You’d think, on a week with a major awards show, our Best Dressed list would be overflowing with talent. But we have to admit, it was slim pickings. It’s not that the Emmys served up bombs (though there were a few), it was more just blah—the red-carpet fashion that seemed pieced together by stylists, and lacking much spontaneity or verve. Still, it was a week where fashion communicated a strong message: Beyonce definitely wore a dress that made everyone think she was pregnant, Lady Gaga’s brave choice of a giant Comme des Garçons dress hailed her introduction of the “Body Revolution,” and Kim Kardashian wore a head-scratching combination of dress, shorts, and a straitjacket all in one. We give you the best and worst dressed awards of the week.
Many attempted the beaded-metallic look at the Emmys on Sunday night—and many didn’t end well. So when Kerry Washington showed up, we breathed a sigh of relief: here was someone, in a Vivienne Westwood sparkling cowl neck, who just looked great.
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It felt like the Girls star was playing to her crowd with this Oscar de la Renta strapless dress at the Emmy Awards: a little bit youthful, a little bit WASPy, just like Marnie.
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It must be hard, when you’re the star of a period drama like Downton Abbey, to dress for a red-carpet event in 2012. You can’t really wear, say, Versace or Rick Owens, without throwing everyone for a loop. Somehow, people subliminally want you to look like your Edwardian counterpart. But when Michelle Dockery dresses up, she does so in a way that feels exactly like what Lady Mary would wear if she were brought to life. Here she is in a silk duchess dress from British designer Erdem (extra points for supporting homegrown talent) at a pre-Emmy event in Beverly Hills.
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She was by no means the focus of the red-carpet brouhaha at the Emmys: no, she just glided into the theater with Judd Apatow on her arm, looking fantastic in an orange beaded dress by Naeem Khan.
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The Twilight actress looked pretty in pink in a blush-colored dress from Donna Karan’s Spring 2013 collection at the New York premiere of Butter on Thursday night.
As soon as Claire Danes showed up on the red carpet, Twitter practically split in half. Some people loved the dress; some thought it looked like a giant potato sack cinched slightly at the waist. But she wore it well—and she’s pregnant!—so we thought it was a hit.
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We’ll admit: this isn’t the first thing we’d reach for in our closet (or ever, in a million years, think to buy) but we loved Lady Gaga’s Commes de Garçons dress for the message it sent. After weeks of media attention for gaining 25 pounds, Gaga wore this dirigible as a kind of “fuck you” to the world. A few days later, she launched a “Body Revolution:” admitting to being plagued by eating disorders since age 15, and pleading with fans to “triumph over insecurities.”
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Poor Beyoncé. This week, she put on a Roberto Cavalli animal-print dress, Nicholas Kirkwood heels, and thought she was just going out for a stroll. But little did she know, a small ripple around the stomach area set off a massive rumor that she was pregnant with Blue Ivy #2. Not so, it turns out!
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It’s business on the bottom, party on top. When Emma Watson wore this single-piece thing that was pants on the bottom, dress on the top to a screening, we thought: what in the world? It turned out to be from Jil Sander’s much-praised first collection for Dior, but does that make it OK?
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To the New York premiere of her film Won’t Back Down, Maggie Gylenhaal went with this—The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of formalwear. It was simultaneously daytime and evening—but paired with flat, open-toed sandals—it seemed better suited for a walk in the park.
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Every guy reading this will probably disagree.
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It’s hard to tell from this photo, but Krysten Ritter is wearing a sheer pink skirt with black underwear underneath. Why black, you ask, since that is the color the world will obviously see? Great question!
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On the red carpet for Pitch Perfect in LA, Brittany Snow looked like one of the popular mean girls from Pretty in Pink.
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Is this: a flamboyant young corporal, reporting for duty? A seamstress racing to finish her dress in time for the big night? A Tour de France biker sponsored by DASH? Why, no, it’s just Kim Kardashian out for a stroll around Miami Beach.
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