Following on from our post about tights earlier today, if there’s one time we REALLY can’t stand the look of thick black tights, it’s on the red carpet. Or the sidewalk in front of the red carpet, as the case may be.
Opaque tights are not for the red carpet. In fact, they’re not for ANY “glamorous” occasion. Opaque tights are your friends on cold winter days, casual occasions when your hemline’s a little shorter than you’d like it to be, or for those times you just haven’t gotten round to shaving your legs. THEY ARE NOT FOR THE RED CARPET. They are not glamorous, or dressy, or a good way to dress down a sequinned dress, Jessica Alba.
And here’s the thing: there’s no real point in trying to “dress down” a sequinned dress, anyway. A sequinned dress is never going to look casual, no matter how many pairs of tights you wear with it. So own it. Wear that sequinned dress, sister! Throw away the opaque tights and just accept that you’re wearing a sequinned dress on the red carpet because you’re fabulous. Do not apologise for The Shiny. There’s nothing worse than an apologetic dresser, who wants to wear a fabulous dress, but then goes out of her way to avoid looking fabulous in it. Well, OK, there are SOME things that are worse. But not many.
Anyway. We don’t think the Tory Burch dress Jessica Alba wore to the Glamour Women of the Year Awards last night can be saved, even if we wrestled those tights off her and allowed the probably-gorgeous-but-we-can’t-tell-because-of-the-tights shoes to shine. The awkward waistband, frumpy shape and hemline and little-girl white collar just aren’t working here. So we put together a whole new outfit for her, consisting of a similar Tory Burch dress and some simple accessories. Because, let’s face it, you don’t need much when you’re wearing sequins, do you?
Now we invite you to re-dress Jessica Alba too, by creating a Polyvore set and posting the link in our comments. Let’s see who can do better than Jessica’s stylist…
This looks like exactly the kind of thing Princess Leia would wear, if Princess Leia had been invited to the L.A. premiere of The Immortals 3D. (And she totally should have been invited, by the way. Princess Leia should be invited to everything.) This is why we had no hesitation in awarding Freida Pinto, who we have kind of a soft spot for anyway, the coveted Fashion Police Gold Star.
THIS, on the other hand…
Isabel Lucas
This is like the “How Not to Wear It” version of Freida’s outfit. Its not a TERRIBLE dress, necessarily. But it’s the kind of dress you have to stand up in all night, because the SECOND you sit down, bend down, or make any kind of movement AT ALL, it creases like crazy and looks like it was £19.99 from BargainBridal.com. (Which is a totally fictional store, before you go looking it up.) Add in the sad, saggy looking bust, the cheap elasticated waist, and we just want to take her and hug her and tell her it’ll all be OK…an iron, a narrow waist belt, or even a thin strip of fabric in a contrasting colour to hide that elasticated waist, and she’ll be looking ten times better. Maybe.
For now, we’d simply advise her not to stand too close to Freida, because it’ll only make the contrast even worse.
(Did anyone else read that line to the tune of Salt n’ Pepa’s ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’? Because, if so, our work here is done.)
For the past few months, you see, our fashion friends have been getting very, very excited about tights. This happens every year, and is part of the whole “OMG Autumn is my favourite season!” trend evident in fashion blogging, and the excitement mostly revolves around all of the good things that tights bring to the world of style. For instance:
1. They keep your legs warm. Well, d’uh.
2. Thick tights make it possible to get away with wearing shorter skirts than you’d wear with bare legs.
3. Brightly coloured tights add a multitude of styling possibilities to your closet, and also have the ability to make a plain outfit look instantly more interesting.
4. Don’t love your legs? Tights to the rescue!
So tights, as you can see, are beloved by fashionistas for many, many good reasons.
Despite this, though, we hate them.
Now, we have to make it clear here that we don’t hate the way tights LOOK. We’re fine with the way they look. Sometimes we even like it. So we would in no way say tights were a crime of fashion, and we very much agree with each of the four positives above.
We still hate wearing them, though, and every year, as women across the land start to enthuse about the prospect of slipping into a pair of opaque tights AT LAST, we look forward to tights season with dread. This is mostly because we find them just plain uncomfortable. The way the crotch always seems to be heading towards your knees, forcing you to haul it up every few steps. The saggy knees. The toe seam, when it gets caught underneath your toe making you feel like there’s something stuck in your shoe. That feeling of being tightly encased from waist to toe. HATE. IT. And sure, some brands are better than others, and not all tights are horribly uncomfortable, but even the most comfortable pair of tights is less comfortable than an outfit that doesn’t involve tights.
