Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Verdict on Vera Wang's Green Dress

Black is beautiful, in garish green and "natural" red hair

I wrote here on the Vera Wang gown that actress Viola Davis wore to the Oscars that "The dress looks attractive at first glance," and then proceeded to outline the flaws in the dress that caused me to instinctively dislike it at first viewing. Well I'm not the only one that didn't like the dress. The Daily Mail on Monday had this headline: And the award for worst-dressed goes to... Not all the stars at the Oscars looked their best. Wang's dress was on the list, with this comment: "Viola Davis, right, had too much going on in Vera Wang."

I was curious what other fashion experts thought of the dress, so I tuned in to watch the Fashion Police show on the Oscar dresses, with Joan Rivers as the crude-mouthed lead commentator. There was nothing but accolades coming from this trio, and they especially liked the green against her skin. I wonder if they are just being polite (i.e. Davis recently got rid of her wig to come out "natural" although what is natural about dyed red hair on a black woman, I don't know. So rather than criticize her hair, they admired her dark skin against the green color, to show that black is indeed beautiful, in all its manifestations).

Here's another fashion site which writes about the green bias:
Viola Davis wore emerald green and Ms. Rivers could only say, "Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous and the color on her was stunning." Kelly and Giuliana [the other two on the Fashion Police "panel"] swooned about the gown and her natural hair choice. Rancic said that she was so tired of wearing wigs and wanted to represent that night.