There Were Way Too Many Half-Assed Outfits on This Red Carpet for an Event Honoring Cher
Entertainment
During Sunday night’s Billboard Music Awards, Cher was honored with an Icon Award, a more than deserving achievement for her decades of influential music. But part of what makes an icon in pop music is persona, and her groundbreaking fashion has inarguably helped shape her place in the canon… which is so much more than I can say for most of the people who hit the Billboard Music Awards’ “magenta carpet.”
How you gonna show up to a ceremony celebrating Cher and wear something boring? The hegemony in the music and film industries is increasingly untenable, the lack of individual personal style appalling. Of course overly adventurous ensembles are not appropriate—perhaps—for black tie events like the Oscars or Cannes, but if there’s anyplace style can and should be creative and outré, it’s at a music awards show. And yet? We get 40 versions of the same lace/cut-out gown in black or navy, and the rare standout. Steel yourself, pals.
Alexandra Daddario was one of my favorite looks of the night, in an asymmetrical sweetheart neckline and bow-tied pumps by Vivienne Westwood. Extremely chic while projecting attitude, and mindful of the event. I want!
Of course Celine Dion rolled in like the icon she is, and we have to give credit to her stylist Law Roach for revitalizing her entire closet in the last year or so. This stunning Stephane Roland Couture gown is a bit of meringue at her shouldertops, conveying ’80s diva but with a touch of modernity. And Hailee Steinfeld’s liquid silver cut-out dress, by David Koma, was something architectural and like Cher might wear, a proper devotional.
Speaking of architecture! Wild looks work, too, and Dencia is always pushing the limit on her carpet style; here she seems to have transformed those wildly popular thousand-dollar Issey Miyake Bao Bao bags into a headdress and bodysuit; lots of people hated this, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing (maybe the footwear). Diplo, who you may remember recently signed as a NEXT Model, bleached his hair and showed out in the Gucci loafs. I can’t do any better than this:
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