looking and I am probably supposed to hate her. And yet:



I can't hate the woman that brought me this. She looks like she just walked off the set of Harem 90210, a mid-season replacement for The CW that was pitched as Melrose meets Aladdin,  in which she plays the Amanda Woodward character, who is locked in a constant struggle of wills -- and unwilling sexual attraction! -- with her next door neighbor, who just happens to be a genie. Just wait until sweeps! It's going to be amazing!

KATY PERRY: Hey, MIA.

M.I.A.: Hey, Katy. You left out the periods in my name.

KATY: Yeah, they get boring to put in there over and over again.

MIA: Right you are, I'll give you a pass this time. Your dress is very... interesting. It's kind of like an old-movie gown with a giant napkin and some pink plastic edelweiss stapled to your navel.

KATY: Thank you. And you look.... pregnant.

MIA: I am pregnant. I'm due today. Got a problem with that? Is a knuckle sandwich going to be the first sandwich to pass your lips in eight months?

KATY: No, no, it's great and all, but... look, if Violet Beauregard rolled herself out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and started a fashion line, and Bjork became her main investor, your muumuu would be their first collaboration.

MIA: Oh, this old thing? This is NOTHING.

KATY: Well, yes, that's actually why I came over to talk to you. I need to thank you.

MIA: For what? Is it because you idolize my rap career? Because you can't believe I kept in this baby in time to perform? Because my nail polish makes you hungry for orange Starbursts?

KATY: Not exactly. I came to thank you for deflecting most of the attention off of me.

MIA: How so?

KATY: Like, the second you hit the stage, there was no way my ridiculous performance outfit would be the most-talked-about getup of the night.

First off, I'd like to just say that I am watching American Idol again for the first time in a couple of cycles, and I am glad to be back. I forgot how entertaining Hollywood Week is, and I really like the new judge. And it goes without saying that I am thrilled to be back in the crazy, cracked out arms of Ms Paula Abdul. Or, as we apparently have to call her now, Princess Ladypleats Metalliquad of the Glargflong Galaxy:


She seriously is the prettiest girl on all of Planet Prancyflanfg. I will never forget that episode of Star Trek where she and Captain Kirk almost run off to Oodleskerflong together and get married. You can see why he'd be into her: Kirk could never resist a lady in a beehive, and he could check out his own reflection in her belt/shoulder/glazed eyes.

So, this photo has forced my hand. I have something to tell you, dear readers. The rumors are true. We DO have an undercover gang of celebrity fuggers who report back to us about Hollywood sartorial misdoings -- things they've seen during late nights at the Chateau Marmont, people we need to keep an eye on because they've heard rumblings about potential downward spirals, gossip they've heard from their stylists. Obviously, during awards season, we're all on high alert. The GFY Celebrity Underground Gross Garment Squad (Celebrity UGGS, for short) is meeting twice a week. And sometimes, one of the UGGS is so overcome by his devotion to the cause that he breaks cover, and this happens:



Yes, Jesse McCartney is One of Us. (He originally wrote "Bleeding Love" about one of Courtney Love's outfits -- a little known fact.) He's very dedicated to the cause -- Intern George once found him weeping on the set of Summerland because Zac Efron refused to cut his bangs. Clearly, he's also one of our most kind-hearted UGGS, putting himself on the line to attempt to prevent this heinous crime:

I'm relieved to see that Lisa Rinna's Near Brush With Crotchtacularity hasn't dampened her enthusiasm for extremely high-cut skirts, and that, in fact, she now also seems to going for an advanced degree in the highly specialized arena of Cleavage: Under/Side boob.



The way this is going, I full expect her to show up at the Oscars wearing an unruly wrap-around skirt with the ass cut out and pasties. IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME. Hey, at least it's not leopard print.

