Mandy Moore

Yep, it's that time of year again: Fashion Week in the Big Apple, minus the arctic blast, plus a few drops of freezing rain here and there, and multiplied by a hometown Super Bowl win (and to think people doubted us when we picked Eli to win the battle of the quarterbacks!).

As usual, we're going to try really hard to update when we can, but if we're not as frequent as usual, please bear with us -- we'll be back home this weekend and working on our regular schedule. In the meantime you can always get a fug fix by wandering over to The Cut, New York magazine's fashion blog, where we're posting our dispatches.

• Oh, Joy. Mandy was able to keep her goods inside her Herve Leger dress; why did your nipple sneak into our view?
• The week kicked off with Liza Minnelli singing live. No, really.
• Christina Milian later claimed her bouffant, which she debuted at BCBG, took three hours to prepare. We believe it.
• Make no mistake: Vivica A. Fox "is not a hater. [She's] a congratulator." Whatever you say, Viv!
• At Abaete, Sophia Bush demonstrated why she was always too good for that Chad Michael Murray scoundrel.
• Forget Niki Taylor -- at Alexandre Herchcovitch, we saw Miss USA hit up Nigel Barker for his business card.
• Headbanded socialite Arden Wohl was a breath of fresh, crazy air at Alexander Wang.
• The Rock & Republic show was a fatal accident waiting to happen -- and that was without Vivica A. Fox's wild gesticulating.
• More socialite shenanigans at Preen.

Again, we promise we'll put up a post here and there when we get a second to breathe, but if our best efforts aren't enough, we'll totally be back on track beginning Monday. I mean, we can't leave Intern George to his own devices for THAT long. He'll make origami swans out of all the paper towels, and those things can really pile up fast.

It's no secret that we love Mandy Moore and her wholesome yet talented Regular Girl Shtick.  I enjoy that when she had a terrible break-up, she holed herself up in a cabin in the woods. Who amongst us HASN'T thought to themselves, "I'm so miserable right now. I just want to move to a shack in the middle of nowhere and raise alpacas," you know? Similarly, who amongst us hasn't had an evening alone in our apartment, bored, during which we decide to see how we look with really dark sexpot make-up and that sexy dress we bought at Forever 21 despite the fact that it's actually, um, basically underwear re-imaged as a D&G knockoff because, you know, it was just $21?

And then you're all gussied up and you look at yourself in the mirror and think, "DAMN. I look hot. And also like a totally different person. Can I go out like this? YEAH, I CAN. I look HOT. Wait. No, I can't. I don't have the guts to go out like this. I look ridiculous. I go out dressed like Charlotte York, not Samantha Jones. I am not this girl. But maybe I SHOULD be this girl. YES. NOW I AM THIS GIRL. And it's going to be FASCINATING. And SEXY. But maybe this lipstick is too dark for me."

We got several e-mails from people who hated this dress that Mandy Moore wore to the License to Wed premiere.

But I rather like it, and not just because it makes her waist look tiny and her legs seem 100 miles long. No, my enjoyment of this gown comes from the fact that I know how much worse it could be: We've seen a far, far fuglier version on Trinny Woodall. So even though the sequined straps look a wee bit like a recycled Christmas craft project, Mandy's vibrant, cool-green version of the dress is SO MUCH prettier. It actually looks elegant, and not at all like she unfolded an old tablecloth from a picnic basket in her grandmother's attic and decided to claim it was "vintage" fabric just because it was old. It all goes to prove that a truth I have held dear really is inalienable: fleeing from orange gingham (and embracing a sandwich) can do WONDERS for a girl.

Plus, Mandy's hair is all flowy and sexy, and her skin looks great, and even though I accidentally saw about 25 mins of American Dreamz this weekend, I still love her. And that's saying something, because in that cinematic wasteland she's sporting such fake-and-baked skin that she looked like she was wearing a marmalade mask. So to whomever or whatever has since made her feel like a Natural Mandy: thank you.

It is well and truly established that I am quite fond of Miss Mandy Moore. She seems like someone you could be friends with -- actual Go Out For Beers With, Complain About Work To, Talk About Boys With, Borrow Going-Out Tops From Friends, as opposed to being someone who has solely Snort Coke With, Steal Parts From, Cheat On Boyfriends With, "Accidentally" Spill Wine on Your Favorite Top Hollywood-Style Friends.  And, apparently -- at least according to Elle -- she is both a lover AND a fighter, and who doesn't appreciate that in a girl? 

