From what I saw of last night’s red carpet, there were no awful dresses at the Oscars. There were some boring dresses and some mildly unflattering dresses, but no outright disasters.
On the other hand, there were quite a lot of fantastic dresses, and because I have only had four hours’ sleep and I have to go to work soon, I am going to make you talk about them so I don’t have to. Here are the four which really knocked me out: tell me which you like best, or if I’ve left out your favourite.
(Click on the pictures for bigger versions)
1. Penelope Cruz was stunning in a soft blue. She’s gone from kookily pretty to old-school glamorous without me noticing:
2. George Clooney’s escort Stacy Keibler effortlessly outshone her ageing squeeze in a dress that made her look exactly like an Oscar, only better:
3. Viola Davis combined gorgeous green Vera Wang with red hair au naturel and a breezy confidence that made me wish she was my friend:
4. J-Lo looked (as always) like a sculpture of the perfect woman:
(I will compare the actual Oscar results to my various predictions later. I think if you combine both sets of predictions judiciously I got about half of them right, including precisely none of the technical categories.)
Glad All Over 
well done for so many accurate predictions (with some help from the press etc).
Stacy – because she is the furthest away from what an ordinary person might ever look like, and that is the point of the Oscars; (J-lo v close, but she always is)
Dont fall asleep over your laptop – you never know what you might erase
Gwynth for me…
I think J-Lo looks trrrraaashy… which is fine but she doesnt make me envious.
Yeah…if her dress didn’t have those arm holes (the pointless ones, not the ones her arms go through) and the neckline was two inches higher, it’d be a much classier dress. She still looks better than almost everyone else, though. I didn’t include Angelina Jolie or Milla Jovovitch because I actively disliked their dresses, but they also looked better than almost everyone else. There is something to be said for being extraordinarily beautiful, as well as having a good frock.
Yep, Gwynnie looked pretty incredible: http://aka.media.entertainment.sky.com/image/unscaled/2012/02/27/Gwyneth-Paltrow-Oscars-2012-Red-Carpet-Pictures-260212.jpg
I know some people didn’t like the cape,but I really liked Gwyneth’s dress..
I thought I posted a comment but it seems to have gone away. Anyway, I thought Glenn Close’s gown was superb, but of these four, Penelope all the way.
Penelope for me as well. George has his toes turned in for some reason. Perhaps he’s going for a bit of gawky, kooky, cutesyness. I don’t think that’s your look, George.
You’ve missed out the most beautiful dress of the night, which (IMHO) was worn by Sandra Bullock: http://redcfa.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Sandra-Bullock-In-Marchesa-2012-Oscars.jpg
It is a stunning dress, and much more interesting than most of the rest of them, but I’m afraid I was blindsided by Sandy’s FACE and failed to notice the dress. What has she done? I am sad because she always seemed like one of the more down-to-earth Hollywood types, but I suppose even that isn’t proof against the pressure to stay youthful, even if “youthful” ends up meaning “with the face of an alien”.
For shame, I hadn’t noticed, though now you say so… do you think it’s the tightly drawn hair, or something more… invasive?
I think she’s had Work Done. I hate that Hollywood does that to people. Melanie Griffiths looked like nothing on earth.
I’m going to buck the haters and say I really liked the Gwynneth cape-frock combo.
I really like that too 🙂 She’s got such a beautiful, elegant figure that I think the simple style really suited her.
Yep, it was a good outfit. I think I just didn’t include it because of them all, it’s the one that would look most hideous on me, so I unconsciously dismissed it the moment I saw it.