Overdressed & Underclassed: The 8 Worst Fashion Fashion Moments Of 2008
Posted at 9:00 AM Dec 24, 2008
By Kathleen WillcoxWelcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
This week we address the worst fashion moments of the year. Fashion faux pas are like a particularly virulent breed of bronchitis; a disgusting, unpleasant fact of life that certain celebrities catch once and toss off without missing a well-heeled step, while others seem to be permanently felled by a chronic case that sends bystanders scurrying for cover for fear of contracting the dread disease. Here's our votes for an octagon of the '08's most offensive.
8. Agyness Deyn
It's chronic.
There are flashes of delicious, savory brilliance in Agyness' fashion fruit n' nut grab bag. And yet, Agyness' insistence on cultivating a bleached, neglected, teased and abused Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia-Pet-style 'do, coupled with her penchant for dressing like Billy Idol circa 1983, an unreasonable devotion to bandanas and questionably tailored pants (that look uncomfortably tight in the crotch area) outnumber her waltzes with aesthetic resplendence. She's more fashion idiot than savant.
7. Blake Lively
Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning.
You're right, Blake: Fashion is all about fantasy. That's great, honey, because you embrace that concept. Especially when wearing short, sparkly postage stamps on the red carpet or fluttery white dresses and cowboy boots while flitting about Manhattan and flashing that toothy grin at the stalkerazzi. They love you, we love you, it's all good. But leave the more "conceptual" clothes to the darker, smarter, sassier indie crowd. No one wants to see you in a shiny, baggy pondscum-green, wrinkled jumpsuit and high heels. I know you were going for the insouciant sophisticate thing, but this makes you look like you belong in the pit at NASCAR, wiping the sweat from your fair brow and tinkering with a miter saw and mini-torch while muttering about "that durn Cletus. Tol' him ta plug that leak durn it anyway."
6. Sarah Jessica Parker
It's (rather) chronic.
Much like her alter-ego Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah definitely likes to take sartorial risks that would make less temerarious women blanch. And while she's more than likely to pass the Anna Wintour sniff test, Sarah's flops are unsurpassable. Like the time she decided to wear a green pillbox hat that resembles a large breast (nipple included!) and sprout a Brobdingnagian floral arrangement to the Sex And The City movie premiere (reminds me of the hideous bird Carrie strapped to her head to wear for her ill-fated fictional nuptials).
5. Anna Wintour
Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning.
Willful idiosyncrasy, clothing as wearable sculpture and high-brow reflections of the current social/economic/cultural climate are all expected, even necessary, components of haute couture. And few people people's names are as synonymous with couture as Anna's. So heads understandably turned when Nuclear Wintour showed up to the Met Costume Gala (her gala, the fashion gala to end all fashion galas) in an actively odd Karl Lagerfeld dress that appeared designed to make the already serpentine editrix resemble a horned lizard dipped in mercury. While I don't agree with Time about it being the biggest fashion faux pas of the year, considering Wintour's pedigree, it's certainly up there.
It's chronic.
Pete, you're so deep. As you've said time and again, you've been in therapy since you were a child, you were diagnosed with ADD and manic imbalances and treated them with a fancy cocktail of prescription drugs. That's great, thanks for sharing. And while the Fall Out Boy has become the poster boy for emo style, even "designing" a line for DKNY, I am beyond being over his literal, "I wear my black, broken heart on my sleeve" mode of dressing. The shoe-shine-black, grease-fest mop-top come-forward du jour, the endless hat and hoodie combos and the distressingly-tight-jeans uniform are all meant to show the world that you are a non-conforming, rebellious poet/lover/rebel Rimbaud for our time. Does the phrase "trying too hard" ever come to mind? And just for the record, Robert "Boys Don't Cry" Smith is still the only non cross-dressing man who can get away with guyliner without looking like a complete ass.
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