Face it: An event isn't really an event unless someone is handing out awards. So you're welcome, Met Ball. You're welcome. Sure, the awards we're handing out this week on NY Mag.com are totally facetious, but aren't those the most fun? For example:
"Best Befuddlement: If life were The Hills, Maggie Gyllenhaal's dress would be the Justin Bobby to our Audrina: Even though it felt wrong, we kept going back for more."
I have to admit that I suspect I kind of don't get Lake Bell. When she was in that terrible movie with Paul Rudd and Eva Longoria, where Eva Longoria was dead, or something, I just kept thinking that it looked like something that ought to be on ABC Family Channel. At like 2 in the morning. I'm sure she's delightful and probably saves babies from burning buildings and donates all her extraneous organs to the needy, but I don't entirely understand what Hollywood Purpose she serves, other than being kind of The Poor Man's Amanda Peet. But she's at the Met Ball anyway:
I...don't care for this. I get that the lightening bolts are all very Superhero POP ZOW WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM and all that, but from the waist up, this feels seriously like something an old woman would have worn to a charity function in the 80s -- maybe a fundraiser for a down-on-their-luck rhythmic gymnastics team, since this was clearly inspired by one of their uniforms -- and from the waist down, like something that old woman's grandchild hemmed in the car with a pair of nail clippers.
Even though she's been at major events in New York City, Camilla Belle is still essentially an up-and-coming starlet to the rest of the world -- we'd seen her at Fashion Week for two years without knowing what her deal was, because 10,000 B.C. hadn't come out yet. And while I think I'd be tempted in her position to show up in something with maximum wackitude just for the hell of it, I still think she made a very savvy choice with this dress.
It's elegant but not boring: The icy color is gorgeous on her, the cut is romantic, and the extra flourishes are unusual without being scary. Now someone just needs to put her in a major movie that doesn't force her to wear glorified loincloths and the aura of body odor.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I rather like this. She looks like an elementary school Valentine, the kind you would make with red construction paper and paper doilies and Elmer's glue. Except, you know, less smeared with fingerprints, graham cracker crumbs, and glue detritus. Presumably. On the other hand, why is her bodice so m-f-ing crooked? I want to run over to her and yank it up and to the right.
KARL: Hustle, pet. Tonight we RIDE.
KATE: I'm coming, I'm coming, I just... people want photos...
KARL: Photos are lens vomit. You pose for ART. It's like I told Victoria: "You are a still life with melons. BE THE BOWL."
KATE: Okay, "art," then. They want me to let them take some art. How does the dress look?
KARL: Like a swirl of pain. Agony on a cracker as painted by a drooling child. But SHINY. I would drink you if you came with a bendy straw.
KATE: Only a bendy straw?
KARL: Do not pester me. There are stupid questions, and tonight the answer is YOU. How is my jacket? Does it gleam like a gun-toting seal?
KATE: Actually, it kind of does.
KARL: LOOK ALIVE. I think he's got real bullets. Do you need your hair, or can the maid have it for a casserole?
KATE: Ha ha, um, why don't we go inside? These shoes aren't super comfortable. I'm not sure about this plastic stuff. My boyfriend always says...
KARL: Pish. Your boyfriend is life's dental floss. BRUSH.
KATE: He's great, though. He just doesn't like the shoes.
KARL: Poison him and make a necklace of his teeth.
KATE: I trust his opinion.
KARL: Trust is a drunk driver's highway, darling. TAKE THE BUS.
KATE: An open bar will help. It MUST help.
We got a lot of e-mails suggesting that, by wearing blue shoes with an orange-red dress, Katie Holmes might have taken leave of either her vision or her senses.
To me, the color scheme actually makes weird sense with the theme of the event. Wonder Woman certainly didn't shy away from mixing primary colors, for instance, and Superman and Spider Man could never be accused of favoring subtle palettes either. What gives me greater pause is the way this is executed: The pointy, high-cut shoes are a bit clunky for my taste, appearing almost like an afterthought and akin to those heavy old pumps of the 80s that her mother probably gave away fifteen years ago, and she's got the same problem Nicole Kidman had at the Oscars, with the long necklace hooking like a noose around one boob. As for the dress, it photographs with a strange plastic sheen -- like Katie had it made at one of those factories that makes the fake grass you put in Easter baskets, and strands of which, if you have offspring who are anything like I was, you will still be finding down the side of the sofa and stuck to the curtains four months later because the aforementioned kids liked to run around the house wearing the green tufts like fright wigs. (True story. And for added drama, Easter baskets sometimes make great fake bonnets. In case you were wondering.)
