It’s been really hot the last few weeks here in Los Angeles, so we were all prepped for a delicious couple of hours of celebrity sweat stains and unattractive heat stroke today on the Emmy red carpet. Sadly, the weather turned: It’s totally gorgeous today. BORING. Join us as we investigate whether or not the stars’ wardrobes manage to match that high standard. (You can also see all of the red-carpet looks in our slideshow here.) And when you’re done reviewing the wind-up, keep up with the follow-through on Vulture’s Emmys live-blog and our Twitter feed, which comes from inside the Nokia theater itself.
6:00 p.m.: Ryan starts off the festivities with Jane Lynch, who looks swell in an aubergine one-shoulder number. She chats with him about a variety of nothing, including details about… their mutual wax figures? THAT’S a Hollywood conversation if I ever heard one.
6:03 p.m.: Ryan throws to Guiliana, who is as burnished as an antique oak table, as per usual. We hate to think what her tanning budget is. She’s wearing a shiny cream dress with a giant jeweled neckline that’s almost as big as her head. They pretend they don’t hate each other as well as can be expected. (Not very, in other words.)
6:04 p.m.: Emmy host Jimmy Fallon swings by. Um, shouldn’t he be inside getting ready for the show? Regardless, he looks quite dapper in a classic tux. While he chats, we see Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland, who’s in gray. She looks so much like Vanessa Hudgens that we look around for Zefron for a minute before we realize what’s actually happen. Jimmy introduces Ryan to his wife, whom Ryan dubs, “very tan.” To Ryan, this is the high compliment possible.
6:11 p.m.: Giuliana introduces Ross Mathews, a.k.a. Intern Ross from Jay Leno’s iteration of the Tonight Show, and he slobbers all over Giuliana’s ass. He’s introducing the Glam Cam, so does this mean they axed Jay Manuel? It is not an upgrade.
6:13 p.m.: Two more new red-carpet people. Apparently E! cleaned house, except for Ryan and Giuliana. We’re at the portion where the stylists are saying things like, “Everyone looks GORGEOUS,” except that nobody is actually there, or else we’d be looking at them instead of Ross Mathews giving the Glam Cam chair a lap dance.
6:14 p.m.: Kelly Osbourne is back to blonde — more of a honey color than her usual platinum — and she’s wearing a casual black gown, deep cut, very vintage-flavored. It’s lovely on her, but very different from what we’re used to from her. It would help to see her in motion on the carpet instead of in the somewhat blurry 360-view, but what would be the point of showing the red carpet on the red-carpet pre-show? It’s too easy. Too sensible. Too not-E.
6:15 p.m.: Stephanie Pratt and Lo Bosworth had some kind of Mad Men makeover, apparently? So now we’re being shown that in the 360-cam, and we kid you not, Stephanie and Pratt is wearing one of Betty White’s old blouses as a minidress and a bad imitation of Brigitte Bardot hair… which has nothing to do with Mad Men. And Lo is just in a tight mid-calf green dress and an updo, which is shades of Joan Holloway, but… We forgot how excruciating the filler is. It seems any excuse to utter the words “mad” and “men” in any proximity to one another is considered a smart programming move.
6:16 p.m.: Stylist George says, “If you have long sleeves, you can go as short as you want.” At home, Taylor Momsen is stapling pillowcases to her dress straps and laughing maniacally.
6:17 p.m.: Nothing says “Emmy glamour” like The Situation, which must be why Ryan is forced to interview the Jersey Shore cast via satellite. Thankfully, Ty Burrell from Modern Family shows up with his wife, who is in a black dress with shaded pink adornments that is a cross between Animal the Muppet and a vagina. Ty is in a grey suit with a matching grey bow tie, as if his suit went through the wash on a bleach cycle. But it doesn’t really matter, because we’re not looking, because: sartorial vagina.
6:18 p.m.: Kelly Osbourne is so tiny now she could practically be mistaken for a Hills castmember. That is not a move in the right direction. Ryan even just exclaimed over how skinny she is, and she swears all she does is half an hour of exercise a day. We do get a closer look at Kelly, and her dress is nice; the hair is sort of a shag. It suits her — it’s nice when she’s not using her hair as a campy accessory, because you pay attention to her face, and it’s a nice face.
6:24 p.m.: Ryan is actually talking to the Mayor of Los Angeles, who appears to be Joel McHale’s date. We never would have thought of them as a couple, but they kind of look good together. Start your weird real-person fan fic now! Eventually, Villaraigrosa leaves, as Ryan and Joel talk about…tanning. Again. ALL anyone is talking about tonight is tanning. We blame The Situation.
