When everyone from us to HuffPo to the Daily Mail to Pop Crush (who have her looking amazing on the cover of Fashion Canada — seriously, compare and contrast) are discussing whether or not you’re dressing weirdly too young for your age (26), obviously the best plan of attack from your team is to put you in a Catholic school girl uniform for your next event and hope for the best:
I actually think this dress is cute enough, but it needs to be very carefully styled so that you don’t look terribly twee in it. It could certainly be done, but…not like this. In other words: steer clear of the candy-colored bangles and the seriously uniform-appropriate kicks. I guess I just do not get it. You can appeal to young people, and you can look young and fresh and modern and fantastic, without often looking as though you are in costume as the age group to which you are trying to appeal or for whom you are performing. You guys know I am not someone who often name-checks Lady Gaga without rolling my eyes, but she appeals to a ton of listeners much younger than she is and she is WALKING AROUND IN AN EGG (maybe she’s been trying to capture that elusive ovum market this whole time). This, on the other hand, tends to feel kind of… patronizing?
And before it gets all gale force winds in the comments, as it often does when I note that I find it perplexing the way CRJ’s team has decided to dress her like the sixteen year old president of the debate team, some caveats: I DO NOT THINK SHE IS OLD. I’m not calling YOU old. I don’t hate plaid, Canadians, or people with bangs. I don’t have a vendetta against debating, the debate team, or teams in general. I am not anti-adolescents, nor do I dislike candy, or bangles. I have no problem with tennis shoes when well deployed. I am wearing Converse RIGHT NOW, and I assure you, I am ancient. I don’t have a secret burning hatred for runners up of Canadian Idol, nor runners-up of American Idol (and I am including Kat McPhee’s stint on Smash in that assessment). I don’t dislike Carlys: Patterson rules, and Simon wrote one of the best songs ever to make fun of someone’s accessories. I also like Raes, especially Charlotte, but also John Rae (Scottish explorer and noted snowshoe artisan), Canadian actress and long-ago TWoP mascot Rae Dawn Chong, Norma Rae (despite being fictionalized), and the Estonian village Rae. I got no beef with any Jepsen. I just want the woman to get to wear something that ain’t pleated.
[Photo: Getty]
Comments (47):
Throw away the bangles and give her some different shoes and I think she looks great! The belt-part of the dress gives it an edge.
I was definitely OK with it until I got to the shoes. It just smacks of desperation ala Avril Lavigne. I also wish that her posture was a bit better as her head is being overtaken by her shoulders. That would also make it look a lot cuter.
^^^THIS
and
\/ \/ \/ \/ THAT
Japanese schoolgirl.
Gogo Yubari.
My kingdom for a good blazer, cute heels and jeans. Remember jeans, Carly? Those are your ticket to young-but-not -Lolita. As is, this freaks me out.
I think that what bothers me are the bangs and the heavy eyeliner. I love a good bang, but this is a bad bang. She always reminds me of my friend’s little sister when I was in high school – who was 14.
I have to agree with the bangs and terrible eyeliner! Her hair makes her neck look thin and her head look HUGE! Coupled with too much eyeliner, she looks like a Barbie who’s eyes have been colored in w/ Sharpie! Y’all know you did that when you were kids, too!
This woman will still be referring to herself as a girl when she’s 72.
Jessica, the rant indicates that you must be getting lots of hate mail
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I will both agree and disagree with the analysis here. The agree: It is weird for a 26 year old to dress a lot younger. The disagree: This is a tennis themed event, and once I heard that, this outfit totally works for it. It maybe seems twee just because of the other stuff she has worn.
I wish because it was Arthur Ashe Kid’s Day that I could give her a pass but she looked like a 12-year old in the outfit she wore on the court.
http://www.redcarpet-fashionawards.com/2012/08/27/carly-rae-jepsen-in-ani-lee-2012-arthur-ashe-kids-day/
Oh god, that on-the-court outfit is horrifying. She looks like she’s wearing her old Easter outfit. From when she was seven.
I have a feeling she may not age well.
Yeah, has someone been riding you rough-shod? Those a-holes.
The shoes need to go…. I love sneakers and I like this particular pair, just not with the outfit.
I do not like the bangs at all, I really seem to be turning anti-bang lately…. not sure why.
The dress itself is kind of cute, but it’s teetering on twee.
A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.
If I had to guess her age based on this pic alone I’d say 13, 14 at most. Even Britney retired the school girl look ages ago.
she should never take off that dress from the fashion canada cover. or the heels. ever.
Totally agreed. She looks incredible!
I feel a need to address the sneakers specifically and not in relation to the outfit. Is it just me or are they enormous? They look like they weigh two pounds each. I don’t think it matters what school girl uniform she’s wearing. I can’t see anything but her gigantic shoes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think CRJ is secretly Brown Peldon.
