Fashion statements

Apparently, the Golden Globe Awards were held last night, and in a moment of weakness, I was drawn into an online slideshow of Best and Worst Dressed red-carpet-walkers. Going through the fifty photos (twenty-five of each category), I realized that I do not and never will understand what causes reviewers to gush over one designer gown, while treating another like its something they'd use to wash the car with.

Click on these links to look for yourselves: Best Dressed at the Golden Globes and Worst Dressed at the Golden Globes

Actress Salma Hayek (photo #17, Worst Dressed) was completely panned for the glamorous pale taupe Dior gown she wore, complete with fabulous earrings, an enviable bosom and an elegant updo, while Angelina Jolie (photo #3, Best Dressed) was lauded to the heavens for appearing in a baggy silver Versace hot mess with hair that looked like a houseful of toddlers had styled it with with egg beaters and toy garden rakes.

Drew Barrymore (photo #8, Best Dressed) appeared in a lovely pale blue Galliano for Dior gown, but with a hairdo (called "flirty" by the reviewer?) that looked absolutely mad and uncombed and absurdly bouffant, not to mention unbecomingly dark at the roots. That hair, plus her smearily be-kohled eyes, gave the uncomfortable impression that drink had been taken before her appearance on the red carpet.

Compare that horrible hair to Renee Zellweger's (photo #1, Worst Dressed), which was referred to as an "unsightly updo" by the reviewer, but which I actually thought was very cute. Renee was dressed, however, in an absolutely unspeakable Carolina Herrera weird black filmy, trainy getup that might possibly once have been Morticia Adams' wedding dress, or maybe her drawing room curtains, so I admit that the hideousness of the gown might have detracted from Renee's head, which was a very small part of the entire ensemble. It just goes to show that you can have bad hair and a good frock or good hair and a bad frock and people will always look at the dress first and then be either nice or mean about your hair in accordance to their opinion of your dress.


To back up this theory, take a look at the young actress Anne Hathaway (photo #7, Worst Dressed) who wore a breathtakingly beautiful midnight blue Armani Prive gown with Swarovski crystals cascading down the bodice to her hips (okay, maybe a bit to crystally, but very old Hollywood and glam, nonetheless). Anne's hair doesn't match the dress at all; it is scraped back from her face in a way that makes her ears look like jug handles. And mercy...the girl is as white as salt. She could do with less eyebrows, too, because with those heavy brows and her dark eyes, she looks a bit like someone who could turn you into a piece of granite with one glance. She makes me want to do the evil eye sign and spit through my fingers. Or maybe hold up a crucifix and a necklace made of garlic bulbs. Yikes.

But maybe I'm wrong, because Jennifer Lopez (photo #4, Best Dressed) was caught wearing an ugly, hyper-revealing are-you-ready-for-your-mammogram Marchesa dress that also displayed her great and profound need to get over herself, yet her hair was dragged back off her face to the point where from the neck up, she looked ready to go clean the toilets and scour the kitchen tiles on hands and knees. Yet the reviewer totally love-bombed that tacky dress. What do I know?