The 75th Golden Globes, a.k.a. the official start of the 2018 awards show catwalk season, would suggest. Making up a critical mass, nominees and presenters seemed to be finally putting their wardrobes where their mouths were and rejecting the usual parade of old-fashioned mermaid gowns, princess frocks and sex-bomblet slithers in favor of an entirely more no-nonsense aerodynamic ease.
Most of the dresses were cut so the wearer could walk on her own. Amy Schumer’s black Prabal Gurung gown with off-the-shoulder white-tux bib had pockets in its big skirt, the better to save it from Disneydom. Ruffles were in the minority (Jane Fonda’s Yves Saint Laurent couture frilled cape-that-ate-her-torso aside). Sparkle was less popular than matte. And for once “transparent,” when it came to clothes, referred not to see-through but to attitude.
There was Bryce Dallas Howard, announcing that she had actually purchased her sapphire sequined Jenny Packham gown not only by herself but from an actual department store (as opposed to having her stylist borrow it from a fashion house), because she liked “having a lot of options” for a size 6. The dress may have been a little mumsy, but the admission was radical.
There was Jaimie Alexander, in a plunge-neck emerald-and-black Art Deco print Genny dress — one of the few prints to make it to the red carpet, and one of the most modern — admitting she doesn’t go anywhere “without adhesive these days,” the better to keep everything in its place.
And there was Jennifer Lopez, latterly queen of the “concept” dress (the dress that is more like an idea of a dress than an actual garment), almost entirely covered in mustard-yellow Giambattista Valli, from cape back to sculpturally draped waist, just one leg jutting out from the side.
For years actresses have been stretching themselves professionally, chasing roles that seem outside their comfort zone while playing to cliché on the carpet. Admittedly, there’s a limit to how adventurous things can get when faced with E!s glambot, the mod-tech replacement for the mani-cam, but there were a few committed high-fashionisms: Rooney Mara’s shipwreck-schmatta blush Alexander McQueen, which, delicately romantic as it was, seemed to quail under the klieg lights, and Cate Blanchett’s fringe-’n’-lace backless Givenchy couture gown, which practically glowed with its own kind of barbarian grace.
They made the peekaboo waist of Brie Larson’s gold-beaded halter Calvin Klein, and Jennifer Lawrence’s red Christian Dior, with its tabard top, bare back and carved sides, seem almost tame by comparison.
As it happens, both gold and red were among the trendiest colors of the night (get that statuette! match that carpet!), but so were black (best on Sophia Bush in Narciso Rodriguez, worst on Emilia Clarke, who seemed to have gotten lost in the “Game of Thrones” costume department) and white: see Laverne Cox in cowl-backed Elizabeth Kennedy and Saoirse Ronan in a streamlined goddess Yves Saint Laurent couture, complete with its own jet stream/train. There was also a lot of blush pink. Pantone called that one, having named “rose quartz” one of its colors of the year, as Katy Perry, doing her best imitation of a beehived 1960s lounge singer in Prada, pointed out.
Still, if Alicia Vikander’s choice of Louis Vuitton was likewise not a big surprise (she is an official face of the brand), the dress she wore — a white apron style with tiny ruffles around the top and strips of sequins down the skirt — managed to look fresh and futuristic at the same time, beholden to no familiar starlet trope. Ditto Maggie Gyllenhaal’s gold-and-black bias-cut Marc Jacobs, which referenced assorted eras with enough insouciance to escape being typecast.