And, sure, maybe she's a lover and a fight with sort of unusually straw-like hair, according to his cover, but she looks cute and beachy in that dress, no? Imagine that with slightly healthier-looking hair. It works -- right? Sure. It works. Everything is working out fine for Mands. Let's take a gander at her on the inside, shall we?

As I think we've mentioned in this space before, I love Mandy Moore. I think she's extremely cute, and I love all her recent statements about how she's not going to turn into a toothpick (and I hope she's telling the truth - I think she is). But I loved her long before recent pro-eating statements. I loved her in the under-rated Saved! and as the bitchy mean girl in The Princess Diaries. I loved her in Chasing Liberty (in which she gets kind of naked!). I loved her in How to Deal, which is a terrible movie confabulation of two very good YA books by Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You and That Summer, respectively, which are awesome). I couldn't blame Mands for the bad adaptation. It's not her fault! Besides, I had residual love for her thanks to A Walk to Remember, in which she tragically dies. I might watch that every time it's on cable, and I might also cry at the end. But beyond all that, I love her for recording one of the best Pop Songs With A Spoken Interlude In the Middle ever: "Candy." Now, of course, the very BEST PSWASIITM is arguably "Oops, I Did It Again," but it's hard to not be charmed by the words, "You know who you are/Your love's as sweet as candy/I'll be forever yours/Love always, Mandy," especially during this run up to Valentine's Day.  So it always really pains me to tell Mandy that her look sort of didn't work. Although, judging from her face, it sort of looks like she already knows:

Mands looked totally uncomfortable throughout the Grammys, and while maybe her belt is just pinching her, I think she's suddenly become aware of the fact that her dress is made of fabric most recently seen covering throw pillows at a Days Inn.

Okay. So if Lindsay Lohan is the starlet I want to spend Saturday night with, hanging out at Club Element, getting alarmingly drunk on pink drinks and saying progressively meaner things about Paris Hilton to each other, then Mandy Moore is the starlet I'd want to hang out with on Sunday. You know, we'd go to the Coffee Bean and get lattes and then head over to the Beverly Center and try on shoes but not buy any because none of them really spoke to us and then we'd go spend way too much money on jeans even though we both already have a lot of jeans and then we'd go home and eat take out and watch Grey's Anatomy and occasionally pause the Antics of Dr McDreamy to ask each other what the hell is wrong with the boys we happen to be dating. In other words, she seems friendly and relate-able and cute and so I watch Chasing Liberty every time it's on HBO, don't JUDGE ME. I like her.

But Mandy, I don't think I would have let you buy this:

I like the length, and I don't mind the color. But the cut is so boxy and those weird hankerchief sleeves totally make her look square and broadshouldered.  I like the idea of this dress -- it's retro, it's a little Priscilla Presley Marries Elvis, it's sweet but also a little edgy, I get it conceptually. But it just doesn't quite work on La Moore. Girl needs something to give her a waist. It's fitting that she's wearing this at a Lucky fete, since my formerly favorite magazine has been suggesting, of late, that I do things like wear textured black tights under white spandex hot pants and a kicky vintage tunic, accessorized with nurse's clogs and fur earmuffs.

In fact, it must be Lucky's fault. Witness the very day before:

So cute! The color is so pretty without being cloying, and this time, the cut doesn't make her look like  her day job requires the ability to stop Peyton Manning in the red zone.  Trust your instincts, Mandy! Call me!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Mandy Moore, apparently starring in a Darren Aronofsky follow-up film entitled, Requiem for a Prom:

[Photo courtesyof Daily Celeb]

I believe this dress is, as captured above, in the act of making a citizen's arrest of Mandy Moore for ever putting it on in the first place. It looks to be clamping down on her.

Unless she intended to come dressed as a big black garter, in which case she'd better watch out, or one of the many women who showed up to the Oscar parties in white gowns will pick her up and hurl her at some tuxedo-clad gentlemen.

I know she's standing strangely, but even if she weren't, this dress wouldn't flatter Mandy Moore:

[Photo courtesy of Daily Celeb.]

That hits her in the wrong part of her hips, giving the whole thing a frumpy look that's only enhanced by the crazy mix of silver purse and gold-hued jewelry. She looks like a young cocktail waitress turned lounge singer at the Naples Yacht Club, who borrowed a gown and some fixins from the local costume shop before her big performance of "Almost Like Being In Love" for the 5 p.m. night-owl crowd on Buffet Thursday.