For some reason last year, Heather and I decided that Tilda Swinton should just start going by "SWINTON." She seems like she could pull off the mono-moniker, right? As well as the caps. In fact, I've often felt like SWINTON would be a welcome addition to the fictional team of celebrity life coaches I have assembled for myself. Like, Tim Gunn is clearly on that team, because he would give me kind yet constructive criticism whenever I did something that concerned him. And Kelly Clarkson would be there for when I decided I needed a super-catchy anthem about a boy I hate (or love to hate. Or hate to love). And SWINTON would be around in case I needed someone to grab me and say, "TREASURE THE AVANT-GARDE. I CAN PULL IT OFF AND SO CAN YOU!" (She would be wrong about my being able to pull it off, but it would be nice and supportive.) I mean, look at how delighted all the extras in this photo appear to be about just being in her prescence:



They're all like, "This is the BEST NIGHT EVER. Only SWINTON could wear a flesh-colored nightie and EMERGE VICTORIOUS(ish. Sorta). I LOVE THE WORLD." It's hard not to be caught up in SWINTONMANIA. They can't help themselves.
 

Is Wendie Malick in Confessions of a Shopaholic? I hope whatever role she is playing, it involves her saying lots of cutting things to Isla Fisher's character, a la Miranda Priestley. Not because I have anything against Isla Fisher, but simply because I, myself, wanted to slap and shake the protagonist in CoaS about a hundred thousand times while I was reading it and I feel like Wendie Malick would be well able to express the sort of aggravated, angry disdain I felt throughout that book. Don't even get me started. Seriously. In what world am I supposed to embrace a heroine who -- OVER THE COURSE OF LIKE FOUR BOOKS? -- can't manage to live within her means and finds it charming to lie about it to everyone? Learn and grow a bit, dudes. Ahem. ANYWAY. Wendie Malick:



Don't just shoot me (HAR. See what I did there? Oh, shut up.) but is she wearing a dress over (essentially) a suit? Because that is taking Dress Over Pants to a whole new and interestingly layered level that never even occurred to me.

When I saw Mena Suvari here photographed from the waist up, I thought, "Oh, Mena Suvari looks nice. I wonder what she's been up to." Then I saw the entire thing:

Oh. Girl. No. No. Noooo. A cropped jumpsuit is troubling enough, without adding...those shoes. Which might be fierce with something else (maybe. I don't want to rush to judgment), but here just look like the stretchy sandals my grandma wore when her bunions were acting up and she had to go somewhere quasi-fancy. (That loud noise you hear is my grandmother disputing said comparison to her computer screen. I suspect I am now out of the will.) This whole thing is a master class in How To Make Your Legs Look Really, Really Short: she's cut her bottom half up into like six pieces, each smaller and stumpier than the last. All anyone is going to look at all night is the section between the bottom of her knees and her toes, and last time I checked, anyone who has a tattoo right between her boobs is not interested in that kind of attention.

Poor Marcy Rylan. This probably seemed like a good idea at the time.



Then again, so did stirrup pants and Cop Rock.

When I Googled this Teyana Taylor person to find out more about her, I learned she has a single called "Google Me." Eerie. I expect to find out that, minutes before I finish typing, she's released a follow-up called "Fug Me," because she's some kind of rapper-psychic.

Although it doesn't take ESP or a crystal ball to know she was going to get it from us for this:



Have you ever been faced with a buffet so sumptuous -- or at least so full of breakfast pastries -- that you were paralyzed from not knowing where to start? That is how I feel right now. Do I begin with the workout pants? The boots, which look like she shot Fozzy Bear after mugging a stripper? Or the understated, tasteful corset? It's a marvel of symbolism: the ruby navel, the gold chain flap dangling slightly north of where her natural-born Google would be... But nothing is quite so achingly subtle as the mammoth bejewelled pseudo-nipples that cover her actual skin-made ones. It's like her Faberge egg hatched and she's getting ready to breast-feed its spawn. This might be my favorite outfit in GFY history. I need at LEAST three in different colors.

So, I have a total girlcrush on Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto. She's SO CUTE. And she seems to be so genuinely happy to be promoting the film and invited to all kinds of awards shows. After years of seeing celebrities who either seem irked or bored at events -- or deeply patronizing when someone wants to TALK to them about their CLOTHES when it's all about THE WORK, like they're unaware that part of the deal of making a big studio movie is that they're going to have to get gussied up and make nice to the press -- it's so freaking refreshing to see someone who appears to be having a legitimately good time. Not to mention the fact that she has been looking super cute lately. Which is what we're talking about on NY Mag.com this week:

"Instead of cracking under pressure and dropping trou at a nightclub -- or orchestrating Kitson shopping sprees before "accidentally" releasing a sex tape -- Pinto is delivering a master class on how to step into the spotlight with grace, an infectious smile, and a closet we'd like to raid almost all the time."

