Every night! There’s a red carpet – or at least three – every night right now because, as we keep saying, the entertainment industry is on a push to wrap it all up for the holiday break. And the fashion, OMG… 

 

They were restrained for several months because of the strike. And now it’s time to feast. The looks just keep coming. 

So let’s start at the ELLE Women in Hollywood party last night in Hollywood where Icon Award winner, Jennifer Lopez, showed up in a silver-blue breast plate and we’ve seen others wearing the breast plate thing before (Zendaya, forever and always) so the design is familiar here but with JLo’s it’s the colour. How liquid it looks when the light hits while still holding its form – it’s pretty special. And you really get the best sense of it in motion. Let me show you a video: 

 

Congratulations to Grace Ling, an emerging designer who was featured in Vogue earlier this year. This might be the most high-profile showcase of her work so far – and what a get for her. It’s JLo. And JLo chose her design for this big night. 

A night where she was named an icon… for the fifth time. Which she acknowledged in her speech, leading up to it by listing all the awards she does NOT have. 

 

That’s a flex, obviously. And if you know, you know. Because JLo has spoken many times previously about how, even though she’s Jennifer Lopez, among a small handful of the most famous and successful women in the world, there are some rooms that are still not available to her. Here’s where I, once again, start shouting about how she was robbed – ROBBED! – for Hustlers!

You can read JLo’s speech in its entirety here, and it’s a good one. Because she talks about she has constantly, and still now, had to push back against the idea that she’s either not enough or too much. 

“You know, I started off as a dancer, and then started making movies, and then records and then creating my own brand somehow, and companies, and each step of the way and each transition, there seemed to be tremendous opposition—both literal, like physical, and emotional—to the idea that you could do many different things and be taken seriously.

 

The idea was that you were not as real a musician if you were also an actress, or you’re not a serious actor if you’re a dancer, or a legitimate business person or entrepreneur if you are an artist, but it went beyond that too: You couldn’t be good or credible at anything if you were sexy, and you couldn’t be sexy if you were a mom, and you couldn’t be intelligent if you were beautiful, and so on and so on. And you certainly couldn’t be any of those things if you were a lil Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx.”

There are still people who don’t take JLo seriously, and some of them are reading this post now. A lot of them misunderstand her and there was recently a comment over at The Squawk about how it doesn’t seem like she has strong female connections because she either doesn’t perform friendship the Hollywood way or because she has such big Main Character Energy she’s automatically written off as That Girl who doesn’t mess with other girls. But JLo was shouted out multiple times last night from the stage by other honorees – and most importantly two Latina honorees who made a point of acknowledging JLo’s contributions to their community. 

Here's what Eva Longoria said during her remarks:

“…to see three Latinas on a night like tonight is pretty amazing. I also know that America [Ferrera] and I wouldn’t be standing here tonight if it wasn’t for the badassery that is Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer outworked, outhustled, and outsmarted everybody in the room just for us to have a chance to be in this room, so we thank you, Jennifer.”

 

And when it was America’s turn, looking STUNNINGGGGG in this black corset dress, she did the same:

“Oh my God, this list of women, the work! It also did not occur to me that there were three Latinas on this list. It was like, “Yes! Let’s get ’em!” I mean to be on any list with J.Lo is like, come on.”

That would have meant a LOT to JLo. And it’s why she can wear the title of icon so many times and proudly without apology. 

It’s also why her plus one, Ben Affleck, was there last night. He has spoken of this often since they got back together, and Matt Damon has even talked about it with him. It was on a podcast, I think with Bill Simmons, and the two were them were basically like, yeah, sure, we know we’re famous but Ben’s wife? That’s JLo. And that’s a whole other level of accomplishment from where we’re sitting. His facial expressions sometimes don’t reflect it, but the Ben Affleck of Bennifer V2.0 is a proud fanboy. Which is why he showed up last night, for her. Which should also take care of any rumours that they’re anything but solid.