Every awards show or major red carpet event has a different fashion vibe. For example, MTV's Movie Awards or VMAs are all about over the top sexy and young looks. The Met Gala is judged by how well celebs and their stylists did at "understanding the assignment" and figuring out how to best interpret the theme of the year. A Met Gala look can be experimental and even weird and still be a fashion win for a celeb. But the Oscars? Well, call us old-fashioned, but the Oscars should be all about glamour and looking amazing!
Throughout the years, there have been so many examples of stars whose Oscar looks were incredibly timeless and elegant. We love those looks, obviously. We still swoon over Julia Roberts in a black and white vintage Valentino gown from 2001! But, we can't lie: sometimes the Oscar fashion fails are even more fun to dissect and talk about! The 2023 Oscars was no exception. While there were some celebs like Ava DuVernay and Cara Delevingne who looked epic and iconic, we weren't as impressed with some of the other looks from some of our favorite celebs. While we know that fashion is always subjective, we're taking a stand that these were the 16 biggest fashion fails of the 2023 Oscars red carpet!
Laverne Cox in Vera Wang
Laverne Cox is a stunningly beautiful woman, but even her gorgeous face can't make us like this Vera Wang outfit. First, the tan netting on the torso doesn't match her skin at all but isn't enough of a contrast to look intentional. We also don't care for the detached sleeve (or is it a glove?) situation either.
Ashley Graham in Alberta Ferretti
We love Ashley Graham and if anyone could make this work, it's a model. But the "granny panty black briefs under see through netting" look is so tired. This would have been so much more interesting with something other than sparkly formal fishnet on the bottom.
Florence Pugh in Valentino Couture
How is there so much fabric in this gown and Florence Pugh is still in danger of accidentally showing the world whether or not her bikini waxer was fully successful? The black part of the dress is dangerously short, but the rest of it is giving "gave up halfway through changing the duvet cover" vibes.
Mindy Kaling in Vera Wang
This is the second Vera Wang dress in our 2023 Oscars worst-dressed roundup and the second one that makes it on the worst dressed list because we hate the sleeves. Vera, babe, what's with the weird sleeves this year? The rest of this dress is a snooze fest, which is surprising for something that shows so much more skin than Mindy usually shows.
Jamie Lee Curtis in Dolce & Gabbana
The styling on this Jamie Lee Curtis look is excellent. Her hair and face? Perfection! Her Oscar win? So well-deserved. But she ends up on this list because her dress came so close to being perfect and couldn't cross the fashion finish line. Her dress is 90% perfection and 10% those totally unnecessary strips on the bodice. They add nothing to the dress and we just feel itchy to pull them off like strips of tape. Without those? Best dressed contender.
Harry Shum Jr. in Adeam
When it comes to Oscars fashion, men don't really have as many options as women, so it always catches our eye when a handsome man tries to do something other than the traditional black tux look. Unfortunately, we can stop our eye from twitching at the mismatching lapels on this east-meets-west formal look.
Jesse Buckley
Irish actress and 2022 Oscar nominee for best supporting actress Jessie Buckley is the unfortunate example the dress wearing her and not her wearing the dress. This dress is just so heavy with the giant sleeves, high neckline, and scratchy-looking lace. It overwhelms her and even her bright red hair doesn't lighten the look—which is why this look landed on the worst-dressed list at the 2023 Oscars.
Eva Longoria in Zuhair Murad
We all know everything related to fashion and beauty is subjective, so we have to acknowledge that we almost never love the wet look for red carpet hair and makeup. It is so easy to cross the line between "wet look" and "kind of greasy." We'll let others decide where Eva ended up on that line and just note that we also find the dress both too bare and too busy.
Questlove in Crocs
Questlove is a multi-talented guy and we respect his commitment to comfort. But we have to ask: are we, as a society, really in a place where we have agreed to bedazzled Crocs as an appropriate footwear choice for the Academy freaking Awards? If so, we feel like there are a whole lot of female stars who could be a whole lot more comfortable!
Emily Blunt in Valentino
Emily Blunt has such a fun and lively personality but this simple white tube dress is kind of a snooze. It also features those same detached/semi-attached sleeves that we have hated on three times so far in this roundup. So we think she looks kind of boring and we are staying consistent!
Paul Mescal in Gucci
This black and white suit from Gucci was said to be 1970s inspired and, well, there is a reason that the 1970s aren't really considered the peak decade for men's fashion. We just can't love a bell bottom pant for Oscar night, as cute as Paul Mescal is.
Halle Berry in Tamara Ralph
Oh Halle Berry, we're sorry to see you on his worst-dressed list. But we have to be honest, this look was not the best. The hair looks both greasy and dry (which, relatable, we all have a bad hair day) and the dress is one strong breeze away from needing a censor bar.
Riz Ahmed in Prada
Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed (who was so great in Sound of Metal, which he was nominated for the best actor award in 2021), forces us to ask an unusual question with his Prada look: how do you have giant shirt lapels but no actual shirt? Call us old-fashioned, but we think the Oscars need shirts.
Allison Williams in Giambattista Valli
Maybe this says more about the state of our floors than in our ability to assess fashion, but does anyone else look at the bottom of Allison William's dress and see Swiffer dust cloths? The thing about this look is that her dress already has so much going on that it really didn't need the distracting detail on the hem. But, hey, maybe she'll help keep the carpet clean?
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
We salute Dwayne Johnson for making a bold color choice with his sherbet-colored jacket (though, really, if The Rock can't get away with a bold look, who can?) but did it have to be quite so shiny? Also, we say this with love, but the jacket is also just a smidge too tight. There were some buttons fighting for their lives on the stage tonight.
Melissa McCarthy in Christian Siriano
We love Melissa McCarthy! We love Christian Siriano! But this worst-dressed contender feels totally forgettable. We know Christian usually gets a lot of praise for dressing actresses of all sizes and for celebrating their curves, but this feels more like Melissa is being totally covered up and almost overwhelmed by fabric. It isn't the worst look of the night but it feels like it was a missed chance for two people with so much personality to pull of something really memorable.
