The Dueling Vanessa Williamses

When I first saw this picture, I thought, "Oh, Vanessa 'The Other Vanessa Williams' Williams, why are you wearing a Halloween costume when you're not attending a costume party? Why?" Because I thought the little hot air balloons on her dress were jack-o'-lanterns.



And then I thought, ""Oh, Vanessa 'The Other Vanessa Williams' Williams, why are you wearing a dress covered in hot air balloons when you're not attending a hot air ballooning enthusiasts party? Why?"

By now, we all know Vanessa L. Williams has a massively hot bod. It's not like she needs to wear skintight stuff all the time to prove anything to anyone; we can't even believe she had to put the L. in her name, like she is some kind of secondary and imitative Vanessa Williams who is trying to usurp the life of the one who was in Melrose Place for about three hours.

That said, I feel like this dress could benefit from a little more judicious tailoring.

[Photos: Splash News]

Not very flattering, right? She looks slouchy, and almost a little pregnant. And the ultra-foxy Vanessa "Screw the L." Williams deserves better than a gunmetal sack. She should box it up, send it to Angelina Jolie with a card and maybe a nice ham, and go shopping for something that does her assets more justice. It's what Wilhelmina Slater would do. ... Well, actually, Wilhelmina would have the designer bitch-slapped, burn the dress, scatter the ashes on Betty's lunch, and go get a seaweed wrap. But the underlying sentiment is the same.

If I've learned anything about Vanessa Williams since she took her job on Ugly Betty, it's that she likes to make sure you see her on the red carpet. Well, okay, I've also learned that she's much better with bitchy humor than the abomination A Diva's Christmas Carol previously indicated -- in which, for real, she ended the movie by telling a baby, "Nobody pees on the Diva" -- and that whatever she's doing to look so fantastic at her age, it's working. I hope she e-mails me her secrets, and that they involve a strict eating plan mostly consisting of Diet Coke and cake.

She's toned it down follicularly since the Golden Globes, but her dress is no less pregnant with drama.

The little angel and devil on my shoulder -- although the devil is really just one of many, dispatched by his posse to represent them in this argument because they're on a dinner break -- are locked in an endless debate about whether this is so nutty it's amazing, or just way too much.

ANGEL: It's a gorgeous color on her!

DEVIL: Sure, but several relatives of Big Bird had to die to make that skirt possible.

ANGEL: Oh, relax. It's just bold. It's soap-opera bold. You love soap operas!

DEVIL: Only the ones in which Satan possesses psychiatrists, murderous she-male blackmailers hold a town hostage with its evil deeds, floating heads in powdered wigs make fun of the town witch, and people wear eyepatches despite not being pirates.

ANGEL: Well, this dress would look great in one of those.

DEVIL: It looks like the top part is molting. That thing is going to shed itself stupid all night long. You'll always know whether Vanessa's been in your bathroom stall.

ANGEL: Hmm. That's true. And I am kind of allergic to feathers.

DEVIL: See? You'd be in big trouble if you were sitting next to her.

ANGEL: I'm SURE she packed some Claritin in that purse... But wait, you know they're not REAL feathers.

DEVIL: So what? You're faltering. I WIN.

ANGEL: Fine. I admit it. The first time I saw it, I wondered which showgirl wedding in Vegas was missing a bridesmaid. Happy now?

DEVIL: Yes... Although, hey, at least she tried. So many other people looked boring.

ANGEL: Let's just go open a bottle of wine and watch Center Stage.

So yet again, a vicious battle within my brain ends in a stalemate and a ballet movie. However, now that I've had a soothing glass of shiraz and Jodie Sawyer has changed her entire costume and makeup without ever actually leaving the stage, I'm leaning toward siding with the devil. Vanessa's dress was a delicious idea that, sadly, turned out a little trashier than I like to see her.

Everybody was divided about Vanessa L. Williams' crazy Golden Globes ensemble; people either loved it or hated it, with almost no middle ground. We fell into the latter category, not because we didn't appreciate the divaliciousness she was going for, but because we felt it was too all over the place and too overpowering. The fright wig, the dress, the fur -- we didn't know where to look, but the sad consequence was, we rarely ended up looking at her, even though she was visible from miles away.

At the SAG Awards, however, she toned it down to delicious effect.