I think my problem can be boiled down to: I don't love Mrs. Holmes-Cruise in strong reds, or at least, not when she's got such a chiseled, structured haircut that competes with the dress for total domination over her face. That gown is screaming so loudly for attention that the rest of her becomes mute. Which she's probably used to in her family life, given that she spawned one of the cutest celebrity kids in recent memory and is married to a couch-surfing zealot, but which she shouldn't have to put up with when it comes to her wardrobe. Her pretty face deserves better than to be an afterthought.
INTERN GEORGE: Hello, Giorgio. Julia, you look lovely.
JULIA: So do you, George. Happy birthday!
GIORGIO ARMANI: BIRTHDAY! HOW DELICIOUS! LIKE CHOCOLATE FROSTING ON SKIN!
GEORGE: Funny you should mention that, because... I mean, are you WEARING chocolate frosting? You look awfully tan. Like, abnormally tan even for you.
JULIA: Actually you both look sort of unusually brown tonight.
GIORGIO: I AM A CHOCOLATE-FROSTED CAKE OF A MAN! PUT A CANDLE IN MY EAR AND BLOW ME OUT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
GEORGE: Yeah, Sarah bought me some bronzer for my birthday. I'm not sure why.
GIORGIO: Because you are PALE! LOOK AT YOU! YOU ARE WASTING AWAY BEFORE MY EYES! SOMEBODY PLEASE BURNISH THE GEORGIE!
GEORGE: Is he talking to himself now, or me?
JULIA: Sometimes I can't tell.
GIORGIO: GOOD BOY!
JULIA: Go on, George. Go with the man.
GEORGE: Pipe down, Roberts. Maybe he's talking to YOU.
GIORGIO: QUICK, SOMEBODY, SQUEEZE SOME SUMMER ONTO HIS FACE! PUREE A YACHT AND SPREAD IT LIKE PASTE!
GEORGE: Oh my GOD, if I put on any more bronzer, people will start calling me Leatherhead for REAL this time.
JULIA: Let's just back away and go get some champagne. We have much to celebrate. You're looking great, everyone's forgotten about your last movie already, and you have an exciting internship that affords you new and wonderful mail-answering, foot-rubbing, and mixology opportunities every day.
GEORGE: Perfect. On three, let's escape. 1....2...
GIORGIO: WHEEEEE!
GEORGE: Close enough. RUN!
Dear Piper:
Bai Ling and Bjork are undoubtedly super and in many ways heroic, but creating a Bjorkling cocktail with a splash of Sharon Stone and a shot of Arquette -- while an impressive feat of mixology -- is a REALLY loose interpretation of the Met Ball's chosen inspiration. If it turns out that you're not observing the theme but are, rather, simply living out your passion project of giving Princess Leia a Gatsby-esque upgrade... well, you might sell it better if you smiled. And blotted your lipstick.
MISCHA: DUDE!
MARGHERITA: Hello!
MISCHA: Aren't we an awesome pair?
MARGHERITA: Could these sacks we're wearing BE any more festive?
MISCHA: What, so you're Chandler Bing now?
MARGHERITA: Who was your tailor? One of the Olsen twins?
MISCHA: Who was yours? Dolly Parton's bedding designer?
MARGHERITA: Is that bodice oozing down your front?
MISCHA: Did you know I found last night's panties hidden behind that dustruffle on your chest?
MARGHERITA: Did YOU know those sleeves are illegal in 30 states?
MISCHA: How did your dress get its manslaughter charges dropped?
MARGHERITA: What's your superhero theme -- the She-Hulk?
MISCHA: Feeling blind today, Blunder Woman?
MARGHERITA: This was fun; want to do it again next year?
MISCHA: Should we agree to get our dresses fitted next time?
MARGHERITA: Would there be ANY fun in that?
MISCHA: Does this at least mean I can eat the canapes tonight?
MARGHERITA: Do you have to ask?
Bless that Victoria Beckham. She continues to fuel my suspicion that all her nutty getups are merely a ploy to make people look at her, because she knows otherwise we'll all be gazing lustily at the prime cut of man-loin she married.
I'm not entirely sure where the theme comes into play here -- what is she evoking? Nightie Girl? Captain Bedjacket? I Wonder How She's Keeping Her Bits And Pieces Hidden Woman? Not that the superhero shtick was mandatory; just that you'd think wearing a glorified bathrobe wouldn't be Vicky's first choice unless it meant something. Which is precisely why I hope it means absolutely NOTHING except that our girl Vicky wanted people to stare at her all night while they tried to interpret her translucent whim. Naturally, the whole thing only makes me love her more. Pop a veil on her head and she could skulk around Salem for MONTHS on Days of our Lives, haunting the evil Stefano and dropping strange clues at very public places without anyone noticing, despite her unconventional garb. If we have to lose Passions and its castrating serial killer/drunk surgeon reattaching certain organs backwards/Erection of Doom storyline, then at LEAST promise me Posh hurling poisoned paper airplanes at Roman Brady. It's the least the Fates can do.
