Perhaps wholly unaware of exactly what her legacy will be, Anna Wintour took some time this week to complain about how damn unoriginal celebrities who dress up for red carpet events are.
Via The Cut, Wintour spoke to students at Central Saint Martins to share some of her wisdom about fashion today. She was particularly displeased with what she saw at the Tony Awards:
The red carpet, in the United States, has become too much of a business. It’s a fact that celebrities are paid to wear everything, and to me that sometimes comes across as very manufactured and not individual. I was just recently at the Tony awards in New York, and, God, they need your help. Let me tell you, it was a disaster. So, there are opportunities, but don’t expect the Oscars the first time out.
They have all these teams of people telling them what to do, what to wear, how to do their hair, make-up. And they’re so scared of being criticized, whereas, you know, what’s wrong with looking different? How many mermaid fishtail strapless sequins [gowns] can we see?
Great points, except all of them very much ignore a huge reason why these celebrities feel the pressure to look perfect in the first place. In part because of Wintour’s decision to put actresses on the cover of Vogue instead of models, said actresses began to find that they were expected to dress a certain way all the time. They found themselves critiqued not only for what they looked like in magazines but at awards shows and even in real life. Wintour is directly responsible for helping strengthen the business relationship between celebrities, the fashion industry and the red carpet she so dislikes. Perhaps these celebrities are scared of “being criticized” and “looking different” because it was Wintour that told them there was something wrong with those things in the first place.
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