Picky Picky Picky : America just loves to point the finger at the wacky, tacky, even tasteful fashions of theglitterati. And sometimes we can’t make up our minds. One critic’s dog is another’s darling.
Mr. Blackwell announced his annual best- and worst-dressed list last week. Once upon a time, this was cause for an appearance on “The Tonight Show” and slavish media attention, but now he is only one voice among a chorus of clothing critics.
People just can’t seem to get enough of those lists. “Not me,” you say? Well, somebody--a lot of somebodies--are clamoring to buy magazines and newspapers that feature the good and the ghastly dressers on their covers. Consider:
People magazine has been skewering the sartorial tastes of the rich and famous for 11 years. Once a year its best- and worst-dressed list appears on the cover and sales jump. In fact, it’s one of the weekly’s most bestsellers.
The popularity of the Star’s “Would You Be Caught Dead in This Dress?” column prompted a quarterly titled “What People Are Wearing.” Every page is devoted to the good, the bad and the deserving of burial.
Publications as varied as Women’s Wear Daily, Soap Opera magazine, the Enquirer and the Globe have also weighed in with their opinions.
Venerable institutions that might seem above this sort of thing participate in the fray. British teen-agers vote annually for the worst-dressed celebrity in the Lloyds Bank Fashion Challenge. (Rocker-activist Bob Geldof has the dubious distinction of winning two years in a row.) And Roll Call, a publication that covers the U.S. House and Senate, has a “10 Best Dressed Members of Congress” list; in 1991, Californians Barbara Boxer, Maxine Waters and Ron Dellums were included.
Cleveland clothier Bob Stern is the champion of the little guy. He issues an annual list of the “10 Best Dressed Shorter Men in America.” Criterion for inclusion: Honorees must be under 5-foot-8. Last year Bob Costas (5-foot-6 1/2), Billy Crystal (5-foot-5), sportswriter Mike Lupica (5-foot-6) and Emilio Estevez (5-foot-5 1/2) made the short-but-long-on-style list.
Even Poland, new to the ways of the West, can boast a list, thanks to the fashion magazine Swiat Mody’s “10 Best Dressed People in Poland.”
Clothing critics have come a long way since Eleanor Lambert cooked up her first “International Best Dressed List” more than half a century ago as a public relations ploy. In 1940, she was hired by New York City specialty store owner Henri Bendel to boost apparel sales. Rather than concoct an ad campaign, she devised a list of interesting, stylish people. The roster of 15 clotheshorses was immediately picked up by newspapers nationwide. It became a powerful addendum to the Social Register, and the well-heeled vied for inclusion.
The list is still published by Miss Lambert (she insists on the “Miss”) and is reprinted in some papers, but lacks the clout it once had.
Why do we care what other people wear? Richard Martin, the new czar of costumes for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, says that, without the rigid dress codes of the past, we are all adrift on the sartorial seas.
“Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt would tell us what was right from wrong. Now our pluralistic society does not know what is correct.”
Susan Kaiser, author of “The Social Psychology of Clothing,” suggests that pluralism has also contributed to the democratization of best-dressed lists. “An increased acceptance of diversity means a lot of styles can be acceptable spontaneously. We accept the fact that no one individual can decide who is best, so we are interested in the range of options. We read multiple lists so we can find ourselves.”
And we probably can find at least one list to validate our tastes. As Martin notes: “There is no set standard, somebody’s ‘best list’ is almost identical to somebody’s ‘worst list.’ ”
Madonna, Cher, Elizabeth Taylor and Queen Elizabeth II regularly see both sides of fashion fame. Madonna topped Blackwell’s list of horror stories this year, but she has also been named as a trendsetter on Lambert’s list for the past eight years.
Cher’s penchant for wearing little more than a few sequins has detractors and admirers. Queen Elizabeth’s never-changing tweedy style has landed her in fabulous and frumpy categories. And Taylor’s fortunes bounce from worst to best in accordance with her weight.
(For some critics, this is the one line they dare not cross. Lynne Dorsey, author of “Would You Be Caught Dead in This Dress?” says she would never go after anyone because of their weight. But she doesn’t hesitate to call attention to a svelte body in an unflattering outfit or to someone whom she believes dresses too old or too young for their age. Anything extreme also makes it into her column.)
Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor and Cher top freelance-photographer Phil Ramey’s hit list. “They have a tendency to wear wacky things, and outrageous clothes are always in demand by the publications,” he says. American tabloids pay $150 to $250 for the paparazzi photos, and publications in such foreign markets as Australia, Italy and Germany are equally as eager for star photos.