Check out the slideshow for our comments on Freida's various red carpet looks, and tackle the comments yourself if you've got something to add.

First of all, we'd like to extend a public statement to Fergie: Girl, we did not think you and Duhamel would actually end up actually getting actually married. Surely you can understand this. It seemed like you were engaged forever! In Hollywood, that totally means things are fizzling out and you haven't decided how to break it to your publicist yet. But you two crazy kids managed to pull it out, and he's HOT and seems like a nice dude (I loved him on AMC). So, way to go. We hope you two lovebirds make it.  Now, let's talk about your outfit:



From what I can understand, you were not attending a party at which the dress code was "Lacy Flapper." However, you look kind of cute as the aforementioned lacy flapper, although I hate the bow. And it's rather short. Although you have nice stems, as they say in Clueless. But the whole thing is kind of corny.  But if a girl can't...oh FORGET IT. I can't decide.

Turns out there's a good reason Peter Pan never wants anyone to grow up:


[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

The fancy funeral tunics smell so MUSTY when you dig them out of your storage warehouse.

The other day, after we once again expressed our displeasure with leggings, we got an e-mail complaining that we are boring, and saying that no one cares about our stupid rants about them. Clearly, based on the frequency with which celebrities still don them in public, that's at least partially true. So maybe we need to develop some kind of safe word -- an otherwise banal term with no real negative connotations, which we can use so that upon its mere mention, it automatically encapsulates all our usual feelings of enraged betrayal and grief that come with spotting someone out and about in The Spandex Scourge. Something like... zucchini. Or boggle (which, by the way, is really fun to say over and over again). Or Altoids.

Let's try it out:


[Photo: Splash News]

ALTOIDS.

And not just regular Altoids. Hot Altoids. Burning Altoids. Fiery, SCALDING Altoids that have been bedecked with glitter and feisty primary colors, like they're some kind of wearable personalized bowling ball airbrushed by a dude with a mild arson fetish. Altoids I would gladly attempt to knock some sense into by rolling them down a lane toward ten hard pins. Altoids being worn with the kind of tank top you usually see on burly dudes with waxed chests who are flexing in the mirror at the gym between grunting bicep curls. Altoids that still, unfathomably, won't grow out their horrible haircut. ALTOIDS. ALTOOOOOOIDS.

Phew. Okay, that sort of worked. Whenever we use our words around the office -- screaming "ARUGULA" every time the Internet cuts out at an inopportune moment, say, or yelling "PANTS" when we are out of Diet Coke -- they don't usually come with speeches. More like weeping and head-pounding. Still, we're new to this whole choking-back-the-leggings-rage thing. Eventually all we'll need is the one word and you'll feel the flames on the side of our faces.

You guys, I feel like Solange Knowles has GOT be considered a huge threat in this year's Fug Madness. I mean, just look at her:

An e-mail came in this morning that entreated us to check out The View, because of Elisabeth Hasselbeck's wardrobe choice. "It hurts my eyes," the reader wailed. Far be it from us to let one of the extended family suffer alone, so I hammered in my earplugs, made sure some Tylenol was at the ready, and turned on the TV.

This greeted me:



Firstly, I love Sherri Shepherd's expression. Generally, on the days when I watch The View without blocking my aural canals, she seems to be the one most likely to try and keep the peace by grasping one tiny nugget of whatever Hasselbeck is squawking about and making it sound as if she understands. Also, she is hilarious on 30 Rock as Mrs. Tracy Morgan Jordan, so she can do very little wrong for me. At any rate, whatever balm she tries to apply to fraught situations, this freeze frame totally illustrates what Sherri MUST be feeling on the inside 95 percent of the time. It's like she's gritting her teeth and gnawing on her tongue, lest she lose her mind and breathe fire on the shrimp in the bib.

