11 December 2007

The not-so-generic generic 'Best Dressed' list

I love celebrities.


I love their $200 blow-outs, their Tuesday at 2pm shoe-shopping excursions, their four-figure handbags slung over their bony forearms, their pretty but not too pretty "normal" girlfriend entourages and their inability to get through red carpet interviews without using one or more of the words, "fabulous," "amazing" and "surreal."


I also love their vanity and the extreme lengths to which they'll go to try and prove they aren't completely self-indulgent lords and ladies of self-entitlement who get paid waaay more than the rest of us for waaay less work.


Faults, detriments, superficialities and undeserved egos aside, I have nothing but insatiable love for these people and their oft entertaining, oft self-destructive antics.


Point is, for someone like myself who is more likely to check a celebrity blog than her e-mail or anything remotely hard news-related if given 15 seconds on the Internet, even I dread this time of year when it seems every magazine I pick up and flip through is a nothing new, cut-and-paste version of issues January through November -- issues which I lockboxed-to-memory 30, 60, 90 days prior. Now, I'm not diminishing how labor intensive paring down 100,000+ pictures to the "best 10 _____" or the "top 5 _____" is, in fact, after having gone through a miniature version of this process myself this past Sunday, I'll for sure read InStyle, Elle and Harper's Bazaar this month with an even greater respect for fashion editors and their tireless teams of underpaid interns than I have in previous years.


Where is this going? Well, let's just say I initially intended to piece together multiple 'best of' collections, one each for casual dresses, dressy dresses, casual daywear, dressy daywear, shoes, haircuts and eye makeup, but instead, I decided to put your limited tolerance for redundancy first and kept the rehashing to one and one post alone -- the 10 best celebrity 'looks' of 2007.


Enjoy. And please, as always, feel free to lace your disagreement with totally unrelated personal attacks.


Kate Bosworth in ChloƩ
(featured 24 April 2007)
Sienna Miller in Vidler & Nixon
(featured 16 November 2007)
Jennifer Connelly in Giambattista Valli
(featured 16 November 2007)
Dita von Teese in Christian Dior
(featured 23 January 2007)
Mary Kate Olsen in Elizabeth and James
(featured 6 June 2007)
Natalie Portman in Lanvin
(featured 25 May 2007)
Kerry Washington in Prada
(featured 28 February 2007)
Kate Walsh in Marie Marie/J Brand
(featured 16 November 2007)
Jennifer Lopez in vintage Oscar de la Renta*
(featured 15 February 2007)
Sienna Miller in vintage Ossie Davis
(featured 7 January 2007)

*your Editrix's favorite 'look' of 2007

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

somewhere Katie Holmes is crying.

love the J. Lo dress. it's so "you" and totally deserving of the 'best of' title.

my fave is probably the Chloe on Kate Bosworth, but I'm a sucker for that color. So pretty.

Anonymous said...

oooooh, I remember that Sienna dress way back when. it looks divine on her. on me, not so much, but on her, DIVINE.

it's so refreshing to hear a woman in DC admit to her love for celebrities :)

Anonymous said...

what's so special about the Olsen twin dress? I clicked over to your post on it and I'm still not convinced. I think my favorite dress of the year was Penelope Cruz in Versace at the Academy Awards. Now *there* was a dress!

Anonymous said...

Natalie and Kate W. have my votes for best dressy and casual, respectively.

Since starting to read your blog, I've become much more comfortable telling people about my obsession with celebrities and gossip. If someone's going to judge me on that (and as you know in this town, they do), then c'est la vie!

Anonymous said...

I think the Sienna dress is trashy with a capital T. the rest are okay, tho.

Anonymous said...

Sienna doesn't look the least bit trashy.

Anonymous said...

Love them all, especially that Choloe dress!

Maxie said...

my fave is the Kate Walsh ensemble. I love every bit of the outfit (well minus the cigs, but you mentioned that during the first post)... I'm not really feeling the Kerry Washington dress... I don't know if it's the way she's standing but it just seems off a little to me. Totally agree with the others, though.

N said...

I love the Kate Walsh outfit too. I wouldn't call Sienna's dress trashy, but it doesn't flatter her chest.

Anonymous said...

