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Oscars off-the-rack

Oscar best-dressed list contenders have it easy after the sartorial shit show that is the Grammy Awards. It’s the worst dressed wannabes (here’s looking a you Helena Bonham Carter) that have their work cut out for them.

Wrapping yourself in a stuffed swan or maxing out in a cocktail dress fashioned from gold Amex cards got nothing on Nicki Minaj wearing a pride’s worth of cheetah print and a teased out bride-of-Frankenstein beehive. So it was no surprise that the Hollywood cast of last night’s Academy Awards spectacle played it safe in the style department.

Here’s what stood out:

Early bird special Best actress nominee Jennifer Lawrence was fashionably early for the red carpet and the waist up framing of her red Calvin Klein tank dress made it look like she arrived straight from a Baywatch audition. In other words, she looked hot which is the last thing a gay fashion critic looks for from a leading lady’s frock.

But that colour… Reds from ruby to rose appeared on Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Hudson and Penelope Cruz and upstaged the neutral numbers worn by Halle Berry and supporting F-bomber Melissa Leo or the metallic gowns favoured by Michelle Williams, Hillary Swank and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Best fashion plate in a leading role Anne Hathaway can wear all the shoulder padded Armani Prive she wants

but she’ll forever owe her fashion fan club to that role (and those Chanel boots) in The Devil Wears Prada. Her red carpet Valentino

(complete with a mid-eighties window treatment-worthy bustle) underwhelmed most Twitterverse style pundits and her broadcast opening bedazzled Givenchy didn’t fare much better. I loved look three though: Lanvin tux + Brian Atwood heels = swoon!

Best risk taker Anyone else would have been slammed for a Givenchy couture dress (see above) but we’ve come to expect edgier choices from Cate Blanchett. Its beaded details and oval cutout revealing a pink, accordion pleated layer underneath was as brainy as eveningwear gets.

Most controversial? Everyone wondered if anyone would dare wear Dior after the house’s designer John Galliano was arrested last week for slinging racial slurs at a couple in a Paris café? Nicole Kidman took the plunge but the frock’s floppy construction and wedding gown hue upstaged any speculation that the actress was standing up for her favourite couturier.

And the award for best costume goes to… While the fashion flock wondered why a Rodarte contribution didn’t guarantee the otherwise stylistically bleak Black Swan a win, let alone a Best Costume nomination, it was Colleen Atwood that took home the Oscar for the surreal style of Alice in Wonderland.

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