Which.... seriously, that IS an ornate bib. I don't know how else to describe it. But maybe Elisabeth knows something we don't -- maybe years of shrieking arguments with Joy Behar have revealed the need for an elaborate spatter-shield, deflecting drops of scalding spittle that fly across the table at her, and catching whatever drips of rage fall from her own mouth. At this rate, given that today they were sparring furiously over.... I don't know, wolves and abortions or something (I don't even know or care -- I can't listen) ... I expect that in about a week they will all be wearing Kevlar vests, full-on Sizzler-buffet-caliber plexiglass sneeze guards, and welding helmets.

I had the strangest moment looking at this dress, which is when I thought to myself, "I hate that. I can totally see myself wearing it." Like, in the same breath:



The more I look at it, the more I've started to like it despite the fact that I can't stand it. It's like the clothing version of a romantic comedy where a man and a woman meet and immediately loathe each other and you know they're meant to fall madly in love in about ten minutes and this dress and I are about at minute four. I hope this means that all the other tropes of the romantic comedy are also fated to come to pass for me: I will immediately find an amazing, huge, spectacularly decorated apartment fully stocked with adorable designer clothes, which I will be able to afford despite the fact that I am now suddenly a woman who designs floral arrangements for dog weddings instead of blogging, and every time I go to the market my one paper bag will be artfully packed so that a plump baguette peeks deliciously out of the top, and when my dress here comes to declares its overwhelming, perfect love, it and I will embrace sobbing in the rain in the middle of a Manhattan street that -- for some reason -- has literally no traffic at all. It is going to be SO ROMANTIC. And also REALLY WEIRD.

  

We here at GFY are nothing if not fair: We have a rigid Intern George time-sharing schedule, for instance; we never eat the last Twinkie without offering to split it into thirds; and we hardly EVER cheat at any of our epic Uno tournaments. So, in the name of that unflinching dispassion, I figure we might as well complete the pentagon, as it were -- we've had at Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, and Scarlett Johansson, so let's have a gander at He's Just Not That Into You's other unfortunate participants, Drew Barrymore and Ginnifer Goodwin.

Side note: How weird must it have been on that set, with Jennifer, Jennifer, AND Ginnifer? Maybe they referred to them as Jennifer, Jen, and... Gin, although frankly, anyone running around a movie set screaming for Gin probably instead received a lot of sympathetic looks at at least one giant bottle of Beefeater. Maybe the next person to do a movie with Ms. Goodwin should try that one. You're welcome.

Ahem. Where was I? Ah yes: Let's start as every day should, with Gin.



It's hard to muster up much excitement, because in general, Ginnifer herself didn't -- I'm not sure I saw a single picture where she was smiling, except maybe for one in which she greeted somebody. Too bad, really, because she SHOULD be happy. She's fantastic on Big Love (and holy cheese sandwich, wasn't Sunday's episode brilliant? Wow), no one will remember she was even IN this movie in about six months, her hair looks really pretty and healthy, and that color totally works on her. Perhaps she's frustrated that her skirt is wrinkled. Maybe her necklace of giant amber kryptonite has sapped her of the ability to use her facial muscles. Or maybe the tight leather bonds of those shoes are cutting off her circulation, and she's embarrassed, because the second she tries to take a step her sleeping feet will betray her and send her tumbling toward a date with a mouthful of musty, moldy red carpet. Which is probably not the rebound relationship she had hoped to throw in Chris Klein's face. We may never know why she was so glum, but on the whole, I think she looked the best of all five ladies.

This leaves us with Drew Barrymore:

Oh, Mischa Barton.

So, we're wearing acid washed jeans again:


[Photo: Splash News]

Why don't you just take me out back and shoot me now?

I am....perplexed:

I get that there's a recession happening. Truly, I do.



But there HAVE to be better ways for Amy Adams to cut back than by skimping on her stylist's fees, in favor of safety-pinning an Infinite Dress in unusual and unflattering places. She looks like a napkin-folding seminar gone horribly awry.

Demi Moore mostly hid from sight the whole time, but at the Super Bowl on Sunday, Ashton Kutcher watched pretty intently from his luxury box and caused rather a stir. Not for his mere presence, but because... well, the girl in my group who saw him first grabbed my arm and said, "You HAVE TO SEE what he's wearing. TAKE A PICTURE FOR YOUR SITE. YOU NEED TO. NOW."  So I did:



Now, to be fair, Arizona Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill is well known for wearing bow ties, and some fans came to the game sporting them as a tribute to him. So, since Ashton was rooting for the Cardinals (when the Cardinals got a go-ahead touchdown late in the game, he whipped out a Kurt Warner jersey and dangled it over the edge, good-naturedly taunting the masses of Steelers fans sitting below -- we hope he enjoyed that tiny moment while it lasted), it's entirely possible he too is engaging in a Bidwell homage.

