The Fugp/Fug or Fab: Jessica Chastain

Love the hair, love the face, love that you know starting with a compliment like that means the rest of this post is going to take a sad turn.

Tyra Banks would say, “Wah-waaaah.” Well, she only said that once, but it was memorable, and apt. And that’s how I feel about this. I don’t mind a silvery spring-green motif, but the execution is so meh: The drop-waisted cut is blah on her body, the hemline is feh, the shoes are too matchy and flarghl, and now I’m just making up words for mediocrity that are themselves mediocre. I’m stuck in a vortex of vanilla, a hum-drum hell-spiral. As Jessica recently noted of Mila Kunis, best to get the flops out of the way when the spotlight isn’t as hot, so let’s hope Chastain is just expending some wardrobe leftovers and is saving the good stuff for Sunday. Although is it wrong that I hope she’s saving something cockamamie? Nothing personal, Jessica. I like pretty, but I love nonsense.

And of course, not long after I wrote up this outfit, Jessica stepped out in something else:

I thought it was going to be all sedate, and then boom, New Year’s Eve at the Moulin Rouge happened on her pelvis. I quite like the effect, though I’m still unsure about the length — on girls who aren’t eleven feet tall, I always question whether the below-the-knee hemlines are hit them in the most flattering spot. And I really do not like the shoes — they just seem so heavy with an already busy gown. They’re clodhoppers. I don’t know what I’d put there INSTEAD, though — maybe the shoes from the other outfit? Or are those too sparkly? Either way, these seem very 1997, and not in a way that I’m anxious to revisit. Not that there’s very much about 1997 that’s begging for a callback. Certainly not my eyebrows or my jeans rise, or any khakis sold by The Gap.

Thoughts?