Fashion Victim: So what happened to the glamour?

Feb 14 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

SO FINALLY, after a completely fun-free January, thanks to the writers strike in the US, we got the first proper awards show of the season at the weekend.

And weren’t the Baftas just a feast of fashion, a real showcase of the best in haute couture?

Well, er actually they weren’t anywhere near that.

With the Golden Globes wiped out by the picketing writers, little notice taken of the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards and most crucially the Oscars then still hanging in the balance, it had been predicted for weeks that this year it was the Baftas’ chance to really live up to its billing as the British Oscars.

So naturally we were ready for a glittering array of gowns and the biggest Hollywood A-listers commandeering the world’s supply of Gulfstream jets, cleaning out Harry Winston and marching their way up the red carpet into the Royal Opera House swathed satin.

What we got was a bigger red carpet, a bigger venue and a bigger show, but we didn't get the bigger stars. Much has already been made of the fact that the big-hitters to attend were the ones there because they had something to do – present an award, receive an award, plug a film, etc, etc.

That is to be expected, I suppose, especially when there was an 11th-hour breakthrough with the writer’s unions which looks set to save the Academy Awards. Makes you wonder if there were not a whole host of Hollywood hotties holed up in London hotel suites on Sunday night after realising they didn’t need to go to the little British do after all.

My biggest gripe over the whole thing was the complete lack of glamour to the proceedings. Never mind bigger and better than ever, not since the year when the red carpet got soaked and turned to soapsuds has the Baftas been such a damp squib stylewise.

OK, so rising star Emily Blunt was rather dazzling in her aqua blue sheath and Tilda Swinton’s gown, while impractical and garish, was at least daring and Dior couture.

But what about the rest? Forgetting the million or so quids’ worth of jewellery, Sienna Miller was boring in black, with her only fashion statement her orange lipstick, and Samantha Morton’s Stella McCartney looked like it needed washing.

And don’t get me started on Keira Knightley. She may have thought she didn’t have a chance of winning, but she did know she was going to be photographed, filmed and beamed around the world.

So why did she leave her jewellery at home, not brush her hair and cover up her shimmering Valentino with a big overcoat? Even if it was Alexander McQueen. It was not that cold.

And Julie Christie. She might look amazing for 68, but leggings are not ever appropriate for an awards ceremony, especially not animal print ones.

In the end, it was left to the French to save the sartorial day. Marion Cotillard who pipped Keira to the Best Actress award, for her role in La Vie en Rose, looked breathtaking in diaphanous Chanel.

Proof, if ever it were needed, of why Paris is the fashion capital of the world.