But the problem for Ashton is, NONE of us down there jumped to that conclusion. Well, none of us down there who care about such things, which might just have been my group and the German tourists behind us. We all assumed it was something he did of his own accord -- that he'd woken up and, for no reason, donned a hat and a bow tie and a vest with his sportcoat, so that he looked less like a hot young actor than a dotty old businessman who says things like "sodey-pop" and owns a successful franchise of old-school ice-cream parlors that have player pianos in the corner.

My point being: Even if it WAS a costume bow tie, it doesn't really matter, because we were all so READY to believe that his hat and vest and neckwear were all worn with complete sincerity. How did Ashton Kutcher get to THAT place in his life, anyway? Does Promises have a fashion rehab wing?

Considering that the trailer for He's Just Not That Into You is an epically unfunny letdown when you factor in the huge, experienced cast -- in addition to the fact that Jess and I have had lengthy discussions on how the emphasis being placed on "not," which you can see in this backdrop, seems wrong; shouldn't it be either "He's just not that into you," or, "He's just not that into you, or even, "He's just not that into you"? -- I suppose it's apt that all the clothes these actresses wore to the premieres are epic letdowns as well. Personally, I am just not that into Scarlett Johansson's fabric choices lately. Like, what is this?



I hate dipping back into the old "I once saw a $1500 sofa in that pattern," nor do I want to regurgitate that faithful "bed in a bag" jibe or even "I think her stylist should stop showing her wallpaper samples." Even though they all apply. But fortunately, the ACTUAL first image that came into my head was of one of those ornate Russian nesting dolls, and after a couple similarly themed complaints came in from our readers, I decided to embrace that angle:

Great, Jen. Here we go again:



It's black! It's kind of boring! It makes no unexpected statements! In short, it's the Magic 8-Ball of outfits!

You know you're stuck in a Grand Canyon-sized rut when it's a refreshing red-carpet change to see your hair in a ponytail. Seriously, I'm sure they'd both loathe to hear it, but Jennifer is really not all that different from her archrival Angelina. Neither hems her suit-pants. Both tend to do only one thing or the other with their hair. The sight of either of them in a color generally incites us to wonder if we slipped and hit our heads on the margarita machine. Now, given that Angelina just wore a blue dress backwards to the SAGs, I'm sure she'd react to this assertion of mine by marching up to the nearest photographer, drinking a pint of blood, throwing a knife at a fencepost, and then getting knocked up on the spot while signing the paperwork to adopt a small clan of misunderstood yetis who just want to experience the unique joys of body waxing. But one dress is just an aberration. Until the leopard changes its stripes -- or perhaps more to the point, changes INTO stripes -- I'm sticking with my assertion that they're basically thematic wardrobe twins. Maybe Brad DOES have a type.

"Hello. I'm Anne Hathaway:


"Welcome to my one woman show! It's called Cream of Wheat: A Love Story, and it's about my life-long affair with warm breakfast cereals. This is my costume for Act I's closing number, a stirring song called 'Sowing My Quaker Oats' and -- oh, FINE. FINE. I JUST PICKED SOMETHING BLAND. IT HAPPENS. I'm not HAPPY about it. PLEASE don't take a picture of me next to Viola Davis. Have you SEEN HER?

Jennifer Connelly is so pretty:



I really like her eyebrows. I realize this is one of those things that a certain subset of the population would never never think to say (not to make sweeping generalizations, but generally said subset is male), yet I mean it wholeheartedly. Strong brows unite! But I am torn on the rest of it. One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more organized, so let's make a list:

PROS:

• The color is amazing.
• Shiny!
• I love a 3/4 length sleeve on a cocktail dress
• You have to appreciate that she's doing the Show Your Legs/Cover Your Boobs thing with great aplomb.
•  There is something about this that's both very modern and very Joan Collins, and I think you can guess how I feel about that.
• Those are some shoes.

