Brit Awards 2008: red carpet commentary

Girls Aloud’s collective choice of outfits pretty much sums up the binary opposite that was fashion on the Brit Awards’ red carpet last night: it was either basic monochrome or retina-shattering bright colours. There was really no in-between.

Sarah Harding and Kimberley Walsh look to have coordinated their outfits - stark black and white with tiny flashes of bright pink. With her hair like that, Sarah looks very 1980s - but in a good way. And the matching shoes look fun and coordinated instead of over-twee because of the match. She rocks it like it’s 1986. Kimberley’s pencil skirt is more 1980s-evoking-the-1950s retro and the outfit, combined with her big bouncy curls, is very chic and flattering.

On the other side of the colour spectrum, Cheryl Cole’s dress is a very fun, cheerful yellow - a cheer-me-up dress if I’ve ever seen one and it’s just a shame the lack of definition around the top makes her boobs look a bit all over the place. Finally to Nicola on the end, she looks ghostly pale and uncomfortable next to her over-tanned permasmiling bandmates but she’s got a cute dress that’s really flattering to her colouring. Her skin occasionally looks blue-tinged but here it looks a somewhat more healthy pink - and those coordinating shoes are great.

Back to the monochrome for a moment though, Alexa Chung found the perfect outfit for the tv-presenting girlfriend of a rock star. A simple but cute black dress with a lace overlay - and sleeves - which looks fun and alternative, but still chic.

And Leona Lewis also picked a great dress to suit her style and look. The lace of the dress works so well with her curls to give an overall soft and romantic look. It’s a really good shape on her too - not that she needs much help in the great figure department.

Current chart-topper Duffy really honed the Dusty Springfield comparisons she’d had lately for her bouffant hair-do and the 1970s style of her collar and velvet mini-dress. At first I didn’t like it but it’s growing on me - and it automatically positions her in the serious artist camp instead of the throw-away pop star category, which can only be a good thing for her career.

Critics Choice Award winner Adele went for a similar retro/serious-artist theme but it comes off as a bit too heavy and wintery - I know it’s winter in the UK at the moment but the red carpet is a season-free zone (look at Girls Aloud for proof of this). I’m a fan of bold horizontal stripes on everyone no matter what their size or shape so no complaints about them - but I’d have also liked to have seen a little more shaping to her top and coat so they’re less tentlike.

Beth Ditto knows to avoid the tentlike - and how happy does she look here? In my notes, she’s in my “too cool for comment” section because how can you take this dress seriously enough to attack it? It’s fab and fun - these award shows often take themselves too seriously but this is the dress equivalent of perky pop music - happy, light and it makes me smile.

Joining Beth in the “too cool for comment” section is Natasha Khan of Bat for Lashes. Peach dress, bubblegum pink tights & shoes, neon face paints and grandma’s afternoon tea at Claridge’s clutch bag - a wonderfully wacky and cool combo.

Rihanna is kinda in that cool category too - because she usually goes for slightly out-there fun dress (see her blue one at the Grammys earlier in the month for an example) but she didn’t exactly pull it off at the Brits. I’m hoping that she was paid to wear a bad dress not over-shadow the British stars who are supposed to be the stars of the evening. This silver number, which reminds me of boiler padding insulation, completely squishes her boobs to nothing and the shape around the hips is ugly and looks like it’s sitting funny because of her belt. Rihanna, please put that bribe to good use and buy a better outfit for the next red carpet event.

Kelly Rowland went for a similar outfit - just one that also involved the untimely murder of Big Bird. RIP Biggy.

From one Kelly to another, Kelly Osbourne - the ceremony’s First Daughter, since Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne were the MCs for the evening - made a far better fashion choice. The shape of the panels of colour work her figure to the max and it just generally fits her so well - well, aside from the bra strap slippage but that happens to the best of us. The fabric looks great too - a perfect weight for moving correctly but without dragging her down.

Conversely, the fabric of WAG Alex Curran’s dress just makes me shudder. She maybe could have got away with it if it had some shape but the lack of shape makes it look like she’s wearing a pillowcase. And she coordinated it with a hideously oversized clutch. No. Just no.

Her fellow WAGs managed a bit better. Abi Clancy picked a dress that was flattering and chic - right until the point a camera flashed at it. Hello leopard-print thong!

Gemma Atkinson went down the little classy dress route too but actually looked up looking classy - good shoes, nice clean make-up. It’s perhaps a smidge too short but you know, mostly pretty great.

“A smidge too short but great” is almost a perfect general description of Kylie Minogue. At the Brits though - where she picked up Best International Female - her dress looked like it was designed for someone a bit taller. She is mostly spot-on when it comes to her fashion choices but the shaping around the boobs really overwhelmes her here.

Holly Willoughby went for a similar sparkly black fabric but went for a very modest cut. After all the wonderfully flattering, glam and cleavage-tastic gown choices she’s made on Dancing on Ice, this is very disappointing. Fab shoes though. Perhaps Holly had a deal with her best friend Fearne Cotton - Holly would get the nice fabric but dull cut, while Fearne got the … um, nothing.

A bright red, puffed-sleeved shorts-jumpsuit teamed with brown ankle boots? Icccck.

Speaking of dresses that are the fashion equivalent of someone running their nails down a blackboard, Denise van Outen committed one of the most basic rules of little dressing wearing: legs or boobs, not both. And also, no gold lame. And what’s with the black, strangely platformed shoes? Just about any colour shoe would have worked better there than black.

Ditto Alesha Dixon. Too little dress and a bizarre shoe choice again but the worst thing about her outfit is the black tights. As I said before, I know it’s winter but let’s face it, black tights aren’t going to change that barely there outfit into something fit for an Arctic expedition so the only point they serve is to make me cringe.

And the subject of cringing brings me neatly on to Liz McClarnon’s outfit. That colour is so hard to pull off at the best of times but chiffon sleeves aren’t going to help the case one bit. Bleugh.

See more Red Carpet Commentaries

• The Grammys - Feb 2008
• The BAFTAs - Feb 2008
• SAG Awards - Jan 2008
• The Emmys - Sept 2007
• The MTV Video Awards - Sept 2007