Clothing / Fashion, - everyday fashion or celebrity fashion

Madonna used to make it to such lists now and then. Her career is so tepid, she can't even make it on to Mr. Blackwell's list anymore.

I think if he saw some of her tacky running / sweat suits that show up in papparazzi shots, Mr. Blackwell might reconsider.

Britney Spears tops worst-dressed list
Mr. Blackwell dubs singer an ‘over-the-hill Lolita’

Updated: 4:56 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2006

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears tops Mr. Blackwell’s annual Worst-Dressed list for looking like “an over-the-hill Lolita.”

Mary-Kate Olsen’s dumpster chic lands her in second place.

Blackwell says it looks like Olsen needs bug spray instead of perfume.

Blackwell calls Jessica Simpson a “cut-rate Rapunzel slingin’ hash in a Vegas diner.”

... Mariah Carey is criticized for her skimpy outfits.

Anna Nicole Smith is described as “Queen Kong in cheap lingerie.” ...

Anyone know right off hand what brick and mortar stores carry Guess brand jeans?

If I were to go to a shopping mall, would I be able to find Guess jeans at "The Limited" - or where?

Do any strip mall kind of stores carry Guess jeans (such as Marshall's, Kohl's)?

I'm not sure myself, since Guess isn't a brand I wear. But I found that the Guess website has a store locator page.

http://www.guess.com/StoreLocator.aspx

Thank you for the link. I checked it out, and there were some locations downtown, and one at a mall that's a two hour drive from where I live.

I checked out Kohl's website, and all they carry is Guess brand perfumes and cologne.

Posh Spice Tops Blackwell [2007] Worst-Dressed

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade after singling out the Spice Girls as fashion atrocities, Mr. Blackwell put just one of them — Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham — at the top of his 48th annual worst-dressed list.

The acid-tongued critic — who was designing dresses for the rich and famous when he originated the list in 1960 — skewered entertainment's biggest stars in the latest compilation of fashion follies.

Saying it's all in fun to encourage fashion consciousness, Blackwell heaped venom on Beckham, his No. 1 choice on the list, which was released Tuesday.

"Forget the fashion spice, wearing a skirt would suffice! In one skinny-mini monstrosity after another, pouty Posh can really wreck-em," he said in a statement.

An e-mail message to Beckham's publicist, Cheryl Maisel, wasn't immediately answered.

Blackwell listed the Spice Girls as No. 1 in his 1998 worst-dressed list, deriding the group as "the only spices on the planet that have no taste."

Britney Spears, who has made the list many times before, is missing this year.

"I felt that it was inappropriate at this time to make comment, when her personal life is in such upheaval. I hope 2008 is a better year for her," Blackwell said.

The top 10 roll-call of fashion dishonors also includes:

_ No. 2: Amy Winehouse — "Exploding beehives above, tacky polka-dots below, she's part '50s carhop horror."

_ No. 3: Mary-Kate Olsen — "She resembles a tattered toothpick — trapped in a hurricane."

_ No. 4: Fergie — "Yes, when it comes to couture chaos, guess it's all in a name!"

His top 10 also includes Kelly Clarkson, Eva Green, Avril Lavigne, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and Alison Arngrim.

He also released a Fabulous Fashion Independents list that includes Reese Witherspoon, Jemima Khan, Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Helen Mirren, Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes, Kate Middleton, Katherine Heigl and Cate Blanchett.

This site is right up my alley!

The Tacky Police

Interesting article, but as for this:

Madonna opened the door to the designer-artist relationship through her collaborations with Jean-Paul Gaultier,

Didn't Cher start that with Bob Mackie, back in the 1970s?

Even earlier than that (1950s), Marilyn Monroe would give one of her designers, Billy Travilla some input into the dresses he designed for her.

Rock stars aren't rocking the look

With their extended hair and unremarkable designer dresses, today’s pop queens aren’t setting the trends, they’re following them. Ashlee Simpson, left, Fergie and Jordin Sparks look almost interchangeable.

As stylists and designers increasingly partner with musicians, the industry seems stuck on one note: Blah.

By Emili Vesilind, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 4, 2008

We first started to notice it at the Grammy Awards back in February. There they were, the new queens of pop -- Fergie, Natasha Bedingfield, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift -- swanning around the red carpet in forgettable designer dresses, their highlighted extended locks cascading over their shoulders a la Gwyneth Paltrow. They looked so interchangeable, they might as well have been femme-bots.

Since then, the blah-ification of style in the music industry has been impossible to ignore. Pink ditched her one-legged pants for cocktail dresses, the crimson-mouthed Christina Aguilera started wearing (gasp!) nude lipstick, and Mariah Carey started covering up.

Billboard's top men are in an even sorrier state. Daughtry's bad suits, Jay-Z's stuffy tuxes and Pete Wentz's mall-punk looks -- these guys could pass for models in a department store fashion show. When did rock and pop get so boring?

