Oscar Red Carpet - Nudity Ruled

Because most trending articles you read today will be discussing “the 2022 Oscar slap” seen around the world, another equally shocking Oscar event is going unnoticed. If not for “the slap”, the event I am referencing would have been viral-worthy.

I am talking about the Red Carpet Fashion or rather “lack” of fashion. Lack of clothing, actually.

Remember the Grammys — Year 2000? Jennifer Lopez and the green dress? The media uproar over the scarcity of material barely covering her perfectly toned body? There wasn’t a news program, newspaper, magazine, late-night comedian, or Talk Show host that didn’t mention “the dress.”

This was a full 4 years before Facebook existed on the Internet; more years before Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and the rest of the social media giants were to rule what we incessantly talk about for an instant, to be replaced the next day by a different shock-value story.

More than one of last night’s Red Carpet fashions rivaled Ms. Lopez’s green dress, but I haven’t seen any media outrage over any of them. Have we become so immune to tasteless near-nudity in “fashion” that we no longer notice it? Or care?

Venus Williams’ monumental tennis achievements and awards have earned her deserved recognition — without the need to bare her boobs to the world. Why, Venus? Why?

Oh, Joan, you’re old and out of touch, some of you are saying as you read this. I may be old, but I can appreciate evolving fashion as well as the next one. Remember, I’m the one who wrote about Baby Boomer Fashion, which was considered radical back in the day.

I’m hip; I’m cool; I can handle new-fangled fashion trends. Well, I can appreciate them. I don’t necessarily have a body that would flatter them.

However, someone needs to explain to me why a designer would take expensive, delicate material and cut holes into most of it. And think it was attractive.

Someone needs to explain to me why the Bailey sisters would wear dresses that barely cover their most intimate female parts. Are they that starved for attention? Even JLo’s green dress didn’t expose that much secrecy. I am assuming there was a lot of double-sided tape involved in the construction of those dresses. How did they walk or sit without the tape slipping?

Tracee Ellis Ross is old enough to know better. Or I thought. Why did the designer bother with those cover cups? She could have saved herself some work by cutting the dress off at the upper torso, utilizing a couple of bright red nipple pasties, and called it a day.

Oh, wait, no. That would have posed a different problem. No offense to Ms. Ross, but she’s no teenager with perky boobs that stand up on their own. Without the extension of the dress acting as a bra, it would have been a sagging sight to behold.

Truthfully, I’m not fussing over the inappropriateness of flashing so much skin that they are dangerously close to exposing their genitals for the world to view. (Well, maybe I am a little.)

What I am fussing about is -how can you appreciate and enjoy the design and beauty of a dress if ½ of it is missing? The designers are doing a disservice to their talent as well as the beauty of the fabric when there is almost nothing of the dress to see. Or there is so much “near genital” exposure that no one notices the dress.

What do you think? From a fashion standpoint, not an ogling male perspective. No offense meant to any ogling males reading this and staring intently at the pictures.

©Copyright 2022 Joan Gershman