The 84th Annual Academy Awards were, from a fashion perspective, the Academic Awards. Just as academic writing calculates, then wards off, every potential challenge or criticism from a peer-review committee—that is how the clothes looked. The nominees and presenters were all in their Sunday best, safely soignée, appropriate, stately, well-behaved—and styled by the book to avoid making someone’s worst-dressed list. There were very few flickers of style, caprice, wit, irony, kookiness, or rebellion. Where is Cher when you need her? Or Nicole Kidman in chartreuse Galliano?
It also seemed as if there were only one bottle of hair color in the entire city of Los Angeles: last night was a red carpet in more than one sense. A striking number of actresses had red, russet, henna, Titian, tawny, or burnt-orange hair, or at least red highlights—even handsome Viola Davis (although her carotene-colored modified Afro did look fetching with her hunter-green Vera Wang gown).
“The Artist” was, of course, shot in black and white, and we finally got to see what color Berenice Bejo’s hair was: red. Penelope Cruz showed up with a matronly pageboy, streaked with red. Her gown, a cloudlike sweep of dusty mauve, with a dropped waist and a bateau neck, by Armani Privé, was impeccable. (“Impeccable” literally means “without sin,” and Armani has, in that respect, a lot to answer for. He’s the Rick Santorum of the red carpet.)
J. Lo: red highlights and deep décolleté—thank you! (Her semi-transparent gown, by Zuhair Murad, reminded me of the Chrysler Building.) Kristin Wiig: reddish hair. Tiny Fey: red highlights. She was wearing a decorous navy dress by Carolina Herrera redeemed by its saucy peplum. Emma Stone: reddish hair and a red dress by Giambattista Valli. It had an outsized bow at the neck, sort of like a pumped-up couture suit blouse. Hold the popcorn, and the corn in general, but pass out the steroids!
Jessica Chastain: pale reddish hair, almost pink, in a black and gold Alexander McQueen. I won’t complain. Natalie Portman: reddish highlights. Her red gown with black polka-dots was vintage Dior—gold standard chic, brava—but why wear a boring diamond necklace with it? Would it not have been more amusing to try something cheeky and youthful that could not be found at a Newport Ball—even, say, a little black satin ribbon with one of those weird plastic cameos that Prada introduced this season? It is, after all, 2012. She was infinitely chicer in the commercials for Miss Dior.
Sequins were another theme of the evening. Ellie Kemper’s Armani Privé sequins matched her hair: russet. Jane Seymour (red highlights) was wearing red sequins. Rose Byrne did not have red hair, but she was wearing sequins, too—one of the best gowns of the evening—a body-molding, backless, one-shouldered, shoe-polish-black dress by Vivienne Westwood, though it has to be the most straight-faced creation that Westwood, the queen of punk, has ever sent down a runway.
Do blondes have more fun? Maybe a little. But not Gwyneth Paltrow, in a minimalist white column dress by Tom Ford that came with a silly cape. Michelle Williams was as tart as a persimmon in a lovely tiered and ruffled orange gown by Louis Vuitton, with a little diamond bow at the waist. Nobly but sadly, she resisted any impulse to channel Marilyn. Meryl Streep was wearing a statuesque gold dress that … but who cares what Meryl wears? It is fun enough, one surmises, being Meryl Streep.
The Oscar for best-dressed at the Oscars, however, goes to Angelina Jolie, in a daring, strapless Versace gown of black velvet, with a bustle and an asymmetrical bodice that resembled tulip-petals, slit to show off her legs to die for. That is more like it: something to die for! She resembled Sargent’s Madame X.
And in the to-die-for department, special mention goes to Rooney Mara, who lost to Meryl Streep, but showed the competition what Oscar fashion should be. Her white slip of a dress, by Givenchy, evoked vintage Chanel (Chanel-Chanel, not Lagerfeld-Chanel, one of the bias cut slips of the nineteen-thirties). Mara seems to understand that style requires exaggeration, and everything about her is exaggerated: her emaciated figure; her shellacked hair; its inky artificial blackness, the punkish bangs; the thick brows over the alarming blue eyes; and the aching fragility—all of it a contrast to her freshness.
Well maybe things will perk up next year. As the president of the Academy put it: “Thank you for sharing.”
Photograph of Angelina Jolie, Goodloe/PictureGroup. Other photographs, Getty Images.