Mainstream songsters have always set the trends, but suddenly they're following them: dressing in what sails down the runways -- the same as actresses, reality TV stars and no-talent celebutantes. Long gone are the days when we took style cues from pop stars, donning Madonna's lace gloves or Michael Jackson's white socks and black loafers.

For decades, cultivating an individual look was as important as cultivating an individual sound. Patti Smith in her menswear; Kurt Cobain in his grandpa sweaters; Janis Joplin in her hippie-gypsy garb; Cher in her beaded peek-a-boo Bob Mackie gowns. Their style influenced the cultural tides almost as much as the music they made -- and reminded us that mavericks dress the part.

What are Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Simpson conveying? Mystic tans and power squats?

These Barbie-fied stars are "giving you fashion, they're not giving you style," said Michael Schmidt, a local clothing and jewelry designer who's made custom pieces for almost every iconic music artist in the last 20 years, including Cher, Madonna, Tina Turner, Aerosmith and Elton John. "They're not interested in being stylistically daring or having a unique place in the world. They just want to be a mouthpiece for fashion so they can end up on the covers of magazines."

The reasons for pop music's style drought are as varied as Avril Lavigne's personas.

With the recording industry in decline, artists are no longer making money merely by selling music. They're reeling in the dough by selling their names and images to the highest bidder. Which means, for some, adopting a blank-canvas look that's equally appealing to Procter & Gamble and Dolce & Gabbana.

The rise of the stylist is another major part of the equation. Musicians used to dress themselves -- which is why they often looked like glorious train wrecks -- calling on specialized artisans to get their leather pants or chain-mail dresses. But "it's now a stylist-driven industry," Schmidt said. "You don't get the personal style of the artist shining through anymore. Now it's one step removed."

Though there are some wildly talented stylists, others take their cues solely from the fashion runways (über-stylist Rachel Zoe famously makes all her girls look just like her). For these glamour pros, the main goal is to keep their clients off the worst-dressed lists -- basically to not rock the boat.

At the same time, luxury brands have gone from ignoring music artists ("In the '80s, you could not get a piece of designer clothing unless you shoplifted it," noted Schmidt) to aggressively courting them.

Madonna opened the door to the designer-artist relationship through her collaborations with Jean-Paul Gaultier, and now designers are involved on the front end of nearly every major tour, designing looks for artists to wear onstage and off.

Lenny Kravitz kicked off his "Love Revolution" European tour last week in duds by Gucci's Frida Giannini; Alicia Keyes is wearing Armani on her "As I Am" world tour, and Roberto Cavalli provided clothes for the most recent Jennifer Lopez and Spice Girls tours.

Aaron Walton, co-founder of marketing company Walton-Isaacson, was one of the first to tap into the wider appeal of musicians through sponsorships; he teamed Michael Jackson with Pepsi and Whitney Houston with AT&T in the '80s when most musicians worried that selling out to corporations would end their careers. "Music artists were the last hold-outs," Walton said. "They weren't going to associate their music with brands. Now corporate sponsorships have turned into corporate partnerships. It's gone from artists wearing costumes, to doing more with fashion designers to set the tone and the image."

With music sales down, Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records, said corporate sponsorships are integral to keeping careers running smoothly. "Missy Elliot has an endorsement deal with Adidas," she said, "and everywhere she goes, they're there -- making amazing clothing for her and her dancers. It's great to have a partner who can share the costs."

But at what price?

Younger artists -- whose identities are still unformed -- are turning into walking billboards. "The machine is a lot hungrier," Arianne Phillips, longtime stylist to Madonna and Lenny Kravitz, said of the music industry.

"They have more photo shoots, and artists have to go out on the road because that's the way they make money now." The demands, she said, make it impossible for them to worry about what they are wearing.

Or maybe they're worrying too much.

Amy Winehouse, one of "Hollywood's Biggest Fashion Offenders" in a recent In Touch magazine spread, was cited for looking "more like a cleaning lady than a Grammy winner."

The photos showed the British singer sporting her trademark morning-after beehive, head scarf and winged cat's-eye eyeliner: the rare, rock-inspired look that's being imitated on the streets today. In one photo, she's puffing on a cigarette with no hands, Keith Richards-style.

Does she look like a Grammy winner? Heck no. She looks like a rock star.

I was reading the paper this morning, and there was a photo of Anna Wintour (editor of Vogue) wearing the ugliest dress I had ever seen.

I've not yet been able to find a photo of it; if I do, I'll edit this post and include it.

EDIT. Found a photo of this hideous dress:

Direct Link

To truly appreciate how awful the dress is, you'd have to see a larger version of that image (like what's in my newspaper), but I'm too lazy to try and find a larger one. But still, you get an idea of its tackiness even from that smaller image.

