Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
On every Emmy night, there are winners, and there are losers, and that doesn’t even include the actual awards. Because, really, isn’t that part beside the point? By the time the actual telecast rolls around, we’re on the phone with the pizza guy, having already spent all our energy pointing at the TV and shouting things at people’s outfits. Here’s our list of the night’s biggest fashion offenders and overachievers, compiled after our pre-show Seacrest-binge (but before our pepperoni one).
It’s not because of her face, which was as luminous as ever; no, it’s because we could barely suppress the urge to reach out and pop those suckers festering on the bodice of her Armani gown. It’s good that Juliana’s not dressed like a teenager, but we do wish she hadn’t sent us down a flashback wormhole to days of Oxy pads and Sea Breeze.
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
We assume Winslet here was odds-on favorite for her work in the approximately eighty-hour long HBO odyssey Mildred Pierce. So we wish she’d tried a little harder. This red dress isn’t egregious, necessarily, but she has a much hotter midsection than it’s giving her, and it needs a spicier lip. Don’t put the “mild” in “Mildred,” Kate.
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
In photos, this has a bit more intrigue to it, but on the red carpet it seemed stuffy and ancient, as if one of Charlie’s newest angels’ personal guardian from the Great Beyond is a society dame named Maude who drowned in the punch bowl on her 86th birthday and left Minka this dress to wear to her funeral. Can we just start over?
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/2011 Jeff Kravitz
It’s not that we haven’t always known Bello is a knockout — why wasn’t SHE dancing on the bar in Coyote Ugly? — but she usually downplays her hotness on screen (see: Prime Suspect). So we loved seeing her glam it up in the sexiest white/metallic number of the night. We tried to resist the hacky “bella, indeed” joke, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
We’d love to give Heidi Klum props for doing former Project Runway winner Christian Siriano a solid and wearing his design, but this particular design may do his cause more harm than good: She looks like a rabid sea anemone ate her thighs.
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
In a sea of beige, black, and red, we want to give Vergara a high five for trotting out this graceful and flattering orange gown. Is it avant-garde? No, but neither is she, and it works perfectly on her — a master class in prioritizing fit over fancy-pants fashion.
Photo: Frazer Harrison/2011 Getty Images
Boy, did Bowen pick the right night for her first red carpet home run. The comedy Best Actress winner looks sexy without being vulgar, interesting without being off-putting, blinged-out without being blinding, and, simply put, hot.
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
By contrast to Bowen, McCarthy’s surprise sent her up on stage in a gown we think she’ll wish she’d left behind in her seat. The color is a stunner, but the dress itself was baggy and catastrophic in all the wrong places: odd, since she said she co-designed it. Better leave clothesmaking to the professionals, Melissa — like, you know, the Kardashians — and just keep focusing on doing what you do so well.
Photo: Jeff Vespa/2011 Jeff Vespa
McHale was already saddled with a part in the wretched Emmytones barbershop-sextet portion of the telecast. So it was a miscalculation to wear a Joke Tuxedo on the red carpet — and surely this was a joke, as we can’t imagine dressing like someone’s prom date in 1978 on purpose. We like a funny guy, but it’s no good if we’re laughing at you, especially twice in the same night.
Photo: Frazer Harrison/2011 Getty Images
Yet again, everyone acted like red was this awesome new color they’d just discovered, but the worst of the many, many, many incarnations was Michele’s. This dress manages to be boring in spite of its attempts to convince you it’s not (like the weird draped back) and worse, it does nothing for her figure; it’s like the dress version of a backstabber. And doesn’t Rachel Berry have enough frenemies in the world?
Photo: Jordan Strauss/2011 Jordan Strauss
Gwyneth is having a great year: She won an Emmy for her role on Glee before the awards even started, and got to shimmy around on the top of a piano with Cee Lo at the Grammys. So her “Look At Me!” bare midriff feels a little try-hard this time around. Just show up, babe. People will pay attention to you, we promise, even if you’re covered up.
Photo: Steve Granitz/2011 Steve Granitz
