Written by Duana

I’m dating myself here, but the very first thing I thought when I saw this dress was a long, crushed-velvet dress I used to wear in high school. Anyone? They came in the richest, most ‘muted’ jewel tones – and we wore them and felt so glam.

So I’m glad Tom Ford has brought the 90’s back on Julianne and I like her dramatic makeup – although it seems you have to make a choice between ‘dramatic’ and ‘upbeat and awake’. Everything Julianne’s doing here is definitely glamorous but I can also see all the effort behind it. The hours she spent in the makeup chair, the lacquered hair, the Spanx.

Oddly though, I don’t mind it. The visible effort, I mean. It makes it seem more British somehow – a bunch of people consciously putting on the style, and looking desperately forward to taking their heels off at the end of the night and nursing the tender spot on the skin where the zipper dug in, as opposed to the Hollywood image, wherein they pretend the fabric was laid upon them by birds sweetly singing and there was no ‘getting ready’ process beyond putting on the earrings. I appreciate the lack of fiction.

In fact, maybe it’s the late hour or just the fact that it’s JMo we’re talking about but I’m even charmed by the fact that she’s doing the chest-puff to keep her dress from slipping. I’m sure Tom Ford had it made to measure, but somehow it’s inevitable that you have to deploy the chest puff. You know – wherein you breathe in huge and try to expand your ribcage? (I do this a lot with towels coming out of the shower. Is there a way to tie them I don’t know about?)

I don’t know if I’m down with the return of velvet on just anyone, though. Her curtain of copper hair forgives many sins that might be egregious on a blonde.


Photos from Wenn.com