Sex And The City: The Movie had its world premiere in London last night and, unsurprisingly, it was a fashionfest.

I LOVE Sarah Jessica Parker’s green chiffon Alexander McQueen dress - it’s fresh, it’s pretty and it’s general flattering (although it does seem to be sat a little too high, making her torso look a tad short) - but what on earth is going on with that thing on her head? I don’t mean the Philip Treacy hat - which is clearly wacky but fun and an wonder of engineering - but her scruffy hair. It looks uncombed and unstyled so jars with the rest of the precise look.

Cynthia Nixon’s hair, on the other hand, is just perfect, along with the barely there make-up and pretty drop earrings. Her dress though… I like the overall look - the fabric, the deep blue colour, the flowing skirt even the concept of the plunge front - but something about the execution of the top part seems to be a little severe.

Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall both decided to coordinate with the event’s red carpet - and I wonder if someone’s stylist is going to be fired because they went for the same general colour. Kristin’s vintage chiffon was a more muted and pinker than Kim’s letterbox-red structured Vivenne Westwood, and the colour, combined with the styles of the indiviual dresses - quite prim versus post-sex-session dropped shoulder - made me wonder if they’d come, at least in part, as their characters from the show.

Read the rest of this entry →

I truly appreciate the art of accessorising well. I don’t always achieve it in my personal life (over the long weekend I unintentionally left the house on three occasions without wearing any jewellery whatsoever because I was running late and had forgotten) but I appreciate the art. Most importantly, I know that no matter how beautiful the accessory, it will not rescue a hideous outfit - a dull one maybe, a hideous one, no.

Unfortunately Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes don’t seem to be aware of this fact.

Victoria turned up for the annual Costume Institute gala in New York last night wearing a largely see-through white lace dressing gown. Her great shoes and mancessory (husband David Beckham) didn’t come close to pulling it out of the hideous realms, particularly as they were hindered by the addition of severe make-up, making her look like the victim of a dodgy plastic surgeon.

Similarly, their good friend Tom Cruise, clad in Armani, could save/distract from most fashion atrocities but not Katie Holmes‘ horrible red gown, which looks like red shrunk-to-fit plastic bags. I like the idea of her contrasting shoes in theory but it’s all too much. She has though, unlike the rest of Hollywood, somehow manage to get an inverse bobblehead thing going on. She looks a million miles tall, with a suitably large bum to ensure a low centre of gravity, but the tiniest, sleekest bobbed head at the top of it.

Read the rest of this entry →

If the Grammys were all about the blue, then the Oscars were all about the red. And the black. And the baby bumps.

If there were awards for dresses, Heidi Klum would have won the Best Dramatic Performance award for her John Galliano for Dior gown, with its extravagant train and collar. And Anne Hathaway though would have been a shoo-in for Most Like A Classical Statue But In A Good Way trophy. The slightly more muted red of the Marchesa dress looked fantastic with her pale skin and dark hair.

Katherine Heigl, in Escada, pulls off her brighter red too - evoking old school glamour with her big curls and letterbox red lipstick. And in contrast to her white dress from the Grammys, Miley Cyrus looks beautifully sophisticated in her Valentino gown - even though it still manages to not be too old for her tender years. The plethora of red dresses has been said to be in homage to Valentino, who retired from his namesake fashion house last month at the age of 75, but Miley was the only one that got to wear his trademarked rosso Valentino.

Read the rest of this entry →

In Part 1 of our Oscars 2008: Red Carpet Fashion Commentary, we covered the two dominant colours of the evening - red and black - and now we continue on the rest of the evening’s trends, kicking off with belly bumps…

While Nicole Kidman’s bland black dress slide perfectly over her little baby bump, Cate Blanchett’s near eight month bump was very, very visible in her Dries Van Noten gown. It seems like just last week that she had a neat little bump and now here she is looking like a baby explosion is imminent. Still the dress with its embroidery and beaded halterneck collar was gorgeous, just a little tent-like and really quite conventional for the often kooky Cate.

Jessica Alba seemed to have got the best baby-bump option though: her purple Marchesa was a fab colour and the cut is just perfect for her nearly six month bump - it’s neither too showy-offy or too tentlike - and the level of floatiness ranks just about perfect in my books.

Read the rest of this entry →

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

We don’t normally feature many men in the Red Carpet Commentary because, well, mostly their outfits aren’t worth commenting on. For the really big events, they’re all in pretty much bog standard tuxedos or at the other end of the scale for less prestigious ones, they look like they’ve just stumbled up the red carpet in their standard everyday street wear. But some of this year’s Brit Awards attendees actually got suited and booted (literally in most cases) so we thought we should give them some attention too.

The Arctic Monkeys are an obviously place to start because they all coordinated their game plan and came in costume as country gents - complete with shooting sticks and fake ducks. Quack quack.
Read the rest of this entry →