Fashionistas Wow and Woe on the Oscar Red Carpet

The Academy Awards for fashion mavens is what the Superbowl is for alcoholics—a legitimate excuse to overindulge in a favorite hobby. And so began my roughly five and a half hour extravaganza on Sunday night. To outsiders, I seemed keenly interested in who won what. But let’s be honest: the winners this year were obscenely predictable. Fashion, on the other hand, can never be fully anticipated.

Personally, I was aggravated with the muted tones of the dresses this year. While the shades of cream, champagne and gold were pleasant enough, they failed to live up to the Oscar glitz that so often makes me wet my pants. The blandness of the colors meant an added emphasis on texture and design, which luckily worked swimmingly with several gowns.

My woman of the night award goes to Naomi Watts in a gorgeous strapless Versace gown. The beaded tan dress, in addition to her elegantly simplistic make-up and hairstyle, epitomized the essence of classical beauty with a form-fitting body and delicately flowing bottom. Another gem of a dress was Julia Robert’s gold Giorgio Armani which accentuated her curves with an innovative design. A large diamond broach in the center unified the flowing satin brilliantly. The look superbly paid tribute to the late Katherine Hepburn.

With her luminescent hair, radiant tan skin and mystical eyes, Charlize Theron could just as easily have worn an old newspaper and still would have been the most glamorous person at the show. She instead opted for a strappy, sequined champagne gown, aptly showcasing one of Tom Ford’s final designs under the Gucci label. The subdued color of the dress went perfectly with the vivid shades of her hair and skin.

Leave it to Sofia Coppola to defy the fashion trends of the evening and still come out on top. Predictably wearing a Marc Jacobs gown (the two are nearly inseparable), the dramatic black silk dress flirted with feminine frills but boldly maintained the elegance of Oscar splendor. But the glory of Sofia lies in her nonchalant and sometimes downright bitchy persona—an elaborate hairstyle or gown would be utterly superfluous. Her look for the evening perfectly typified her class and sass.

But of course, it’s not the people who dressed well that we care about. It’s the dresses that made us want to gag that really count. Poor Uma Thurman. A woman who consistently wears some of the finest clothes in the fashion world, Uma must have had a blunt object hit her before the show, because her pseudo-kimono-warrior-princess dress was absurd. Her ensemble was either a feeble attempt at educating herself on international culture or a cheap promotion for Kill Bill. Either way, this mishap will be forgiven but not forgotten.

Oscar de la Renta’s creation, worn by Sandra Bullock, was a sorrowful exhibit of one of the classiest haute couture designers today. The white dress included two rows of feathers in addition to a random row of bows at the waistline. Frankly, I was shocked that there weren’t any bells or sparkles because this dress resembled the work of an overly-excited 8-year-old designing her first dress.

The most expensive gown for the evening goes to Entertainment Weekly’s Maria Menounos, who wore a lavish diamond-studded gown worth $2.5 million. The dress, however, explains why such gratuitous cleavage was shown—she simply couldn’t afford to hide her breasts—and it is always dubious when someone wears an outfit that is worth more than their career.

The gossip on Scarlett Johansson’s stunning Ferretti gown, Diane Keaton’s hyper-androgynous tux and Renee Zellweger’s vintage-inspired Carolina Herrera could very well go on forever. The movies themselves seem like an afterthought. I suppose you could say that I’m still drunk on the bacchanalian wonder that is fashion at the Oscars.

—Staff writer Thea S. Morton can be reached at tsmorton@fas.harvard.edu