6:26 p.m.: Ryan throws to Guiliana, who’s got Glee’s Kevin McHale — not to be confused with the Kevin McHale who used to play for the Celtics. They chat about how being nominated is a dream for McHale. He confesses that his big Hollywood crush is Sally Field. While he talks, E shows us shots of Rutina Wesley —looking pretty fabulous in a black and white printed gown with a big, dramatic slit up the leg — and Jayma Mays, wearing a very well-fitted navy strapless mermaid thing.
6:32 p.m.: Kathy Griffin gets her mother to harass Seacrest, as per usual. Seacrest pretends to be a good sport about this whole thing, but we’re pretty sure Ryan would kill Kathy in her sleep if he thought he could get away with it.
6:33 p.m.: Ryan shoves Kathy and her mother off the podium in order to chat up Mark Salling of Glee, who looks awfully handsome in a standard tux with a tie. It feels like the cast of Glee composes about seventy percent of the attendees at this particular event. Where IS everyone else?
6:34 p.m.: We spoke too soon. The red carpet is currently wholly peopled with the cast of Glee, and Kim Kardashian, whom Ryan introduces to Mark Salling. Mark seems nonplussed, but Kim tells Ryan she thinks Mark is “cute,” and confesses that she’s “not sure” if she’s single. This of course leads into Kim plugging tonight’s episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She does look very pretty in a white Marchesa Greek goddess number.
6:36 p.m.: Kim and Lea Michele meet on the podium and pretend they’re just the best friends EVER. Ryan actually lets Kim take over the mic to run the interview. It goes about as well as you would expect, which is actually not all that bad: Kim wishes Lea a happy birthday and wistfully notes that she remembers being 24… from what? The wizened old age of 30? Lea is working it in a gown we THINK is navy. Did she and Jayma Mays plan that? Regardless, it’s an Oscar de la Renta and aggressively ruffled at the hem. We think we like it, but we need to see more of it.
6:38 p.m.: Claire Danes is wearing something nude-colored and beaded. It’s very simple and quite pretty, with a slight mermaid hem. Ryan introduces her to Nigel Lythgoe, who asks her if she’d like to be a judge on American Idol. This does not really seem like a joke. We suspect Nigel is getting desperate. Claire sort of mutters something noncommittal and scampers away from him.
6:41 p.m.: Ryan chats up Eva Longoria Parker, who tells him that she’s stepping all over the train of her simple, black strapless dress. We’ve all been there, Eva. It’s nearly impossible to live-blog without stepping on our trains, let me tell you. As E! cuts to commercial, we get a glimpse of what may be our first real misstep of the night: Lauren Graham, whose gown has a very VERY blouse-y bodice.
6:46 p.m.: We’re not crazy about Sofia Vegara’s gown, either: it’s light yellow, with gold beading all the way up and down the center of it. We suspect it’s one of those dresses that looks lovely in person, but on camera it looks like she spilled coffee all the way down herself. On the other hand, she herself seems incredibly charming.
6:47 p.m.: Ryan throws to Guiliana, who’s with Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt. Hamm looks classically dreamy in a standard tux, and Westfeldt looks classically fine in a greenish lace number that does nothing for her boobs, if we may be so bold. What’s the over/under on Guiliana hitting on Jon Hamm, do you think?
6:49 p.m.: Ricky Gervais has lost a big of weight, and actually, it doesn’t suit him. Or maybe that’s just the goatee exploding on his face. He says, correctly, that everyone’s focusing on who the actor is that can replace Steve Carell, as opposed to, what character should replace Michael Scott. He must be so annoyed with answering these questions. If I were him, I’d start all kinds of rumors that are increasingly fantastical, like that they’re hiring Spencer Pratt, or Bronson Pinchot. REALLY make people cry.
6:51 p.m.: First glimpse of January Jones. Her hair is down and mussed, and her blue dress is either really pretty and unique, or a lampshade at a relatively cheerful brothel. Meanwhile, we also just mistook Kate Gosselin for Lisa Kudrow. We owe Lisa Kudrow a fruit basket and perhaps a ham for that one. For the record, Kate’s sparkly black halter dress makes her boobs look enormous, and yet also, as if they are smiling.
6:52 p.m.: Christina Hendricks’ hair is also down — has she always had a bob, or is this new? The dress is lavender, there appears to be fringe or feathers? And there is cleavage. Lots of it. We hope they hand her to Ryan and not Giuliana, because she will only make Giuliana look MORE like she was varnished by the same person who does coffee tables for Crate & Barrel.
