My favorites from the Met Ball 2013

I have to confess I don't really know that much about punk fashion, but I am always excited to see what happens at the fancy fancy Met Ball.  It is probably one of my favorite art/cultural event of the year.

I was actually pretty excited to watch some of the live streamed arrivals (but I missed about 70% of it because I got distracted by eating dinner).  When I did start watching the arrivals I was a little floored by just how TERRIBLE the red carpet interviews were.  The host were really pretty ok but the guests just clearly had not prepped at all for answering difficult questions like: What are you excited to see in the exhibit?  That was a real stumper! The interviewees just cringed and stared around with terrified eyes; I caught Kristen Stewart's interview and even though she is known for being awkward and bad at interviews she was one of the more coherent and interesting people I heard all night!  So the whole watching the arrivals online was a bit of a let-down.

But here are my favorite ensembles from the night.  (There were a lot of gowns that night so I might do another post on my least favorite or most interesting).  You can check out all the gowns here at Vogue.com as well.

1.  Emily Blunt -  I think this was easily my favorite dress.  Simple and so beautiful.  And then the make-up, accessories and hair just make the whole ensemble so perfect!  Blunt was also participating the Livia Firth's Green Carpet Challenge, which makes the whole thing even better!

2.  Cameron Diaz -  I actually got to see her being interviewed and this dress was really very gorgeous.  I don't think that still pictures really do it justice (it had a really elegant cut-out back).  The design of the dress really gave Diaz a powerful presence. (It reminded me a lot of Gwyneth Paltrow Oscars 2012.)  The cape, the vibrant color, and the 3-4 inch spiked belt really says that the wearing a strong and commanding person.  It was very impressive!

3.  Nina Dobrev - Some people will probably think that this was just plain weird, but I was unexpectedly impressed.  This gown managed to be romantic and elegant while being dark and subversive.  Again, I got to see her moving on the live stream which showed off the structure of the gown more, and it was very intriguing.


4. Joely Richardson - The cut looks great on her and what a great sunny color amongst all the black, sheer, and cut-outs!

5.  Felicity Jones & Hailee Steinfeld - I really appreciate both of these girls' dresses.  They looked good, and stayed true to their own personal styles with a punk twist.  I also just thought it was so clever for the flowers or star bursts on Steinfeld's dress to be made of safety pins.  And I don't know if I have ever seen Felicity Jones in something I did not like.

 6.  Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams & Mary-Kate Olsen - Almost for the same reasons above I really enjoyed these three ladies dresses (esp. Maggie Gyllenhaal's red, plunging dress paired with that choker!).  They were great dresses that again match the style of the individual wearer yet still nodded toward the theme of the event.  Well, maybe MK's dress was still just very MK and not very punk, but I still really like it a lot.

Honorable Mention:

Jennifer Lawrence looked beautiful, had great make-up (looking very Leelee Sobieski in that regard), and WORE A VEIL.  She also photobombed Sarah Jessica Parker and Parker's ridiculously self-important get-up (scroll down a little on the link for the gif).

 Ginnifer Goodwin had incredible eyeshadow and wins all the the eyeshadow points.

I was a little annoyed by all the really fancy, ostentatious gowns, but Katie Holmes had a really really pretty gown with a gorgeous train.

And even though I find her rather ehhhhhh I also did like Anna Wintor's dress.

My Oscars best dressed & recap

I know this is rather late news but here are my Oscars 2013 best dressed.

I pretty much hated everything I saw on the red carpet this year.  Everyone either wore super boring white, black or beige dresses or clingy gowns encrusted with metallic sequins.  The place was drowning in sequins.  I never want to see a metallic dress ever again.  Seriously, like 5 people wore anything with color.

[Sidebar: Who cares about Jennifer Lawrence's ridiculously dress that actually physically impaired her all evening--- and not just that time when it prevented her from getting from her front row seat to the stage stairs.  Ridiculous.]

Here are the only three dresses I liked from the red carpet.

#1.  Jessica Chastain - This coppery dress with Chastain's beauty, skin tone and hair, in my opinion, was easily the most beautiful dress on the red carpet this year.  It was the one dress worthy of exemption from my sequin/beading/metallic-hating.

#2.  Halle Berry - I could get behind the art deco-ness of this dress.  Bringing the Gatsy-trend to the party.  I got pretty sick of her gushing about Bond movies though.  SNOOZE.

#3.  Jane Fonda -  She just looked great.  And she actually wore a color.  Thank you Jane Fonda.  Show these fools how it is done.

Since the red carpet was such a boring place, I combed the after-party photos to find a few other dresses of note.

#4.  Solange Knowles - This woman is just generally on top of her stuff.

#5.  Ginnifer Goodwin - Always looks cute and looked cuter than most of the other boring-colored, shiny metallicness happening around her.

Also here is a great picture of her and Josh Dallas:

#6.  Lily Collins - Pretty.  Purple. A little Gothic. but with stripes.  A little different.

Worst:  Well, pretty much everyone in metallics made me angry, as you can probably tell.  Emmy Rossum looked particularly terrible (especially after looking so AWESOME in Beautiful Creatures). 

And here is a picture of Jeremy Renner looking a little awkward to represent the men.  I couldn't put a picture of Ben Affleck because he is just way too handsome and charming.

As for the Oscars themselves, I found them SUPER boring.  And I usually find them interesting.

This was pretty much my reaction to the controversy that became represented by he who is known as Seth MacFarlene: http://www.shewired.com/box-office/2013/02/28/op-ed-feminists-defense-seth-macfarlane

Favorite things:
Taylor Swift not being invited.
Capt. Kirk trying to save the Oscars. (and no, not Chris Pine).
Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe dancing & singing.
The joke about the director of Argo being unknown to the academy.
The orchestra mercilessly using the theme to The Magnificent Seven to kick someone off the stage.
Jeremy Renner was funny when the Avengers presented stuff.
The TIE!
The Sound of Music joke.
Michelle Obama crashing the end of the Oscars.

Least favorite things:
That first song.
My parents deciding to watch that first song with me.
The pre-recorded jokes in the opening monologue.  Just too long and not funny enough.
The Bond-worshipping.
The SUPER RANDOM musical numbers.  So so painful.
Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe not being integrated into the SUPER RANDOM musical numbers.
Shameless Chicago promotion.
Jessica Chastain not winning.  (Disclaimer: I do like Jennifer Lawrence.)
Anne Hathaway winning.
Les Mis winning anything.
Hearing anything about Les Mis.
Jack Nicholson showing up right at the end when I thought we'd actually escaped him for one year.

Nice surprises:
Argo winning best picture & Ben Affleck being handsome, emotional and inspiring.
Anna Karenina winning something.

Favorite speeches:
Ang Lee - most adorable speech
Daniel Day Lewis - most charming and errudite speech
Ben Affleck - most handsome, emotional and inspiring

 . . .

And with that, I have spoken.