MegaStyles™: The Week in Fashion (03.27.03)

Movie stars and political speeches go together like cake and gasoline. Therefore, in spite of all Hollywood talk about “toning it down” for the Oscars (the sight of well-coiffed people in eveningwear being, um, nationally demoralizing and all) Hollywood stars, like the youngest child in a family of 12, simply could not say no to the cameras. The Kodak theater shimmered Sunday night with gowns to make any peacock proud.

Although my Oscar consumption has reached projectile purging capacity at this point,
I will do my patriotic duty and honor those who bravely accessorized with ten-carat diamonds, stiletto heels, and entourages of 24 minions at the 75th Academy Awards. I present the MegaStyles™ Best Dressed Awards of the 2003 Oscars:

Gold Medal: Halle Berry, looking like a crystallized caramel confection in her latte-colored, one-shouldered Elie Saab gown.
Silver Medal: Kate Hudson, in a glittering gold Versace. If she had worn this two years ago, she would have been thanking the Academy in it.
Bronze Medal: J. Lo/Jennifer Lopez/Jenny from the Block in a daring mint green caftan, a style previously dominated by Liz Taylor, and yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off it….
Honorable Mentions: Jennifer Garner, going the Liz Hurley route and getting press for her body in Versace as opposed to her body of work. Hilary Swank’s multilevel, cotton-candy pink concoction. Queen Latifah’s breasts.

Even the New York Times can’t survive without Joan Rivers. Cathy Horyn commends J. Riv and adeptly levels the Academy for taking the red carpet so seriously. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/fashion/25NOTE.html

Thousand Dollar Habit, Million Dollar Hobby. Splurge on the jewels but save on the limo? How much money would you need to do the Oscars right? Scroll down to the Oscar calculator and find out.
http://www.instyle.com/instyle/read/white/oscars/0,8619,412265,00.html#

Fashion Lit: If you want to have all the fun sucked out of fashion, read Fashion Victim by Michelle Lee. Lee apparently read Fast Food Nation, fondled her Fendi mini-tote dejectedly and realized it was her lifelong duty to rain on fashionphiles everywhere. Unabashed in her plagiarism, Lee even pens a chapter called “McFashion.” However, in her enthusiasm to dash the dreams of Vogue subscribers, Lee forgets that while fast food contributes to our nation’s obesity problem, fashion contributes…to our sense of fun. 
Taking her material too seriously and her audience too lightly, Lee offers a cheap rip-off of Eric Schlosser’s marvelous Fast Food Nation, creating a killjoy book by somebody who has registered for her wedding at Gucci and is trying to feel less materialistic. Save your money and go by Stevie Cojo’s amusing, if predictable, Red Carpet Diaries.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345453786/qid%3D1048652270/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-0002505-1088876 

“I don’t design clothes. I design dreams.”
                                                 - Ralph Lauren