And things had been going so well!
I am perplexed by the fact that she seems to have her wrap tucked into the top of her gown as some kind of impromptu sleeve, which is making her look weirdly wider than she actually is (which is: not at all), but it doesn't help that she looks INSANELY cranky. What happened in the car on the way over? Did she and Josh argue over the last of the Flaming Hot Cheetos? (Understandable. I can't stop eating those things even though they've been scientifically proven to make my stomach hurt. I am convinced they're dusted with crack.) Did the driver ask her if she's knocked up yet? (Also understandable, yet none of our business. Doesn't he know that you just closely study the waistline/drinking habits of every woman of child-bearing age and then speculate behind their backs?) Did Anna Wintour beat her in a footrace to the open bar? What up, Fergie Ferg? I secretly kind of love you now! Look alive!
ASHLEY: People will get this, right? That I'm going as a superhero's VICTIM? With the ripped clothes?
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN: POW!
MARY-KATE: You know who'd have loved this? Frankie Sinatra. Oh, he was a card.
ASHLEY: What?
LOUBOUTIN: ZAP!
M-K: It all reminds me of the time I did Carson with a lit cigarette in my hair. How McMahon did laugh! He was all hands, that Eddie. And what a tongue!
ASHLEY: I don't understand.
LOUBOUTIN: KER-BLAM!
M-K: Somebody get me a scotch, neat, and make it a double. God, that reminds me of that night with Carol Channing and the Hardy Boys. I've got stories about that hussy that would make your toes curl.
ASHLEY: How is it that we're related? Sometimes I think this whole thing is a bizarre accident.
LOUBOUTIN: WHAMMO!
M-K: It's like Bette Davis used to say: "If you can't take off your clothes, then it's not worth having dinner." Or was that Paris Hilton?
ASHLEY: The worst part is, people might think you're ME. Clearly I have to dye my hair again.
M-K: You want to talk about buying new drapes? Let me tell you about the day Phyllis Diller came over for canasta and absinthe -- we'd both been having these WICKED hot flashes, see, and...
LOUBOUTIN: SPLAT!
ASHLEY: Time to go.
Note number one for Eva Longoria Parker: You have GOT to blend your makeup a bit better. Your forehead is way paler than your shoulders and it is weird, like you've got the forehead of a vampire but the neck of a marginally talented actress. You've got to make your Makeup Bitch blend! Blend! Or is it possible that you've crossed your Makeup Bitch one too many times and she's now making you pay by doing you up like the Cranky Undead? In which case: e-mail us, Makeup Bitch. We'd like to buy you a box of wine.
Otherwise, I have a query for you:
Oh, Rachel:
Why so Amish? Why are you hiding your lithe little light under a bushel? (I am including your bangs in the bushel, by the way.) Have you contracted a terrible disease which makes your skin shrivel up should Anna Wintour gaze upon it? Have you taken a vow of extreme modesty? Are you in the midst of a secret but terribly steamy love affair which has left your entire body riddled with hickeys? Are you just really cold? I HAVE to know.
The theme for this year's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala (or, as it is known by nobody, MMACIG) was "Superheroes." And if there is one working actress today whom I'd expect to take that theme and wring it out like a disobedient washcloth, it would be Tilda Swinton -- or as I like to call her, Most Likely To Arrive In The Actual Iron Man Outfit, Complete With Helmet.
And yet:
She has the helmet part on track, thanks to a stylist with four cans of hairspray and an itchy trigger finger. Her makeup artist even got the metallic sheen down pat. So why is the rest of her dressed like she's on her way to her cousin's third wedding in the garden of the vicar's cottage? Tilda Swinton is the person who'd show up as Catwoman Wearing Her Wonder Woman Costume, with a jacket made of Plastic Man and Flash Gordon's head on her lapel. Unless that orange brooch turns out to be some kind of poisoned throwing star that decapitates demons from hell, this is depressingly tame.
At the very least, I'd have been satisfied if Tilda had turned up in something like this:
I guess singledom is the new black -- it's been flattering on just about everyone in Hollywood lately. Well, except for La Lohan, but these days, nothing is going to work too well for her -- except perhaps being locked in Dr. Phil's house for a month, at which point she will become so hypnotized by his braying voice and disapproving mustache that she'll stop putting things up her nose and learn to love her liver for a little while, and then go on a Very Special Oprah in which she weeps about how the Winfrey Empire has saved her life while Oprah sheds a tear and then brings Rachael Ray on to cook some Recovery Cheesecake. So come on, Terrifying Life Experts (and Rachael): We're counting on you.
