Potentially Well Played/Hmm, Maybe Not/What The FUG: Courtney Love

Everything started out so well for Courtney here.

Great shoes, flattering little black dress, cool leather coat — there’s nothing remarkable here, for sure (although I wouldn’t mind borrowing the Loubs and the jacket), except that it feels like Courtney Love needs a bigger pat on the back than most of us just for completing average, everyday tasks — like successfully getting dressed in something that isn’t made of crazy and doesn’t look like she got caught in her skivvies chasing the paperboy down the street after he demanded his two-dollar fee in cash and then deliberately hurled the Los Angeles Times through her garage window.

Then the jacket came off:

If she had just averaged out the sleeves on this dress, it might’ve looked better — instead of one long and one absent, it could’ve been two of moderate length. Yeah, the dress has more interest the way it is — but on the other hand, her right arm seems to be mourning the death of the chalk slate and one-room schools, while her left is in some kind of sinew contest with Madonna. I’m not sure those messages needed to be mixed in one outfit.

And then somehow — inexplicably — this outfit turned into, or ceded ground to, this one:

… ?

No, really. I don’t understand. In the blink of an eye, we’re back to Paperboy Chase 2009: Kid, Get Off My Damn Lawn, in which Courtney sauntered outside thinking she’d only be exposed for two seconds and ended up in a race against a ten-year old and his Schwinn. Where did this come from? It’s the same party. Possibly the same bra. And an entirely NEW sheer tank top that might actually be an entire sheer tank DRESS worn over another lower layer. And she’s wearing boots now? And a phantom flannel shirt has appeared at her waist? It’s like the Good Witch of the Northwest told her that whenever grown-up clothes make it impossible to turn that frown upside-down, she should just click her heels thrice and intone, “There’s no place like home,” so that in an instant several relics of the Seattle grunge scene might appear on her person.

I hope the clearly amused Davis Guggenheim is taking notes — he apparently directed the pilot for the new Melrose Place, and a stealth bra attack is just the type of thing that show needs if it’s to avoid the same treacherously dull putrescence that infests the new 90210. Courtney Love, however… she could use a bit more dull in her life. Here’s hoping she goes back to it for a bit.