Other easy marks for those whose photographs fuel the best- and worst-dressed lists include Jean Kasem, wife of radio celebrity Casey, who always wears something revealing and theatrical. Her efforts have made her a fixture in Dorsey’s column.
Geena Davis was the heir apparent to Hollywood’s glamour girl crown until she made an unfortunate gown choice for last year’s Academy Awards. The white satin concoction made her look like “a foam-covered sea horse,” according to People’s 10 worst-dressed story. Now, each outfit Davis wears is suspect. She has yet to regain her good standing.
Some women--Julia Roberts, for one--obviously care little about fashion, but they are still targets. When it became apparent that Roberts’ own drab style was not the “Pretty Woman” style, she made the worst-dressed lists because of the disparity. Yet no matter how bad she looks in photographs, captions invariably refer to her as Julia “Pretty Woman” Roberts.
Of course, a few women know how to maintain membership on the best-dressed lists. Angela Lansbury, Jacqueline Onassis, and Barbara Walters are frequently mentioned as no-fault dressers. They have their own style, they aren’t slaves to fashion, and they don’t take risks. How nice, how boring, how difficult for the critics. “How many times can you say someone looks like a ray of sunshine or a bonbon. Come on, you end up sounding like a schoolteacher,” says Blackwell.
Dishing the down side of dressing is much easier--and has surprisingly few repercussions. After more than 30 years of slinging slights, Blackwell has only a few bruises, like the series of letters from an irate Roseanne Arnold fan who denounced his uncomplimentary comments about the TV star.
Dorsey says she has never heard complaints from the celebrities on her list.
Rosie O’Donnell, comedienne and co-star of the summer movie “A League of Their Own,” says she’s proud of her standing on the worst-dressed lists of the Globe, the Enquirer and Star magazine. A leopard-print top and red velvet shawl designed by Todd Oldham for last year’s Emmy Awards landed her there. “I’ll never be on a best-dressed list,” O’Donnell admits. “And if you can’t have fun at those things, where wealthy, primarily white people give each other awards for memorizing lines, then what’s the point?”
While women are the critics’ primary victims, men are not off-limits. Lambert has a men’s division in her lineup. And Dorsey occasionally includes men in her column, although her largely female readership wants to see what other women are wearing, she says. Blackwell, too, names men from time to time.
The Fashion Foundation of America, an industry trade group, has a list that’s short on personal style and long on navy suits. George Bush, Boris Yeltsin and Larry King made it last year. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan ascended to the foundation’s Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Clark Gable, Cary Grant and New York Mayor David Dinkins.
But at least one men’s list is daring. In honoring cross-dresser Boy George and flamboyant performer Malcolm McLaren, the British edition of Esquire explained itself, saying “dreadful yuppie types place being well dressed above personal style.”
HALL OF FAMERS
Natalie Cole
The songbird is as suave and smooth as her dad when it comes to style. Her duet album with Nat landed her on the charts last year, brought her three Grammys and a place on Mr. Blackwell’s best list.
Princess Diana
She made her reputation despite some serious handicaps: She had to match hats, tiaras and flats with clothing by English designers.
Angela Lansbury
A perennial best-dressed performer with a formula--no spice in her fashion life. She insists on short, fitted jackets and pleated, tapered trousers.
Pat Riley
He blazed the Armani trail in Los Angeles and showed us how to do a continental comb job. He’s the one those studio sharks try to imitate.
Elizabeth Taylor
When she hits a low-weight high mark, as she has lately, only her penchant for black leather endangers her good standing.
HALL OF SHAMERS
Elizabeth Taylor
Her all-time low came in the late ‘70s during her weight-gain years with husband No. 6, Sen. John Warner of Virginia.
Madonna
She pioneered black roots with blond ‘dos, torpedo-tipped bustiers, gold-capped teeth and nude hitchhiking. Her worst sin: wanna-bes.
Jean Kasem
No event is too minor for Kasem to let out all the stops. She goes for bright-colored, low-cut, glittery overstatements. Her assistant says she’s toning down her act. We can’t wait to see how.
Julia Roberts
Without the constant vigilance of her fairy godmothers (makeup artist and costume designer), the Pretty Woman appears unforgivably average.
Michael Jackson
Savaged for his hair, his cosmetic surgery, his costumes. His self-styled make-over, once luridly fascinating, is now ghoulish.