Back to the matter at hand: Hot single people. When Rosario Dawson was with Jason Lewis, she went through a phase of unfortunate bangs and frequently looking a little unshowered, not to mention that she paraded around in a lot of ill-fitting clothes.
So while I'm sure it was a tough breakup, I'm pleased to see her coming out of it looking generally much better.
The skin is great, her bangs have grown in nicely, and I'd like to buy her shoulders.
Unfortunately for her, she chose a great color on a really boring dress -- and while we'll take boring over, say, giant cut-outs over the ass in the shape of the Oakland Raiders logo, poor ol' Rosario had the misfortune of stepping into this thing on a night when Cameron Diaz did it better. While I have nothing against Rosario (except perhaps the movie Rent, but that wasn't really her fault; people, grow up and pay your freaking rent and stop whining), I think you'll agree that Cam took this concept from average to totally awesome.
Julianne Moore, what gives?
This is a prime example of someone with SO MUCH right about her -- pretty red hair! Creamy unblemished skin! Dimples! Talent! The ability to somehow make people forget that she was in both Nine Months AND that terrible movie where David Duchovny decided that the best way to make people stop thinking of him as Agent Mulder was to appear in a film in which he's investigating aliens with the help of a small redhead! -- who goes SO VERY WRONG.
Let's have a frank moment, you guys. I love Julianne Moore. You love Julianne Moore. I'm sure Julianne Moore's parents and friends and husband and neighbors love Julianne Moore. But she's wearing essentially an ill-fitting pea coat over tights. This works only if you're about to rip it off and burst into something originally choreographed by Bob Fosse. And while it's true that I wasn't actually AT the Met Costume Institute Gala Ball Party Bus Beer Boat or whatever it's actually called, I am pretty sure that no one made Julianne Moore perform.
So, last night was the Met's annual benefit gala, which is always a TREAT for me, because it's basically a shitload of models and socialites, with a sprinkling of selected actresses, dressing to the nines -- no, not even the nines. Like the tens. -- doing the whole W magazine "W Eye" society party thing, which I just find fascinating. And every year, this particular event is a gold mine of fashion, from the utterly sublime to the completely absurd. For example:
Sublime:
Of course, it helps that she's incredibly beautiful to begin with, and this certainly isn't particularly risky. But as we always say here at GFY HQ: there's nothing wrong with deciding to just look pretty. And, MAN, Thandie Newton is pretty.
Absurd:
With this dress, Jennifer Connelly was well on the road to stylishness... until the roadkill:
And I mean that literally. I think... yes, is that a flattened pigeon? Poor thing must've zoomed right into her chest. Never stood a chance.
Am I alone in wishing Camilla Parker-Bowles had chosen this for her royal wedding? The Queen would have fainted:
This foretells a glorious trend of Ad Space Couture -- the Gala Event equivalent of hiring a plane to fly over a football field with a banner. Picture it: Karolina Kurkova showing up at the daytime Emmys in a dress that says, "Hi Mom in Omaha! Love, Joe-Bob." Or at a Broadway opening wearing a cape in which Frank begs Martha, "Please keep it! We can get married!"
Or, better, at the Oscars, with a shimmering train made out of a satin down comforter similar to the one she's wearing now; one that reads, "We Hate What You're Wearing." Divine.
I love Marcia Cross so very much. The blackmail! The baby-stealing! The multiple personalities! The framing Sidney for framing Jane for running Michael over with a car! The wig-ripping, my God, the wig-ripping! And that's just Melrose Place.
So this really hurts me:
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Why would you pull back your hair like that? You have such beautiful hair. Hair that I covet - so red, so shiny, so willing to be ripped off your head after a night of wild sex with your charming asshole doctor husband, whom you - let's be honest - would really like to see dead, although you would settle for getting him disbarred and taking all his money.
And Marcia! Marcia, Marcia. The dress. It's so frumpy. It's so unflattering. The colors wash you out so very much. The length, it is so weird. Would Bree Van De Kamp wear something so muddled and poorly cut and lacking in bright colors and/or argyle? No. Would Dr. Kimberly Shaw wear something that made her recede into the background so severely? Never. Unless she were hiding the bushes in front of Dr Michael Mancini's beach house before dragging his unconscious body from the bedroom and into the garage to be asphyxiated by carbon monoxide, of course, but that would be purely for strategic reasons. Why are you doing this to yourself?
Please don't let this happen again. You rock. And you could ruin me by either blowing up my apartment building or somehow finagling a way to get me admitted to a mental institution to give me an unauthorized lobotomy, so I really don't want to get on your bad side. Can we please return to our regular scheduled Marcia Cross Love Fest now? Thank you.
A book, huh? Is it just stuff you already put on the Web site?
Nope, we wrote the whole thing fresh, just for you.
Awesome. In that case, I want to read it!
Thank you! Click here to find out all the details!
