Genevieve Valentine’s Red Carpet Rundown

It occurs to me that I have not introduced the good people of LGM to Genevieve Valentine’s red carpet write-ups. My only possible excuse for such an oversight is that it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone doesn’t already know Valentine, and doesn’t treat her write-ups as one of the top attractions of any awards night. Valentine, a science fiction and comics writer whose fiction often turns on the way that fashion speaks and can achieve material and political aims, writes about the red carpet as a carefully calibrated campaign, in which actresses hone their image and try to position themselves for their next role or the next stage in their career. Her latest foray, covering last night’s Oscar red carpet, is no exception.

The quest for Best Look is both helped and hindered by the fact that clothes are a language, and Hollywood is well aware. During World War II, Oscar attendees were asked to tone down the glitz to acknowledge the war. Last year, black was the Golden Globes dress code for well-meaning, questionably successful reasons. And during the golden age of the studios, costumers often dressed stars for the Oscars to preserve the studios’ preferred image for their actresses. (It also handily prevented any more evenings like 1936, when Bette Davis wore a suit as protest; she hated her Warner Brothers contract and didn’t feel much onus to look fancy for ’em. Later that year she took the studio to court; the suit was an opening volley.)

Davis isn’t the only person to stump the red carpet; there are several famous outliers in the designer-formal wear continuum: the Luise Rainer nightgown story, Demi Moore and Kim Basinger designing their own, Hepburn in her gardening grubbies. I’m partial to Joanne Woodward making her own Oscar dress, quietly horrifying everybody who was part of a glitz machine that was already very well oiled

It’s a sharp, insightful look at an aspect of how Hollywood operates that rarely gets the kind of attention it deserves, even in a scene that obsesses over looks and ensembles, going far beyond the best and worst looks of the night (in fact, one of the things Valentine has called to my attention is that we rarely see bad looks on the red carpet anymore—the whole thing is too carefully calculated and workshopped for that to happen; like Marvel movies, it’s impossible for these outfits to be bad, just boring). It’s also damned funny—this year’s write-up includes a stepmother division:

Charlize Theron. Your father’s been on the Continent since ’29. He hasn’t written you, not once, in four whole years. “Of course he hasn’t,” says Stepmother as she slides on her bangles, “he’s very busy and doesn’t have time for your childish prattle. Now pass Stepmother the Python Diamond and make yourself scarce – the party’s starting any minute.” (There are so very many parties; Mr. Snivelmens from the boarding school has been three times to your house for tea, and you can see him through the banister, if you peer hard enough. Nanny’s been telling you about her sister’s cottage, up in Scotland; “It will have to be there,” she says, every time she folds up another of your jumpers or counts out her wages or looks at the train tables.)

Read the whole thing and then add Valentine to your reading list. You’ll never look at red carpets the same way again.