I think that many of the outfits are nice, but I don't think that they all suit the person wearing them.

Anonymous said...

I normally don't like Dita's taste (a little too over the top, you know?), but she looks incredible here. The hat and the handbag are perfect accessories. I don't know where I'd wear a suit like that, but I know I'd like to one day.

Sienna looks beautiful in that dress. Her bod is pretty much the only one that could pull it off.

Anonymous said...

oh no, what's your beef with Katy Heigl? I love her!

Anonymous said...

freckledk, are you referring J. Lo when you say the outfit doesn't suit the person? that was my first thought when I saw her in that dress. love her, love the dress, but it's a little confusing given her usual style.

Anonymous said...

referring *to* J. Lo, I mean.

Anonymous said...

great dresses (esp. J. Lo's - love it!), but what's up with the homeless woman hair on Mary Kate and J. Lo?

I'm coming 'round on JenConn as the perfect "hanger". Her legs and waist are tremendous in this outfit.

Anonymous said...

love the Prada. Scarlett wore something similar in her Vogue layout, didn't she?

Anonymous said...

natalie portman used holiday garland to attach a hefty bag to herself. everything else is great, though.

Anonymous said...

everytime I see the Vidler and Nixon coat, my heart skips a beat. It might be the prettiest coat I've ever seen. Which store sells it?

Anonymous said...

Kate Bosworth and Kate Walsh = perfect.

Johanna said...

dc lawyer-

I know how you feel...and I have a good friend who now owns it, so I have to - no, *get* to - see it on a weekly basis. I don't know if it's available in a store yet or not. My friend contacted the line directly through the V&N website and ordered it that way. But beware, we're talking a $1,195 pricetag!

thanks for all your comments today!

best,
J

John said...

Not a big fan of Portman's dress, but that J. Lo top pick is real nice. I also think Mary Kate looks ghostly with that color white on her.

Anonymous said...

the two Jennifers' outfits are the only two I can see going over well in this city. Not that you should dress based on what looks DC or not, but I just can't imagine anyone wearing Sienna's dress in this city. Okay, maybe YOU but other than that...

p.s. I hope I pass by your friend on the street and get a glimpse of that V&N coat. It's mindblowing!

Anonymous said...

I get the sense that you think you could pull off all these looks. Am I right? Maaaaybe the JLo dress or the JenCon outfit (with a shorter skirt) but def not Natalie's or Sienna's.

Johanna said...

tellin' it like it is-

I think it goes without saying that whenever a person says they like a dress or an outfit, what they're really saying is, "I like it on her, but it'd look AMAZING on me."

Yeah, clearly.

But you're right on one point - I'd look fabu in the J.Lo dress :-)

kiss,
J

p.s. on a totally unrelated note, I saw 'Atonement' last night and was pretty underwhelmed. Kind of thought it was "The English Patient" for the 'tweener crowd. I wanted to like it more but just couldn't. Anyone else see it?

Anonymous said...

Oh Jo. Atonement was sooo much better than the English Patient. Not even close. That Ralph Finnes guy doesn't hold a candle to James McAvoy.

Maybe you should've read the book to appreciate the story more. McEwan wrote it, I believe.

Anonymous said...

Had the same feeling about Atonement. It was okay, moving, well done and all that but not spectacular.

I love the Lanvin on Natalie. She looks chic.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm really excited about finding your blog, because not only do I also check out celeb outfits online, but I'm also in a China studies field.

My vote is for Kate Bosworth. :)

Anonymous said...

Darn it, someone beat me to the Katie Holmes snub mention! Wha' happened? Thought she and you were style sympatico?

Of these, all of which I love, I think I like the J. Lo best for you and the Mary-Kate best for me. We could trade, obviously, if you wanted to, you know, for weddings and random cocktail parties.

Anonymous said...

I really don't like Mary Kate's bag - her dress is very sleek but then she's carrying this big black bag that almost looks like a gym bag. I think it really detracted from the look.

Anonymous said...

I saw Atonement and loved it. I haven't seen The English Patient, so I can't compare but I think with Atonement, they were about as true to the book as they could have been. Keira is thin but stunning. You have to admit, her wardrobe was pretty spectacular.