Succeeding where Cameron Diaz couldn’t...

Rihanna doesn’t get enough credit for how fashionably astute she is. You expect her to show up here with horns or vagina-riding a surfboard, some kind of crazy, and instead she lets Tom Ford do exactly what Tom Ford does best. Tom Ford owned the Oscars with a white cape for Gwyneth Paltrow. He’s done the same here for Rihanna. This dress is ALL Rihanna. Which is why she doesn’t need much else. You pull back when nothing else is required.

Nothing but crocodile skin not unlike the mutant Mystique. They spend hours in makeup on the set of the X-Men movies making what Tom Ford has just turned into wearable, almost practical-looking gown. It’s tempting to shrug like it’s just another black dress. This is far, far, far from just another black dress. It might actually be one of the greatest black dresses of all time. And in it Rihanna is at once inhuman and also totally, totally woman. Amazing, right?