6:58 p.m.: Julie Benz is in a one-shoulder white outfit, while Ryan Murphy — in a blue jacket, black ow tie, and tinted shades — chats to Ryan about Glee. There’s something about how the boys are dieting because of the promise of near-nudity. We should find that more interesting… How is it possible that Ryan Murphy is making nudity on network TV, through song, sound really dull?
7:59 p.m.: And that is it! Time for us to relax into some sandwiches. Thank you for joining us, and being patient with our technical difficulties! Don’t forget to follow along with the telecast on Vulture’s Emmys live-blog, or Vulture’s Twitter feed. Because there is so much nonsense yet to take place.
7:01 p.m.: Tina Fey is in floor-length grey Oscar de la Renta, with black scroll detail. It’s snug, it’s nice, her hair and makeup look good…. this seems like a real bid to be as inoffensive as possible, and it’s working. We like it, but we don’t want to take it home and get it drunk, you know?
7:02 p.m.: Hendricks DOES go to Ryan. The cut of her Zac Posen is very va-va-voom: low cut, tight on her chest and waist, snug on the hips, then hangs straight down loose from her legs — very old-school barmaid/lounge singer/schoolmarm who is totally going to get fired for Giving The Children Ideas. And there are feathers on the sleeves. There aren’t too many, for sure, but also so few that it looks like half of it has molted off. We are lukewarm. Perhaps more luke than warm.
7:05 p.m.: Heather Morris is in shiny gold; Katrina Bowden is in a pretty purple dress with a ruffled tiered skirt. But then again, Katrina Bowden is kind of like Cerie, her character on 30 Rock: annoyingly adorable even when you don’t want her to be.
7:08 p.m.: Anna Paquin is in McQueen,: mostly black, but with a very ornate short-sleeved gold bodice that’s almost Egyptian, as are her accessories. Her face looks great, and we like this dress a lot more than some of the other McQueens she’s worn — she loves him — and she’s kept her head minimally adorned so that it doesn’t compete with the glam. We’re going to say we like it, but as you know, sometimes once the giddy red-carpet high wears off, we’re left wondering where we are, how we got there, and where we might find our pants.
7:11 p.m.: Heidi Klim is wearing a very tight, very tiny Marchesa that could not be any shorter if you ran it through the wash on hot. She keeps standing with her legs apart, and we keep wanting to fix that. Listen, that woman is fertile. She needs to be careful — in this dress, Seal could sneeze and child No. 5 might be on the way.
7:12 p.m.: Naya Rivera’s dark teal outfit is DRAMA: high slit, huge skirt, and VERY tall hair. It’s really bold. But then, if there was a story out there that we’d allegedly keyed the Lexus of our alleged cheating ex-boyfriend, we’d show up looking larger than lie, too. Mindy Kaling from The Office also went with tall hair and an elaborate dress. The bodice appears to have a lot of tulle twisted around it.
7:13 p.m.: Manny from Modern Family — I didn’t hear his real name — is in A FEDORA. Ah, his name is Rico. His black suit is paired with a red shirt, a white and red tie, and the fedora has a white satin hat band. It is hilarious. He is doing tap dancing now and Giuliana actually just said, “That’s not good.” Oh, honey, do not slap down Manny/Rico. We love him just as he is. He looks like a tiny little Rat Pack member. This is, I think, exactly what Manny would wear to the Emmys. Giuliana asks him who he’s ogling and he says he’s more into video games. HA. That’s right, Giuliana, he’d rather shoot zombies than ogle you.
7:15 p.m.: Nina Dobrev’s champagne one-shouldered dress, with glittery accents, is lovely. She’s so pretty it hurts.
7:16 p.m.: Ryan talks to Matt Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris. NPH is wearing a grey tux, while Morrison is in standard issue basic black. Had we been asked to guess, we’d have wagered that Morrison would have gone for the more unusual number. The magic of the Emmys will never fail to surprise us. NPH and Ryan talk about Harris’s forth-coming twins, as we see Eva La Rue posing for the camera. Her white dress is ill-fitting and has an overly dramatic slit. On the other hand, Glee’s Heather Morris looks fantastic in an awesome gold sequined dress with a black belt.
7:18 p.m.: Guiliana sucks up to Kyra Sedgwick, who’s wearing a dark grape strapless dress. Her hair… has looked more polished than it does right now. She looks as though she curled her hair and then brushed it out. While they chat, we see two of the women from Breaking Bad, one of whom we briefly thought was Marcia Gay Harden.
7:45 p.m.: Ryan’s got the duo of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who looks fabulous for someone who just had a baby three weeks ago. They kiss — after announcing it’s their seventh wedding anniversary — and the whole crew coos. Apparently, we’re NOT all made of stone.
