It’s Friday afternoon. The next time I post to the site it’ll be early Monday morning and the Oscars will already have happened. This then is the final post of our Oscar retrospective. Until next year.

Thought I’d end on my two favourite Oscar dresses from the last decade. It’s like choosing between your children. I can’t. I love them both SO MUCH. And please, don’t let the wearer affect you. Bring it down to the most superficial level possible.

Michelle Williams in Vera Wang
I’m not breaking new ground here. Michelle’s Vera Wang in 2006 shows up on most Best All Time Oscar Dresses lists because... it IS.  

Different people love this dress for different reasons. Duana, who has never said no to yellow and orange, is all about the colour. Me too. But it’s not only the colour, obviously. It’s also the exquisite pleated V, the gathering right where her legs meet, a perfect shade of red on her lips, sideswept hair that somehow isn’t at all Carrie Underwood, that boldly impressive choice of metal accent accessory around her neck, and then nothing else, no earrings, no bracelets, bare but for a simple unremarkable ring that was probably more personal than sartorial.

Marion Cotillard in Jean Paul Gaultier
It’s ok if you want to leave me and enjoy this for a while. This after all is what you expect when it’s the Oscars, right? You want it to be extraordinary. You want it to be ART. That’s the only way to describe this dress. Look at the scalloping. Come on!

And of course she knew how to best present it too, with the chain down the front, and the hair to one side, and who else but Marion Cotillard could be the sexy French mermaid and also the sweet grateful actress?

She picked a dress for a WINNER.  

That’s it for me, I’m out.

Happy Oscars!