CONS:

• One could make the argument that this is what Peter Pan wears to a formal event.
• One could also argue that the hem looks as though it were gnawed on by an unruly weed whacker.
• She is uncharacteristically wee right now -- rumor has it that it's due to a death in her family, which is very sad indeed -- and I think the shoulder pads are somehow emphasizing this, and she might look more proportional without them. Seriously, mentally remove them and I think everything looks sort of better on her. Also, just so you know, I'm going to start wearing shoulder pads again to see if they make me legs look skinnier.
• Those are some shoes.

I just discovered two whole cans of Diet Coke in the back of my fridge, and when you think you're all out of that sweet, sweet elixir, making that kind of discovery is the equivalent of stumbling over a pair of Loubs you never knew you owned, hidden underneath a pile of dirty socks. I might have squealed with glee. So I must say that I am feeling charitable right now. However, even were I in my most cranky of moods, I would have to hand it to Tomei/Pinto (which sounds like a new, up-and-coming ad agency). Check it:


(If you click on them, you can see them bigger. Technology!)

I think I need a ruling on Amy Adams here. We need to take this play under review, as it were.  If I may stretch this metaphor: As a Fug coach, I am challenging this call (which reminds me: congrats to all members of the Steelers nation -- that was one heck of a game!), and you are the review team.

Here's the front:



Eh. It probably is one of those that look better in person, right?  Sure, we'll give her that. It's possible. These things have happened before. There's no definitive proof that it DIDN'T look better in person, ergo, it's still too close to call. Let's see it from another angle:

So, when I was a young girl, I had a subscription to Seventeen and also, of course, to Sassy. Can I just take a minute and reflect on how much I loved Sassy? I wish I'd kept all my issues of it, but obviously I was not to know that fifteen years later I would think to myself, "I really wish I still had that issue of Sassy where they mentioned that hitting yourself in the mouth with a brick is not a good substitute for collagen injections, or the one where Evan Dando gives his recipe for tacos, or the one where Tori Spelling gives the writer a tour of her condo and the writer is like clearly really kind of unimpressed by how dumb Tori is, but then grudgingly admits she seems kind of nice."  But this is not about Sassy. It is about how when I was, say, fifteen -- which seems to be the ideal age to READ Seventeen, at least then -- one of the spring issues of Seventeen would be devoted entirely to the prom, and it would come complete with like SERIOUSLY FIFTEEN PAGES of an ad buy from some large-scale purveyor of prom dresses. This was stuck in the middle of the magazine almost like a little catalog. It was AWESOME, in part because many of the dresses were CRAZY. They were all very shiny, for one thing -- often overlaid with black lace -- and there was ALWAYS at least two that came with a hoop skirt. And I am pretty sure that probably long-dead Promatorium provided Virginia Madsen's dress here:

This little gem comes courtesy of our friends at Girl With a Satchel, and may I be so bold as to wonder what the people over at Aussie Cosmo are smoking, and why it prompts them to use so very many different fonts? Also, obviously, I would like to know what happened to poor Kate's face here. That doesn't seem to be the chin I imagine her wearing (in all the time I spend thinking about Kate Hudson's face, which is not as much as this post would suggest, in that I hardly think about it at all), and I think we can ALL imagine what Miss Tyra would say about her neck, or lack thereof. None of this, of course, is Kate's fault: I suspect that someone over at the magazine got so distracted by the headline "Sex GPS: Take the scenic ride to Mount Pant-orama" that they didn't notice what, exactly, they had done to her in that one fated moment of Photoshoppery and by the time they recovering from the eye-rolling, it was too late. Mount Pant-orama is where I buy jeans, by the way. The deals are exceptional, but the altitude will kill you.

Ladies and gents, it has come to our attention that today is the last day for voting in the 2009 Bloggies. We are up for Best Fashion Weblog (against extremely stiff competition, including our coworkers over at NY Mag.com, not to mention the good folks at Fashionista and The Sartorialist, and our friends over at Project Rungay) and we invite you to head over there and vote if you feel so inclined -- and remind you that, in case you can't decide amongst us, GFY is probably the only blog which apparently has the psychic ability to predict what will happen next on MACGRUBER. If only that were a category...

Thanks kindly for indulging us! And now, back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans.