Fug and Fug or Fab: Penelope Cruz

I kind of like the gray one. The skirt is sort of Swinton-y. The white one is....UGLY.

The white one defies words. Seriously, I have never seen her in such an awful look. I don't think I've seen anything worse in recent memory. The gray one...hmmm...I like the pieces in and of themselves, but not together. I'd like the blazer-fest upper part to be paired with pants or slim jeans. The skirt is too gown-y. I do enjoy it when people dress up casual things or dress down dressy things, but she didn't nail this one at all.

The white outfit doubles as a background at your local Olan Mills Studio.

It's Penelope, so before we begin to judge we need to add points for bone-deep awesomeness.

On Claire Danes the white one would be hideous, on PC? Fine. Not the best, but elevated just because of the person it's hanging on.

The charcoal? She has some awesome hip and thigh going, and the jackets are interesting. I like it. And because it's PC, I therefore love it.

I voted to hate them both, but only because the 80's are OVER, PEOPLE!!! That blazery-blazer-thing has a zipper collar I'd have *died* for back in high school. But I am not wearing an off-the-shoulder neon-green fisherman sweater in first-period Western Civ right now, so it's clearly not 1983 anymore. Let it go.

I hate current fashion trends. I went to the Urban Outfitters website to see the "trendy" styles on display and found high waist-pleated pants with the ugliest miscolored crop tops in human history.

80's x Ugly x 100 = ?

I recently dug up a book of gorgeously exotic outfits from "then". I'm currently sewing outfits and working on my OWN style that is far more beautiful and fashionable than any of the "designers" are "creating" today. No you can't have a taste. Wear the ugly 80's if you aren't creative enough to come up with your own style.

Fug The 80's.

i loooove the blazer, and also the supersparkly blue earing. and her hair. and her face.and the dark nail polish. the white one is hideous

White is not good. Not only trellis-ed (and what's behind the trellis? eek.) but also housecoat-ed. I agree with Nancy on The Gray, but it is a bit too Morticia Addams for me. Also, the skirt could have hideous wrinkle potential. Maybe that's why she's wearing the blazer?

I'd categorize both under, "inexplicable use of satin." Satin + jumpsuit = bad. Satin skirt + military grey flannel/felt blazer with oddly-placed zipper = worse.

Put that grey getup on Phoebe Price and we'd all be crying foul. Penelope's gorgeous face can only excuse so much.

If it were about knee-lenght, the white one would look like a very dressy housecoat. From the knee down, I am confused -- is it a dress or a jumpsuit?

I think I would like the grey one better if the skirt were shorter, like around the knee (but keep the little flutter in the back...that could be cute).

Cruz was clearly evoking a GARDEN PARTY in that white number, she left the croquet mallet in the limo.

Regardless of what she wears, we must remember that she escaped the Cruise machine unscathed. Since then, every day is a garden party for Penelope.

the white one is dire and completely shapeless.. if it was a completely different dress it would be okay.

the combination of a blazer&jacket combo and what looks like the bottom of an evening gown is just ridiculous! Even if it was cold she's got no excuse for butchering what might be a nice evening gown with a full blown coat. the top would look casual out on a winters day with a pair of jeans, and the skirt is missing the top of the dress!

as a plus those blue earrings suit her.

Is that zip up satin thing the Southern Hemisphere's version of Mom's special Christmas Day housecoat?

I also love the blazer, just not with the skirt. The white outfit totally brought to mind the "house-dresses" my grandmother used to wear.

I also thought the white thing was a fancy- dancy housecoat, or worse, a formal jumpsuit. She's only meh from the waist up in grey, and her sleeves are uneven, though I think one is just more bunched up. The satin mermaid skirt is awful, but what bothers me most is her dreadful BLACK nails. Looks like she slammed them in the limo door.

The grey one is better, but that's only because the white one makes me think of "I Dream of Jeannie," and I feel like nobody with options should ever dress like that.

Also, is that an engagement ring I see?

White = fug and unflattering on a very beautiful lady
Black - maybe the blazers with jeans? And what does the dress look like? I want to see it!

Haha, Morticia Addams. Perfect. Actually sort of a Morticia Addams in grad school, at a somber mixer.

The white is just awful, though, so the gray wins by comparison.

I think I would love the Blazer with JEANS.

I love both of the blazers thingies (she is wearing two, isn't she? Or is it just one that is very complicated?) Anyone else would look ridiculous in them/it, but she's just fabulous.

The white? I would understand it if the doorbell just rang while she was in the middle of bathing the cat, and she grabbed her mom's old Dynasty housecoat and ran to answer. But I think she's out in public someplace. Not good.

I am not going to speak of the white atrocity.

The darkner number I think is a scrolldown fug. I kind of like the layered look of her torso, and she's certainly so thin she can carry it off if paired with a nicely tailored pant.

That... thing... is not a nicely tailored pant. I don't like the inexplicable wrap around seam or the crotchal pleating/bunching/wrinkling that is happening.

Finally, given GFY's stance on pants that eat your feat, where is the matching disdain for skirts that would clearly cause you to fall on your face the minute you hit the stairs/turn around? They were all over the grammy red carpet and here it is again. Eating Penelope Cruz's feet.

(Confidential P. Cruz: I might have cut you some slack if you weren't publicly supporting a child rapist. Things to keep in mind, since I know you hang on my opinion.)

There's a whole lot going on with the grey one...I think I could get behind it a little more with a few changes. Maybe a shorter skirt of a different material? Maybe one less blazer? As it is it looks slightly hip, but also slightly as though she threw on a couple of jackets over an evening gown because she was cold and on her way out the door so couldn't be bothered to find a coat that actually went with the dress.

No and no. The white one is just completely inexcusable and should probably be burned so no unfortunate soul happens upon it in a thrift shop and thinks, "hey, if it's good enough for Penny Cruz it's good enough for me!" No honey, it's not good enough for anyone.

The gray could be alright if all the pieces were worn separately. I really like the skirt and the blazer(s)? but all together it's just too much. Maybe she was cold? I am wearing a dress with two cardigans and a blanket wrapped around my legs right now, so I shouldn't really talk.

The Blazer Bonanza would look good over sleek slacks (it's Alliteration Day, apparently) or slim jeans, but not over what appears to be a too-long David's Bridal clearance item.

I'm still trying to figure out why in the blue hell anyone would wear the first one in any time period. Macrame and nightgowns don't mix, people!

What is with the hem on the gray dress...or should I say lack thereof? Yuck, it's torn and horrible.

As soon as I saw that white dress in a photo....while doing uh, research....about the harmful effects of gossip websites....I said to myself, "I will certainly see this house coat dress on gofugyourself" I thought the same thing about that Jessica Alba pleated short, two pair of socks outfit. I am so smart...and smug....

I thought the white thing was a jumpsuit at first and figured she lost a bet. She normally looks great in white but this is not normal. I do like the shoes.

Maybe she's cold, the reason for 2 jackets. I like the cut of the skirt and I'd change the top to one that's more close fitting. Still pretty though.

The gray one with some awesomely crisp wide-leg pants would be killer. That skirt is too much on someone so petite.

The gray outfit is really similar to something Tilda Swinton wore, except hers was burgundy. I think it looks good on both of them.

Looking at that white outfit, I experience synesthesia: I smell Ralph by Ralph Lauren, and the funk that develops on fake gold earrings that have sat in a box too long. On a purely visual level, my own mother would rip the pockets off that pantsuit to make pot holders that would match the Laura Ahsley "Bramble" theme she filled our house with. *shudder*

I don't think the grey outfit is really that much closer to our current century. Sort of dark in the way girls get in their junior year of high school. I will also say it, the skirt is too tight. It shouldn't be giving her kitten whiskers, a la sergio valente jeans.

I'd still give my left eye to look like her in any of these pix.

The white one looks like a polyester housedress nightmare.
The blazer(s) in the gray outfit are fabulous (as is the make up and perfectly undone hair). I'd love to see this with some jeans and boots because that skirt is a waste of that pretty gray fabric, poorly sewn and ill-fitting. Is there even a hem on that?

The gray skirt looks...cheap? Ill-fitting with unfortunate wrinkles. The hair there is totally Brooke Shields, 80s style.

The white one is terrible. The gray jacket is excellent, but that skirt makes no sense with it. It needs a matte pencil skirt with some nice black leather boots.

The white dress: meh. Not eww ick, just meh. At least she's covered. As contrasted to the previous fugshot, the Anderson one.*

The grey outfit: super. I can't quite figure out how it is all put together either, but I sure would like to know. I could never wear it myself,** but I love it on her.

*Since you didn't provide a comments option on that shot, I must comment here: I think the little girl's all right. She doesn't look shocked, horrified, or traumatized. Her expression clearly says, "Lady, what were you THINKING? Oh well. I'm getting paid for this, and *I* am properly dressed (because only a little girl can get away with black velvet, white lace, and Mary Janes) and I look great."

*I'm the wrong shape.

Are you sure the first pic is her and not her sister?

First of all, yay! The Fug Girls replied to my email when I turned Penelope in for the firstone.

Second: I'm convinced my mom and I had matching versions of the first one - almost certainly something she made herself from a "Sew Easy" pattern ca. 1978.

The white is awful.

The grey is... I like the skirt. I like where the top was going, but the shoulders are pointy and the sleeves are Miami-Vicey. If the top were as-is with jeans, it would look great. If the top were softened up with the skirt, it would look great. With the presentation given, it doesn't mesh right.

But the woman could wear a potato sack and look good, so it's hard to judge properly.

I need to quote the late and transcendant Gilda Radner, who wisely said "I base my entire fashion sense around what doesn't itch." Or words to that effect.

The white thing looks itchy. Itchy, itchy, itchy. Beads and sequins at the front of the arm eye where they will tickle and itch every time she reaches, beads and sequins at the pocket where they will snag on the least bit of fingernail roughness (and Penelope Cruz, goddess that she is, lives in the same world of small irregularities we all occupy, where a moment's inattention around a badly designed stair rail means a chip and a flake and a nail which catches on everything until it can be repaired, which reminds me I need to fix my cashmere shawl today).

Also, the zipper down the front looks like something my late mother wore to *cook* New Year's Brunch, which is not a look I'd previously associated with Penelope Cruz.

I like the weird blazer thing a LOT, but I don't think it belongs with that skirt.

The white is a housecoat.

I wish the grey dress was shorter. The white is crazy, but her hair is good.

Why isn't the grey number even HEMMED!

I think the white one might be...pants?? Am I right? Maybe it's just the camera?

I might like the top of the gray one (the blazery part) with skinny jeans maybe?

Why does that first one make me want waffles? I can not explain this. But her shoes are fabulous. And yet it does not stop me from suspecting that first thing of being jumpsuit-esque.

I like the blazer/jeans suggestion made above. I kind of like the blazer, but it does indeed strike me as something Jennifer DiNuccio would have worn on Square Pegs. Square, square, square, pegs!

I'm old.

So I was GOING to say, "Yeah, all the negative posts on the white thing? Yeah! What THEY said," until I put the zoom cam on it and saw beads and sequins, my weakness. But NO!!! Not even beads and sequins can save that thing. All the negative posts, etc.

Except the shoes. The shoes can stay.

As for the blazery blazer madness, I do like that it makes PC, whom I just love for no reason, look smart in a brainy kind of way. I even like the funky biasy skirt in a Swinton kind of way. But I totally agree that the blazery blazerfest would look maybe better over a slim skirt or jeans. And the zipper is a little over the top, but I know it's a look.

Hair, makeup and blue sparkly earrings are all good, though! Attaway, PC!

Penelope looks...different. Nose job? Botox? What is it??? She's still amazingly gorgeous but something's just off.

hmmmmmm... the gray one is ok but it kinda makes her look like the tin man. i hate the white one, but it's not as bad as it could have been

PS i love her shoes she paired w/ the white one

I know nothing about this new movie she's hawking, but maybe there's some weird thematic thing that she's doing, all of a sudden dressing really weirdly and badly? Surely there's some explanation for this normally gorgeously put-together woman to come down with such a case of the Fugs?

The white is so weird and bad I can't even tell what it is. It carries about it a whiff of jumpsuit and looks like something my grandmother wouldn't even have worn to the Golf Club in 1978. Penelope looks concerned about it too, like she's thinking "uh oh, how did I get out in *public* with this on?"

The grey is pretty hideous; nonsensical blazerish garment with too many fasteners, far too many lapels, wrinkled bunched up sleeves, and it's making me think there could be a HOOD hanging down in back. The skirt is too long, too tight, too shiny, and extremely badly sewn (seriously, what's with the bunched up seams?).

Really, Ms. Cruz. You can do much better.

I'm with the trend-haters. I don't understand the current fashion. Thankfully I'm too fat to wear fancy clothes and my job doesn't allow for it. However, if I were built like Penelope here, I would keep the lines simple and limit the number of pieces in each outfit. I have nothing to say about the first outfit. I admit that the second outfit doesn't look bad on her, but I don't see the point. It's 80s where it doesn't need or have to be. Maybe I'm just old.
However, being a teen of the 90s, I'm looking forward to the gradual rebirth of grunge aka fugfest 2012.

white dress: me: "hunh ...."
grey dress: me: "what, really?"

I luuuurrrrrrrvvvvvve the grey one. It's so me. I would wear that. It's not the prettiest thing around, but I love the way it looks. "Fuck, what am I going to wear tonight??" something sexy, sleek, and a little bit edgy.

... and HAATTTEEE the grey one, as well as the white.

I like the grey origami blazer-thing, but surely that's meant to be worn with trousers or jeans. What's she doing wearing a box of blazer assortments over a formal frock?

In the grey, her bottom and top half appear to have reached some kind of compromise after a long and fierce argument as to whether they ought to dress for the office or a ball. Also, I covet both blazers. Re. the white: I want quiche. Still she, herself, looks very lovely. That has to be worth something, doesn't it?

The white one is ridiculous. Why would someone with her curves purposely wear a dress that gives her the shape of a piece of chiclet gum. This would have been perfect if there had been a scene in Sahara where she was walking through the desert looking for Jesus.

