No, no, no, yes, no, awful, ok, no, no, yes, Garrrd! no, no, yes…. In our customary knock-down-drag-out-don’t-bother-us-we’re-frockwatching fashion, we’ve culled the best of the Golden Globes red carpet and discarded the rest on grounds of weirdness, ill-fittedness, puckery seamness, wonky hemness and all-round tasteless-decollete-and-what-(TF)-were-you-thinking-girly?-ness.
In keeping with Voxfrock’s No Bitching editorial policy, this pretty flotsam is the kindest result of our labours we could muster.
What do you think?
PHOTOS: www.WWD.com
1. Our handsdown favorite was Elizabeth Dockery‘s trim-cut and crusted princess dress with a hemline that kicked off the ankle. (Main photograph, top.) It’s a length plugged hard into the fashion zeitgeist, not least because it’s so darned flattering, visually chopping the leg as it does, roughly at its narrowest point. At the end of our Golden Globes cull, by sheer co-incidence, four of a total 10 ensembles picked by the Voxfrockers, featured the same ankle-grazer or mid-calf hemline on skirts featuring a flattering swell of fabric from the hips.
2. Voxfrock is rarely moved to much-flogged superlatives such as “stunning” but happy to apply precisely that to Ralph Lauren‘s strapless flame dress with floor-sweeper cape sleeves for Lupita Nyong’o. Channelling a Valentino design shown in ivory a few seasons ago, it was an inspired juxtaposition with Miss Nylong’o’s dark beauty.
Lupita Nyong’o in Ralph Lauren
3. Drew Barrymore’s joyous, 3D floral maternity extravaganza. Matchless on many more levels than red carpet glamour. Ms. Barrymore all but fluttered along the carpet and hearts could not help but swell to watch her.
Drew Barrymore
4. Caitlin Fitzgerald’s quilted ice-blue princess gown was striking for four reasons: chic sleeves (tres mo-derne), modesty without sacrificing glamour, knockout dagger-toe heels with enough peach to draw the beholder’s eye, and breezy bobbed hairdo, also a shot at cool modesty without compromising glamour. Poifick.
Caitlin Fitzgerald
5. Sarah Hyland’s peachy gown with smooth bodice and layered full length skirt dropping like water from the hipline was striking for its measured, monotone simplicity. A more shapely figure would ruin it by drawing attention to the body beneath, but Miss Hyland’s lean young figure enabled the dress, and her lovely face framed by easy “heidi” braided hairdo, to shine.
Sarah Hyland
6. Crystal-crusted and paillette-spangled Zoe Deschanel in Oscar de la Renta‘s charming cap-sleeved box top over silk tulle ankle-skimmer clenched flatteringly at the waist, releasing elegantly from the hips, and cut to trail at the back. In any other showcase the spangled dagger-toe heels would shift the ensemble from charming to ostentatious, but they worked like a fairytale charm here.
Zoe Deschanel
7. Voxfrock is over the ubiquitous red carpet goddess gown, but for now, there are few modes to replace it for women on the sunset side of 30. The princess silhouette (as worn by Elizabeth Dockery, Caitlin Fitzgerald, et. al) can be a tad too young; the modified cross-draped bodice goddess (as worn by Helen Mirin, et. al.) is aesthetically too mature. What’s in the middle? Elisabeth Moss‘s cap-sleeved slitherer, with its reptilian surface of bulls-blood and black paillettes by J Mendel and hemline hard-cut to expose neatly turned ankles and calves at the front, isn’t a bad pick. Extra points for her ragged side-switched bob and single chandelier earring.
Elisabeth Moss in J Mendel
8. Yes, Voxfrock is so over the goddess gown it is beginning to hurt. The style has dominated red carpets long enough to cast a sausage-factory-like pall over our memories of Oscars, Golden Globes, Logies et. al. in recent years. However. If you must plug a common-as-muck frockstyle, it might as well be this. Amber Heard‘s navy duchess satin goddess hugged her bits like a Parisienne lover. Its ruched mono-shoulder swooped from a similarly ruched bodice sucked perfectly about her ribcage and the effect was striking enough to look, at least in a fashion sense, not-wrong. Its Jolie-esque split to the hip bone also achieved an eye-popping balance of sex and sophistication. And, Miss Heard ‘s stylist earned extra points for the gentle messiness of her chignon and high-rolled quiff.
Amber Heard
9. No, we don’t like strapless (particularly horizons below the armpits) and we rarely warm to white gowns, but Laura Carmichael‘s strapless white with black side pleats moved like liquid and hummed with its own modern simplicity. Every seam sat flat, the bodice was stable, decolletage was reasonably modest, the gown fit like a second skin and Miss Carmichael was a picture of relaxed style. Fingers crossed no scallywag photographer crops her at the armpits for that naked-on-the-red-carpet look.
Laura Carmichael
10. We were in three minds about Lily Rabe’s starburst black ball bodice and full skirt but bunged her in at number 10 for its sheer sheerness, cap-sleevedness and skinny-beltness, all modern red carpet ticks tho we did feel perfection might have been easily achieved with a ballerina hemline all round or even an ankle-grazer swoop up at the front dropping to floor-sweeper at the back. But, that’s just us.
Lily Rabe
Compiled by Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au, with Terry Carruthers, Candice Burke, Michaela Summers and Tim Whiteman, intern@voxfrock.com.au, info@voxfrock.com.au