We realise we’re alone in our hatred of the fashion-lover’s BFF, however, so please feel free to share your love of tights in the comments section now. Do you love them? Or do you look forward, like us, to the days when you can go without them once more?
Just a very small gallery from the 2011 MTV Europe Awards this weekend, because our officers decided to hit up the bar instead for some reason our image agency decided it would be a good idea to only photograph some of the suspects from the waist up. You can’t get the staff, can you?
Anyway, take a look at Jessie J, Lady Gaga and more, and have the eyeball bleach at the ready, because once you’ve looked at Jessie J’s crotch in this “costume”, it can never be unseen…
Amber Heard and Eva Green looked almost like they’d come as the stereotypical Good Guy/Girl and Bad Guy a the London premiere of The Rum Diary last night. Blonde girl in white, brunette in black? Yeah, they’re definitely gearing up for a fight of some kind. Or perhaps even… a WAR? A Star Style War, maybe? Oh, go on then, you’ve twisted our arms…
Who was the good girl and who was the bad girl at the premiere, folks? Who’s the winner of this Star Style War?
Look, Twilight fans! It’s Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson And Taylor Lautner, all having their hand and footprints taken outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood! But wait, what’s this:
Ah, that would be the price stickers on the soles of Kristen Stewart’s Brian Atwood shoes: one of our pet peeves.
In this case, it’s probably not actually Kristen’s fault: we would imagine that, as with most celebrities, the shoes were probably borrowed for the occasion, hence the stickers still being on the soles. (Although, in that case, the PR/stylist should still have removed them: it’s not like they’re going to still be able to sell them – at least, not at the price on the label – after they’ve been worn, is it?) This does, however, bring up two more of our favourite fashion gripes:
1. Borrowed shoes on celebrities
Look, we know you want to look good on the red carpet, and that even you celebs don’t have an endless amount of money to buy new clothes with, but for the love of God, just wear your own shoes! You’ll look better in a cheaper pair which a) actually fit you and b) don’t still have the stickers attached to them than you do in a designer pair that are three sizes too big and very obviously borrowed. (This isn’t directed just at Kristen, by the way: just a general gripe.)
2. Shoe manufacturers who stick labels on the soles of shoes
If we’re paying $400 for shoes, we don’t want to have to spend an hour peeling the labels off the soles (and isn’t that just the WORST? You know when it comes off in tiny little pieces and you have to pick away at it forever? GOD.) Actually, even if we’ve spent $50 on shoes, we don’t want to do that. STOP PUTTING STICKERS ON THE SOLES. There are other ways, you know! If you’re a high-end boutique or department store, you can place a little price card somewhere near the shoe on display. Even Matalan – MATALAN, for God’s sake – tie the price to the insole using a piece of elastic which just snips off once you’ve bought them, leaving the sole completely free. And if Matalan can do it, we’re sure everyone else can, too. (Actually, don’t Primark also do this? We think they do.)
Aaand breathe.
Kirsten sensibly changed out of the Brian Atwoods for the actual taking-of-the-footprint. We must say, it’s nice to see her looking happy, no? Such a pretty, pretty girl. We’ve also included shots of Taylor and R-Patz, just because it’s Friday and we love them you.
It’s no secret that The Fashion Police are huge fans of Victoria Beckham’s dress collections: simple lines, striking silhouettes, stunning colours – there’s just a lot to like, basically. (Well, except for the price, of course. There is that.)
Some of VB’s latest collection is currently available exclusively at Net-a-Porter, and we let out little sighs of longing every time we look at the images. This is basically Dress Porn: we know we’ll never be able to afford to buy them, but it’s nice to just LOOK at them, isn’t it?
That said, someone obviously is buying these. Despite the fact that the prices start at around $1,600, and the most expensive pieces won’t give you much change out of $5,000 some of these are already sold out. It’s hard to imagine having THAT much money to spend on clothes, but if we did, we’d buy the purple and blue numbers on this page. Yeah, in our dreams…
Visit Net-a-Porter to see the rest of the collection.
(dress, Tory Burch; shoes, Nicholas Kirkwood; bag, Kate Spade New York)