Anna Wintour's Chanel by Lagerfeld dress draws comments

BY JOSEPH V. AMODIO | Special to Newsday
May 7, 2008

Hours after Vogue's Anna Wintour appeared Monday night at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Gala, celebrating the new "Superheroes" exhibit, the masses were ablog.

Her futuristic couture dress - Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld - was likened to a ram's head, a Slinky, an inner ear and celestial royalty (as in "Oh my God! Princess Leia!") by commenters on gawker.com. The subtly named Wizbangpop.com declared it "one of a kind ... which is good because we don't need two of those."

Granted, it's not an easy dress, with its coils and nautilus shell pockets built to hold, well, way more than hands. But women have always toyed with body shape, from hoop skirts to torpedo bras.

So do fashion's cranksters dislike the dress - or the woman wearing it?

"She's such an icy vixen," says OK! magazine editor (and fellow Brit) Sarah Ivens. "But you just know there's someone with a warm sense of naughtiness underneath the designer duds."

Style pundit Lesley Scott, of fashiontribes.com, digs the superheroish vibe. "Just add matching Verdura cuffs and she could zoom off and fight [fashion] crime the world over."

Wintour requested Lagerfeld rework a dress from his spring couture line to reflect the evening's theme, say representatives from Vogue and Chanel. What with the evening being all about fashion's transformative powers, we wondered if she felt different in the dress.

According to the Vogue spokeswoman, Wintour laughed and replied, "Anyone would feel wonderful wearing Chanel haute couture."

What is that she's wearing on her head?

Sarah Jessica Parker at London premiere of "Sex in the City" film:


direct / entertainment site 1
entertainment site 2

I am not getting this outfit. Especially the grey/silver leg warmer type thingies.

Pink-colored, rhine-stone covered high heels don't match the casual and grey look of the rest of the outfit.

The bubble right in front of her face is distracting.

Also, what is the deal with the jacks as props (see the area by her feet)? Is this supposed to appeal to pedophiles?

Ashlee Simpson:

direct

I shrunk the photo down for the Image Shack version, but to see how really awful this outfit is, view the super large version of the image.

Ugly Dresses
"Ugly Dresses are our specialty."

Welcome to UglyDress.com, the archive of the world's worst Bridesmaids dresses. Contained within are photographic proof of some of the dresses that our friends, the brides, have made us wear so that they could look good.

This is Rihanna at the 2008 'American Music Awards' show.

What is she wearing? This is ridiculous, especially the metal-studded eye patch.

click small photo to view larger one

direct link


direct link

Photo slide show-
Worst Dressed [Celebrities] of 2008

Best Dressed [Celebs] of 2008

Damn, Beth ditto blends in with the wall lol.

'Magic' credit crunch scarf that turns into dress

A clothing company has come up with the ultimate cheap accessory to dress up any outfit: the Magic Scarf, which costs just £6.50, can transform from a piece of neck wear into eight other items of clothing: a dress, a skirt, a or boob-tube style top.

This Lady Gaga person sure does wear some tacky outfits. See, for instance-
Week's Worst Dressed

Lady Gaga in ugly white dress

Lady Ga Ga Photos on Star Pulse

Lady Gaga Photos on Ladygaga.com

She reminds me of Goldfrapp and Gwen Stefani, hair and fashion-wise, in some photos.

Jessica Simpson's jeans of terror

Jessica Simpson in mom jeans?

With a lot of large photos:
Fashion Faux Pas > Jessica Simpson

Top 10 Pants Worse Than Jessica Simpson's Crazy Mom Jeans

Simpson looks OK to me, I'd rather see people in public wearing high waisted jeans than having that flab hang over the low risers. If you check ebay sometimes, those vintage designer jeans are coming into demand, they had higher waists and snug ankles.

If you want to dress like a Mormon ("Little House on the Prarie-ish" type geddups), this might be for you:
FLDS clothing for sale

As for me, I think I'll pass.

A couple of years ago, I did a post in the "Outlook" forum about "Burqinis" (however it's spelled). There was a site by Muslims selling head-to-toe burka coverings to female Muslims to wear on the beach as bathing suits.

This was also posted to the "Music Video" thread:

Beyonce, Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). I don't hate Beyonce, so this isn't a slam of her... but please, please, can everyone stop wearing leotards and unitards already?!

Yes, Beyonce and the other ladies in the video have nice bodies, they can certainly pull off the look - I just don't care for leotards.

There's a reason why the guys responsible for the "Sponge Bob" cartoon show put Squidward in a leotard in every third episode: leotards look ridiculous.

Of course Madonna was wearing leotards as a fashion statement just a couple of years ago with her last album (and I read that this was the idea of some fashion stylist that Madonna consulted for that album).

In the past year or two, I've seen other women, such as models and singers, wearing leotards in magazine photo spreads, in music videos, in TV shows, etc., so it's not just Beyonce doing this.

I wish that "leotard as fashion trend" would die already.