The color is utterly breathtaking, and the cut of the dress flatters her fantastic figure. But as alluring as all that is, our eye still ends up drawn upward to her best asset of all: her face. Seriously, she is beyond beautiful. Those eyes, the skin, the smile -- it's all divine, so much so that we're deep into girl-crush territory with her. We already adored her occasionally sensitive, often evil, and always conniving Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty, who is precisely the kind of cool, sophisticated Queen Beeyotch that a Fug Girl could only dream of becoming. We want to shop with her, we want to strut with her, we want to study in the classroom of her suavitude, and we want her obsequious and no-less-cunning assistant to kiss our asses and roll his eyes behind our backs and bring us bagels whenever Willie deems it acceptable for solid food to pass our lips. Indeed, should Wilhelmina ever need a pair of devoted interns, we'd be more than happy to put on our bitch boots and step up to the job -- after all, we can pop a bottle of bubbly with the best of 'em, and that's got to be one of the more important skills for the position, right?

This photo merely enhances our already fiery affection for Vanessa L. Williamshelmina, but it's an excellent example of how sometimes, less is more: Instead of going overboard on the accessories or the dress, she let her very self be the primary, and indeed almost only, adornment. And she positively glows. It's a reminder that I should be prepared to do almost anything, even cut a bitch, to look that fantastic when I'm her age. Not that Vanessa L. ever had to cut a bitch. I mean, maybe she did, and if so I'm sure the bitch deserved it, but... you get the gist.

This is not to say we think she should play it safe every time she leaves the house. We're okay with risks, but not when you take every single one of them at once. The next time she decides she absolutely must scrape something off the road and tape it to her head, we just hope she will display a little more restraint with everything else so that her gorgeous, appropriately aged yet simultaneously young-beyond-its-years face still shines. Although ideally, she would start with giant hair that looks slightly less like it cost $3.99.

Vanessa L. Williams is so brilliant on Ugly Betty -- she's catty, she's cunning, she's stunning, and she's got a mean way with a quip. In fact, the more we think about her adding the "L." to her name, the more it confuses us. I mean, she's the primary Vanessa Williams. The original. The best. The only one you think of when somebody says, "Hey, Vanessa Williams looks totally hot for her age." Why should The Other Vanessa Williams -- the one who was on Melrose Place for about half an hour, playing one of the most boring characters the show ever created, which is saying quite a lot -- get to keep the name in Tinseltown, while the legitimately famous one has to switch up to the differentiating initial? It's unjust.

Unfortunately for Vanessa L., at the Golden Globes last night, the extra initial stood for "light socket":

That is some CRAZY hair right there. Wilhelmina Slater would be furious. She would look this up and down with an eyebrow cocked, scoff silently at the disco-silver tulle that's draped over this dress in unflattering folds, and then hiss to her assistant Marc that she's surprised to learn that Chaka Khan is designing hairpieces for Wal-Mart.

God,  Vanessa "Remember Me From Season One of Melrose Place? No, I'm the OTHER Vanessa Williams" Williams is so sad:

She is clearly painfully shy.

Look, I get it: life is really hard when you're The Other Vanessa Williams. You make reservations for dinner and have to watch the waitstaff's faces fall when you show up and you're not Vanessa Williams Vanessa Williams.  And then you have to explain that you were on the first season of Melrose Place? The boring season? The season where the big sweeps event was Billy trying to decide if he should take over his father's carpet store? And, no, you don't know Heather Locklear. No. No, you don't know Marcia Cross, either. No, you weren't on set when she ripped off her wig. No. No. Look, they fired you. You got fired from Melrose Place and it HURTS, okay? It hurts.

As do the color combinations in this outfit:

Yowza! That is a LOT going on. Lose the horrible midrift-level cardigan (an item which, for the record, works on approximately one person and she's working as a ballerina in the American Ballet Theatre somewhere), and swap out the green jeans for a dark wash and you've got a sassy little outfit if you're ever in a situation that calls for you dashing to the market in an afgan. Or -- and don't say I never gave you options! -- swap the pink shirts for a white button down and, yet again, a very charming outfit if you're thinking about running errands swaddled in a throw rug. But the pink! And then the more pink! And the green! And the rug, which may, in fact, be from Billy Campbell's Dad's carpet store! It's all just too much for the retinas.

[Photo courtesy of Daily Celeb.]

The Other Vanessa Williams looks like a walking Bed In A Bag: Dust ruffle, fitted sheet, heavily patterned comforter, elaborate pillow shams. I can't explain the lavender snakeskin shoes, but I do know that it's a sad state of affairs when someone who was part of the great Melrose Place has resorted to upholstering herself.