Style Matters: Shades of vegetables dance across red carpet as gowns

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Judie: The 58th Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards, which aired Sunday evening, was our chance to see the newest trends in hair, makeup and clothes.

Evelinda: After watching more hours of red-carpet television than we care to admit (including the show hosted by Joan Rivers, who's morphing into the fourth Gabor sister after way too much plastic surgery), here are the looks of the moment.

Judie: Messy hair, both in up-dos and in long, loose curls and waves, heavy eye makeup, pale lips and lots of gowns in the so-called "vegetable colors." Any color resembling eggplant or aubergine was prevalent on the red carpet. (See Lost's Evangeline Lilly or King of Queens' Leah Remini.) Add to that gowns in shades of asparagus and string beans and you have a regular stir fry.

Evelinda: Special mention must be made of all the mushroom-shaded dresses. Jenna Fischer, from The Office, wore a mushroom brown dress and The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick wore a strapless number in mushroom gray.

Judie: The most popular accessory at this year's Emmys: cleavage. We were wowed by the decolletage of Morgan Fairchild (she looks exactly the same as she did in Flamingo Road, by the way), 24's Jean Smart, Desperate Housewife Alfre Woodard and the standout, and we mean standout, Virginia Madsen. Should these gorgeous gals decide to form a girl band, we freely grant them the rights to the name: "Aging Babes with Cleavage."

Style Matters home runs:

• Tyra Banks in a $50,000 black lace, one-shoulder gown. She was perfection.

• Portia de Rossi in a deep V-neck Zac Posen dress with crocheted rosette accents, red lips and a matching red satin clutch. Outstanding!

• Helen Mirren in a tasteful Morgane Le Fay ivory gown, which flattered her skin and hair color, and a knockout emerald choker.

• Katherine Heigl in vintage Escada that looked painted onto her hourglass figure. The epitome of Hollywood glamour.

Swings and misses:

• Lisa Edelstein: The House actress looked blah in a dull, cream- colored strapless dress and no jewelry.

• Ellen Pompeo: Slicked- down, straight hair done in a juvenile half-up/half down ponytail that looked more like she was dressing for picture day at school than for a Hollywood awards show.

• Paula Abdul: Special mention must be made of this disaster. Abdul chose what could only be described as a bridesmaid dress off the clearance rack at David's Bridal. From the goofy flowers in her hair to the big pink thing stuck on the back of this floral pattern on steroids, Abdul wins this year's Bjork swan award.

• Lorraine Bracco: This woman has spent too much time on the treatment couch and not enough time in the gym. A once lovely woman now looks matronly and dated.

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