Whatever happend to them anyway?
Apparently, one of them now sings obnoxious pop songs!
Dressing like a tween may be intended to appeal to a young audience, but I get a very squicky feeling that it resonates more with an entirely different demographic.
This is not really a comment on her outfit, but her overall look. Her face is like a weird hybrid of Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Biel.
I’m not sure how her “people” think the clothes she wears make her appeal to a younger audience. I don’t know any tweens/teens that would dress as young (or poorly) as her. I feel bad fer her because she a) is told to wear those outfits or b) picks them out herself.
Can we talk about how great she looks on that Fashion Canada cover? That is truly the first time I have seen her looking over age 20. Bravo!
I totally agree with you, Jessica. It comes across as pure costume, and I honestly think she looks silly. I get that the song that made her famous (which I hate – so played out!) is the poppiest bubblegum pop and thus her audience is comprised of tweens and teens, but that doesn’t mean she has to dress like she’s 11. It really, really doesn’t. She could dress her age and still look young because she’s only 26. Jeans and a cute shirt! Chucks! A fun sundress! What would be wrong with that?
And those are some giant-ass Seinfeld sneakers.
So… you hate Catholics? ….
That would be personally very awkward if I did. I do not hate Catholics.
KIDDING! You said “Catholic school girl,” and then gave the world’s most awesomely universal disclaimer, and I…
never mind.
Not Catholics, just pleats. Jessica Hates Pleats!!! Film at 11.
I agree with my coworker, give her some nice red pumps instead of those hideous giant sneakers, maybe a cute blazer, and she’d look good.
It’s just baffling why they do this to her. She’s a cute young woman; it wouldn’t be hard to dress her well for appearances. Instead, she gets this. I think 16 would be pushing the age limit for this outfit.
Her management is selling her to the tweeny-teen set.
I do love the shoes and would probably wear this… shall I get my coat?
http://www.shoeniverse.info/
If it was once in a while, that would be one thing. But she is CONSTANTLY dressed in immature outfits. I find it creepy, honestly.
You will rip apart Biel, but you think this dress is cute? I must be fashion blind or something.
Change shoes to strappy sandals (black would be fine), and fix her makeup and hair to something softer and more age appropriate, and she’d look fine.
With these bangs and sneaks, she looks like a car hop on roller skates in the ’50′s.
The styling makes me think that someone on her team is trying to make her the next Zoe Deschanel with the highlighted eyes and bangs and cutesie clothes. Difference is, we already have a Zoe (not that I’m a huge fan, but you can’t miss her), and she manages to look retro and interesting. Carly Rae looks a little off, and a little twee.
Is her stylist just trying too hard?
I think the dress is super cute, but agree with everyone on the styling issues.
To contextualize my comments, I’m going to make it clear right up front that I’m way older than CRJ here, and think everyone should dress as they damn please, regardless of age, BUT they need to accept the consequences and the fact that some things do a person more favours than others.
At a certain point in life, one’s face no longer says ‘child’. You may look young, fresh, whatever, but you’ve grown past ‘child’. At this point, wearing clothes that your culture recognizes as ‘childlike’ will make you look OLDER, because the contrast between the childlike clothing and not-childlike face only emphasizes the latter.
And that is what is happening here: CRJ is cute and young-looking, but the babyish choices do the opposite of highligh that.
I can get behind the hair, and the dress on its own MIGHT have worked, but the cartoonish trainers and plastic bracelets really push the look into ‘I’m feeling embarrassed for her’ territory.
She’d be better off in mod-look sheaths, or something of that sort, the kind of thing you wear when you’re trying to look like a grownup (partly because ‘Trying to look like a grownup and being careful to not overdo it or cross some line’ is something typical of the young).
Poor not-kid.
As a long haired, bangs-wearing female in the process of admitting that at almost-27 it’s time to stop dressing like a teenage rebel (which I didn’t do as a teenager, and well and truly made up for when I realised I could still pass for one of the local student population at 23), Carly provides great motivation to switch to ballet flats with my cute sundresses before I end up looking like a caricature. So I guess she’s providing a public service?
That dress could acually make a cute pet costume.
I sincerely hope you mean “a costume for a person dressing up as a pet”. Unless they are in extreme weather conditions—booties to protect sled dogs’ paws, for example—animals do not need and do not want clothes. They have hair, fur, feathers,and hide. Nature dressed them just fine on its own.
I think the styling is what’s off, the dress could be made to look older with some stockings and heals. I remember Nicole Kidman wearing something of a very similar shape (though hers had sleeves) and everybody seemed to agree it came off as “sexy schoolmarm” in a good way
Oh me . . .