My Best Dressed at the 2020 Oscars Is …

I’ve fallen behind on blogging awards-season fashion because of … stuff.

So I’m thankful to the celebrities at the 2020 Oscars for making it easy to bestow my Best Dressed/Wear What You Want awards by wearing a few of my favorite things. Maybe they’re even too on the nose. It’s one thing to shop your closet, but did they shop MY closet? Mullet gowns, for instance, were worn by Penelope Cruz, Billy Porter, and Florence Pugh. Brad Pitt even came correct with a mullet hairstyle, though he has a way to go before he matches my length.

Anyway, my second-runner up for the prestigious Best Dressed/Wear What You Want award (“Bitch stole my style” category) is Sandra Oh in Elie Saab Haute Couture featuring glorious shoulder ruffles.

I delight in shoulder ruffles …

Ruffled jacket by Junya Watanabe, in 2013. Click for original post.

… especially for Oscar festivities.

First runner-up is Saoirse Ronan in a Gucci dress with a huge peplum.

Remember how peplums left people aghast in the first six months of 2011 … only to become the hot trend by the end of the year? That was a particularly fast-moving example of my “Never Is the Next New Thing™” philosophy. Of course, I still have the peplum dress that my designing friend Stacy Lomman made for me to wear when I won Fashion Group International’s Rising Star award in January 2012. Nowadays, all the celebs are bragging about rewearing outfits and being sustainable but you longtime readers know I’m the original queen of homegrown vintage.

Me and Stacy. Click for original post.

My top prize goes to frequent Best Dressed/Wear What You Want honoree Janelle Monae, who wore an architectural, hooded gown with a cut-out back by Ralph Lauren.

Now, that’s something I don’t have in my closet, though not for lack of trying. I wrote about two iconic hooded outfits in 2014 — Shania Twain’s and Kylie Minogue’s — and I’ve been looking for the right fancy-ass, non-hoodie hooded lewk ever since. Let me know if you see one that you think I’d like. Mind you, I’m not looking for a dress adorned with 168,000 hand-embroidered Swarovski crystals, weighing so much it requires four people to wrangle it, as People magazine reported about Monae’s. I don’t have the staff.

I’m confident no one’s going to come for Janelle Monae, but you can expect to see both Oh and Ronan getting ticketed by various self-proclaimed fashion police. Fuck that. Standing out from the crowd is what matters to me. That’s why I started this blog in 2007 with my original motto of “Wear What You Want” and why I invented my Best Dressed/Wear What You Want award in 2012. I will say that tonight’s USA Today worst-dressed article gave me a moment of clarity about my own difficult-to-define personal style.

“The adjective of the night was loud. Full skirts, feathery sleeves, brazen colors, sparkly gems and dangling fringe dominated the 92nd Academy Awards.”

Fine. I’ll take “loud.” “Loud” jibes with this Instagram comic that recently caught my eye. (Swipe for the three panels.)

“Loud” regularly leads to “Never Is the Next New Thing™” because it takes the most provocative/grating/startling looks — the ones that make you say, “I would NEVER wear that!” — to jolt us out of our style complacency and into a new direction.As I wrote about the Golden Globes red carpet last month:

“This award comes with no statuette, certificate, cash prize, career bump, or gift bag. But it might be the first sign that a celebrity who leads every other fashion critic’s worst-dressed list will be vindicated in, say, four years by being the recognizable early adopter of a major red-carpet trend (Rihanna); or in 20 years, by being recognized as a queen of couture (Céline Dion); or in 18 years by seeing her reviled Oscar dress on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bjork).”

Yep, keep your eye on RiRi and my awardees …

… and you’ll know what you’ll be wearing sooner or later. P.S. I love to say “I told you so!”