The top half of the grey one is awesome, but the skirt is a mistake and I suspect a last minute replacement for hot jeans that have missed their chance to shine!

The white one is ridiculous. Why would someone with her curves purposely wear a dress (or is that a jumper?) that squares them off to the point of resembling a piece of chiclet gum....or Tara Reid? This would have been perfect if there had been a scene in Sahara where she was walking through the desert looking for Jesus.

The top half of the grey one is awesome, but the skirt is a mistake and I suspect a last minute replacement for hot jeans that have missed their chance to shine!

Hate the white one, love the blazer(s), but hate the skirt. Too statin-y!

I think she is WORKING the charcoal grey number (those little awkward creases in the belly of the skirt notwithstanding).

The blazer top & evening-gown skirt give her a Dark Attorney Goddess vibe that's just HOT.

She IS Lady Justice for the new millennium.

The white number. I don't like it. It's not tailored around the waist (when she clearly has a killer waist). And I can't get chummy with those pockets. But meh, I've seen so much worse...

if the white one was shorter and didn't have the pockets it would be fab; the grey one would be fab with pants.

if you're wearing that many layers on top you need to balance it with something simple on the bottom. the current skirt is too busy to work with that busy top

The grey one I like. Probably we need to see it with the outermost layer off, say, when she's sitting down for a mocktail or seven. My jury is out on the white one, we think we need to see it at a flattering angle, when she knows the pic is being taken. It probably needs to be more fitted so that she has a waist, and we'd want to check out the detail closeup. But having said that it is a little peasantish and dull. And she looks a little cranky in the grey one. Maybe she's longing for that mocktail when she's taken off the jacket?

i don't like the white one at all. at all. it looks like a breakfast pastry, albeit a very delicious one. mm lattice.

i LOVE the grey one. she looks hot and smart (in a don't you look smart kind of way, not an IQ kind of way) and the earrings are a great colour detail to add. LOVE.

and it goes without saying that her face does indeed look gorgeous in both, as per usual. stunner.

Well yeah, the white one? No. No es bueno.

The gray I love for reasons I cannot pinpoint. It's Penelope, she's gorgeous, the outfit works for her someone.

But honestly? Soooooooo pregnant.

Morticia Adams anyone? I just can't get you out of my head.

Love the grey. Jacket over a gown is always cool, in my opinion. Wait, not always. Visions of fur chubbies, bolero items, fringed suede Daniel Boone jackets... THOSE jackets are bad with gowns.

The white, if it were knee-length... no, then it'd look nursey.

The grey one is thisclose to being interesting in a good way. The seemingly-sewn in vest though, no. No. At first glance I thought the drape in the vest was the chain of a pocket watch. Conductor/evening gown? No.

The white is just...risible.

Wub the grey one. It's weird, for sure, but she looks awesome. The white is just... eh. Weird but not downright fug. Boringly weird, iykwim.

she was actually promoting her new movie, 'broken embraces' ;D

What's with the zipper till the crotch. No, seriously?! Sigh, Penelope Cruz always has had so much potential. She's like this naturally beautiful person who seems sometimes to try her hardest to undo everything that nature's given her!

Like the grey one though. Made me wonder how she would look as Morticia in an Addams family movie :) She'd be really charming, methinks.

More importantly, can we discuss the rock on her ring finger?

She still looks gorgeous whatever the dress is. Let's speak of her ring :p

The first one is completely unflattering. The second one is...her natural beauty makes up for the majority of it, but I feel like it's spliced together sloppily. Either the blazer needs to have a more trim, streamlined fit, or the skirt needs a less dramatic cut. It just feels like too much of everything put together.

Love the grey! She could have looked even FIERCER if it was with some black trousers (tight) and heeled biker-y boots. the earring looks like a blue fairy light....love though!

White is weird, like an elaborate laboratory outfit.

The white one is beyond repair- I don't know why it was ever created.

The grey one though is interesting- it's like she put on one of her man gorgeous grey gowns and thought, "This is pretty, but I want to look a touch more 80's biker chic!" then added that top and was set to go. I actually really like the top and bottom separately, but am undecided about them together. It's a little too- I'm wearing my boyfriends jacket over my prom dress- for me. However, to be fair, paired with her gorgeous hair and makeup she does seem to be working it.

Ayyyy Penelope! Por que wearas tu el dress blanco del infierno? POR QUE?? Never do that again, you have never looked so mad/bad/old. Lo siento.

But you look pretty in the grey, in kind of a sexy way. It could have been amazing as a ballgown without all the blazery bits though.

We have new found strengths and reasons to face the task with optimism and have discovered that there are more things we want to learn together, for the youth and for ourselves. ,

Arnie is extremely upset and hurt and he begins to cry. ,