Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Solange, Drake and Justin Timberlake all looked amazing yesterday as they went about their daily lives, buying milk and giving zero phucks about their peers who ~selflessly~ made time to suck it in and brave the bright lights and landmines peppered along The 56th Annual Grammy Awards Red Carpet.
Theirs was an absence discernibly felt during an otherwise ho-hum affair (sans Drunk In Love), the coverage of which I followed with a mounting sense of nausea as noted journalist Giuliana Rancic condescended and cajoled her reluctant subjects to take a ham-fisted walk of shame down the mani-cam red carpet. Here’s mostly everything you’d never profess to wanting to know about the fashion on show at the Grammys.
GiulE!ana looks very Grammy appropriate in one of her better red carpet looks, this one by Our Alex Perry. Even though the creeping patchwork lace reminds me of chic impetigo, I like this look on Rancic and sometimes wonder if there are any discrepancies between all the gushing bullshit she has to say for a living and her inner monologue.
Katy Perry, First Lady of Subtlety and Queen of Never Taking Things Too Literally, scored a major fashion coup by wearing the show-opening Valentino Haute Couture gown phresh off last week’s runway. It took 1600 hours for the house’s finest craftsmen to embroider the score from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata onto that tulle skirt. It’s a shame then that it looks so seriously underwhelming. Her date for the evening is her creepy bro.
In My Humble O, her performance of ‘Dark Horse’ was frankly terrible and, with respect, it trivialised the deaths of all those who died in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Kidding. But only about the Witch Trials bit. Twerking on pyrotechnic broomsticks is not okay.
One of many missteps during yesterday’s ceremony was having Jared Leto read the first verse of ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ in a piece of spoken word poetry that failed to adequately honour the memory of Lou Reed. Instead, it felt like slightly disingenuous cross-promotion for his role as a transexual AIDS patient in the otherwise brilliant Dallas Buyers Club.
Also, I hear his hair’s insured for $10,000.
Don’t you wish your parents were as cool as Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa? Me neither. Her contour-hugging Naeem Khan is very on brand, and unlike the rest of her, her tattoos are barely visible. His Saint Laurent is a vast improvement from the cutoff dress sweatpants he usually favours. Cute couple, killer tallons.
Anna Faris looks sweet and safe and more than a little boring in this Fitriani column gown (with hot pockets for snacks?). It was her first time at the Grammys and she’s missing her best, musically-gifted accessory, Chris Pratt.
In a gilded boob cage by Azzaro with Glam Skrillex Hair, noted cup enthusiast Anna Kendrick has today professed to being both extremely hungover and shaken by an IRL encounter with Beyoncé. Would do shots with.
Ashanti tho :/ #Foolish
TBH the jury’s still out on Rita Ora, but I like this holographic Lanvin. The best thing Calvin Harris ever did after going blonde and hooking up with Rita Ora was ditching the diamonte fly-eye sunglasses.
In custom Pucci Maternity, Ciara is literally glowing and pregnant with a child of the Future.
Soft-spoken, best dressed men of the hour in sharp Saint Laurent tuxedos. Their commitment to a look makes Daniel Day Lewis’s method acting read like poorly-scripted Real Housewives programming.
Iggy looks so fresh, so clean and so serene in a beaded Ellie Saab Couture column.
Unlike the vice in which P!nk keeps the balls of the Australian music industry, there’s nothing tight about Johanna Johnson’s red satin pattern-making homework.
So glad Jennifer Lawrence was able to make an appearance.
Shout out to Kelly Osbourne for being the only Osbourne able to string together a coherent sentence. She sticks to her personal brand and auditions for a spot in an American Horror Story coven in caped Badgley Mischka. Shout out to Stevie Nicks.
Nelly tho :/ #Dilemma
Nope. This awkward floor-length turtleneck morphsuit is by Haus of Milani, which says it all, really.
How bloodcurdlingly awful.
If you’re wondering what, if anything, you’ve seen Paula Patton in, she played the counsellor in Precious and has headlined every worst dressed list since ever. I mean, those are [ostensibly?] lions, but it’s a zebra print floor-length gown that’s beaded and sheer. Her and her husband, #MISOGYNY share bouffant up-dos, a shit-eating grin and zero self-awareness. Next!
Sarah Bareilles is a window sill away from a dream catcher in this Blumarine situation. Her grand piano duel with Carole King was a ceremony highlight, but this look (with Katniss Everdeen inspired braids) reminds me of bedroom ornaments in a dusty tween boudoir, which make me think of that Newton Faulkner song about dream catchers, which bums me out.
This could be us but you playin’.
Fetch, Steven Tyler.
Sexual alert! Here’s a more redeeming gown by Johanna Johnson worn by Ten, Chrissy Teigan; her beau John Legend wears heavenly Gucci.
I don’t love this Armani Prive gown, but goddamn if Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys aren’t a vision in subdued elegance.
Hate to get all passive aggressive on you, but Pharrell’s hat is actually a Vivienne Westwood A/W1982-1983 ‘Nostalgia of Mud’ and ‘Buffalo’ collection original, that he purchased from her first store, World’s End, and was designed in collaboration with Westwood’s partner, enfant terrible and grandfather of punk, Malcolm McLaren. Haters <<<
Looking like she missed the memo about Tarantino canning The Hateful Eight, Madonna rolled up with her eight-year-old son David Banda looking like a boss named Calvin Candie in matching custom Ralph Lauren tuxedos [his choice], wielding a pimp cane, glove, grills, and facial mobility confined to her eyes and mouth. Would watch a Tarantino movie starring Madonna as a bounty hunter though.
U mad bro? Remember what you wore to your Year 11 formal? Now look at Lorde, who reeks chic and reigns supreme in this business in the front, party in the back column.
Taylor Swift will rule over us all one day in perfect chain-mail Gucci. Girl with the clipboard agrees, dreams of that future.
That is, only after Yoncé gets bored of it. She wears Michael Costello Couture and looks ***Flawless.
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am bereft of what is rightfully mine.”
Photos: Frazer Harrison, Robyn Beck, Christopher Polk, Jason Merritt via Getty
