Fugger: Mena Suvari

At Fashion Week, we spotlighted this dress from Tadashi Shoji and said we liked it, cautiously — that we were afraid whoever tried to wear it first would do something terrible with it, before anybody else could do it right. Let’s see if Mena here did it justice:

Well, the pink lipstick is all wrong with this. It’s as if head and body were not considered together, when in fact — last I checked — they are attached and should therefore try to be complementary. The bob is cute, but the model’s sleeker hair and simple red lip would’ve been clever to echo. As for the dress, Mena has shortened it somewhat from where the model’s hits her — which was a good decision, because the runway length is hard to pull off unless you are that exact size, walking around on those exact legs. She also scrapped the tights and went with heavier shoes. I’m neutral on that change. The dress can carry dark tights, but it certainly doesn’t need them. All in all, though, I’m pretty pleased with this deployment — seriously, I was terrified someone would throw in a needless belt, or Mia Wasikowska would wear it with thick white shoes that look like she fished them out of Aunt Edna’s attic. That did not happen. Hooray for small miracles. (Note to Mia: You could still wear this. You could do it with the right makeup, and NOT wear Aunt Edna’s shoes, and it could look really good. Please consider.)

Florence Welch went with a long-form version in green:

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