7:47 p.m.: Ryan throws to Guiliana, who’s interviewing Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in black. JLD’s giant green earrings are fabulous, but we’re undecided on her sleek dress, which has a sheer-ish panel over the midriff. Guiliana asks her which Seinfeld castmate she spoke to most recently: the big answer is Jason Alexander. Thank god they tackled this important social issue. Now we can sleep at night.
7:30 p.m.: Hugh Laurie chats with Ryan. We’d like to take this moment in a public forum to note that we love him.
7:31 p.m: As always Nancy Walls — Steve Carell’s wife — looks great. She and Steve talk to Ryan as we see a shot of Glenn Close, who looks VERY Glenn Close in an olive satin dress that that doesn’t quite fit her. We then cut to Hope Davis who looks kind of boring in a black number. We’d give you more details, but we’re super distracted by the fact that E!’s Kristen keeps yapping about her pregnancy. Which is lovely for her and her family, but we want to see OUTFITS, E! OUTFITS. On celebrities.
7:33 p.m.: Guiliana talks to Julianna Margulies, who looks so, so disinterested in giving this particular interview. We can’t figure out her dress, exactly. At first glance, it looks like pleather. Which would be a brave choice, but not one we would neccessarily endorse. We actually think her dress is beaded. While she chats, the E! cameras cut to Jewel, who they claim is performing. Since when is there a musical performance at the Emmys? We hope she’s singing about her weirdly shiny cleavage.
7:35 p.m.: Juliana claims her dress is a navy L’Wren Scott, but it reads black on camera. We’re just surprised she’s not wearing Narciso, as usual.
7:39 p.m.: The red carpet has almost entirely cleared out behind Ryan. We do see Elisabeth Moss, who FINALLY is wearing something that works on her, a nude pleated Donna Karen. Her hair also looks adorable. A round of applause for whomever finally pulled her look together.
7:42 p.m.: Guiliana chortles obnoxiously over Jane Krakowsi, who is wearing navy, along with nearly every other celebrity on the red carpet. We think we prefer her navy to the navy that Julie Bowen is wearing, which seems more ill-fitting than it ought to. As Jane chats about the live 30 Rock, the E! cameras find Olivia Munn, who’s wearing a very slim-fitting tomato colored sheath. Why is she even there? Oh right: she has a show on NBC in the fall. Synergy!
7:45 p.m.: Ryan talks to John Krasinski, who looks handsome as usual in his tux. Where, we wonder along with Ryan, is Emily Blunt? Finally, the cameras find her, waiting for John on the red carpet beneath Ryan’s podium, wearing lavendar and very sweetly giving him his moment in the spotlight alone.
7:47 p.m.: What is Rose Byrne wearing? Her dress is pretty, we think — it’s cream, with gold metal touches that make it both more interesting than it would be otherwise, and also more like a straitjacket than she might like. Her hair is also problematically frizzy in a way that is surely on purpose but looks totally like a misstep. While we try and figure out the deal with that, Guiliana talks to Dianna Agron, who’s wearing a very ladylike, very lacy Carolina Herrera.
7:48 p.m.: Jennifer Carpenter is wearing a skin-tight, one-sleeved beaded gunmetal gray dress. She manages to avoid the E! hosts, as does Jenna Fischer, whose hair looks fabulous. Her red dress gets a resounding “not bad” from us, which is an upgrade from things she’s worn in the past, at any rate.
7:52 p.m.: Mariska Hargity looks very bridal in a cream colored mermaid dress, with a flower tucked behind her ear, and a very deep tan. She looks like she just got back from vacation. Or maybe we just really want a mai tai.
7:55 p.m.: Ryan hugs Paula Abdul, wearing black, who waxes Paula-esque about how Ryan is her family, and she still loves him even if she doesn’t seem him on Idol any week anymore. She then starts yapping something about how she’s a Gemini. Oh, Paula. We miss your inarticulate crazyness on Idol.
7:56 p.m.: Connie Britton is working it in a navy blue (again!) sequined strapless sheath. Her hair is looking very Tami Taylor. We cut from her to Keri Russell looking very retro in a hot pink, ankle-length halter dress. She may be wearing a scrunchie, but we’re telling ourselves that it’s just a bow.
7:59 p.m.: And that is it! Time for us to relax into some sandwiches. Thank you for joining us, and being patient with our technical difficulties! Don’t forget to follow along with the telecast on Vulture’s Emmys live-blog, or Vulture’s Twitter feed. Because there is so much nonsense yet to take place.
