Fug Madness 2014, Round One: Madonna Bracket, Bottom Half

As a refresher: The photos and links in each matchup post are NOT the only outfits eligible; rather, they’re a representative sample of the body of work from this period (late Feb, after the 2013 Oscars, through this year’s Oscars). Polls close after 24 hours, so if you like to research your choices — on our site, Getty Images, Google, whatever — have at it and just make sure you vote before the game ends. If you need a primer on how all this works, pursue the the FAQ. And, most importantly, have fun.

Jump to: Marion Cotillard vs. Jessica White · Jessie J vs. Lena Dunham · Selena Gomez vs. Malin Akerman 

(3) CATE BLANCHETT vs. (14) DAKOTA FANNING

This is a good matchup, because in a lot of ways — both acting and adventurous fashion, actually — Dakota could BE a Baby Blanchett. Consider this weirdo origami dress from Dakota, for example:

Cate Blanchett would TOTALLY try to wear that. She’d be like, “What the hell, I LOVE the napkin arts.” She’d be wrong, I think, but tempted.

Probably not so with some of this other stuff, which is very Junior Varsity in the experimental arena (which is normal for a girl Dakota’s age, but still).

What’s UNDER the overlay is so unflattering to her chest that it almost overshadows the overlay itself being stupid.

This was a decent idea, but the top seems to sit too low on her, I think, or at least looks very… precariously suspended there. I just want to re-conceive everything above the belly button, and perhaps even tweak it so that the belly button is not a factor at all. No call for a navel battle here.

It was, apparently, a top she found so nice, she wore it twice:

And that’s an even BIGGER no.

She got talked into this vaguely Blanchettian outfit for the most recent Rodarte show, including shoes that are photonegatives of each other:

Can we keep the skirt and start over? Not that it’s great, but I’m feeling charitable since I Hate the rest of it so much — that top is pure Jane Fonda jazzercize, and the sweater looks like it’s falling apart as she stands there.

We all know Cate is no stranger to wearing things that look decrepit and awful:

That is quite possibly my least-favorite thing she has EVER worn. I REALLY HATE IT. It’s that time Spider Man got super drunk and watched some Project Runway and was like, “I can WRIST THAT, you GUYS.”

She also wore an afghan, which might have looked nice with Dakota’s awful platform clogs:

I think that “fringe” is actually sold in bags as Jessica Simpson Hair Extensions.

We all remember the time Cate wore a sparkly Givenchy lobster bib. But did you remember when she went full Cape Blanchett?

Or Cate Blandchett? Or Cate Blankett:

These look like merit badges for a scouting troupe she invented two days prior, for things like Collecting Meaningless Patches and Pumping Up The Volume.

I don’t have a punny name for this one.

It just looks like a sea creature vomiting. I know people like to give her a pass, but LOOK AT SOME OF THESE. She wore them INTENTIONALLY. It’s concerning.

Archives: Cate, Dakota

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(6) MARION COTILLARD vs. (11) JESSICA WHITE

Well, we all know about Jessica White’s deity dress. It’s burned on our brains.

It even had a bow in the back, because HOW could it be complete without it. She will be wearing this to play Xenu in a movie called Not Without My Thetans. This woman truly loves drama. Why else would she wear a sherbet-green caftan?

But I’m not sure anyone knew about this:

I lack ANY LEVEL OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING of what is happening on her legs. They certainly look like the closest thing to bootaloons that I’ve ever seen in the wild, and I am enthralled and terrified all at once — so much so that I’m not even noticing, hardly, that she’s wearing a child’s chef jacket.

Obviously she had to get in on the nudity game, too, because a cool 80 percent of entertainment professionals decided this was a good idea. Talk about catastrophic groupthink. She even wore a suit of sorts without a shirt under it and what appears to be a butchered men’s shirt, both of which I might prefer to her bone pajamas.

This is pretty much the most normal thing she’s had on all year, and it’s growing Santa’s beard so that he’ll have something to harvest if his own fails to come in bushy enough this year. How thoughtful of her.

Now, that is formidable, but Marion certainly pulled a few tricks out of the crackpot this year. Let me just present these to you as I wrote them in my shorthand, okay? First up: “screaming flower tent.”

And then we have “crotch balloon”:

And of course that old classic “nightmare smock stripe”:

And who could forget “drunken mesh hatching thing”:

And that old classic “dirty unmade bed”:

There was also a truly awful pair of harem pants, a mish-mash of things at the Met Ball that played so poorly together that I put them all in time out, and something I tenderly referred to as “lacy ass cape.” I’m classy.

Archives: Marion, Jessica

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(2) JESSIE J vs. (15) LENA DUNHAM

Lena Dunham couldn’t get out of her own way this year. For her trouble of relying on childhood babysitter Zac Posen, she was rewarded with this lemonic (lemon + demonic) nightmare:

If your parents paid him babysitting money, then to my mind, that means they were REALLY EARLY seed capital for his empire, and ergo, Zac could’ve tried to make her something that would fit. IT’S NOT A LOT TO ASK. Why do people act like it is?

Jessie J also likes things that are yellow:

Or at least, she likes to be sneezed on by things that are yellow.

Lena’s other major gown of the year was the wallpaper she wore to the Emmys:

This was controversial — some people didn’t hate it, some people think it was just the wrong dress on her, and a vocal number of people thought it was RIPE FLOWERY DEATH. I do at least agree that the pattern appears to clash with her very being.

Jessie J also likes death:

I’m referring, of course, to the lipstick, which makes her look like Unfrozen Caveman Singer; indeed, being chipped out of an ice floe might be the only appropriate excuse for wearing this. Want to see a photo of the front? You got it. The lipstick looks even worse there.

Conversely, here, the lippy is the only good part:

I have to assume those zip up the back. Right? Otherwise, how long must they take to put on, and somewhere in minute ten wouldn’t you think, “MY GOD, I’m wearing LEG CORSETS, this is SO NOT WORTH IT”?

Also questionable:

She looks like a funeral basket.

And she looks like Violet Beauregard. Which would be nice for Violet if we’re just talking about everything above the neck — great makeup, and the platinum buzz cut is surprisingly effective on her — but unfortunately I am referring to the dressy sensible separates, which are what Vi would wear when she’s sixty to a signing of her memoir, Juiced. She also wore a weird wrap jumpsuit with a head scarf,

This one, we didn’t dislike at first. But I’m having buyer’s remorse: Though the sparkles are very pretty, the style STILL somehow just plops right onto her and does absolutely nothing for Dunham’s shape. The top in particular just somehow eradicates… everything. It falls under Oh, So Close, But Alas We Are Out Of Cigars. As does this tulle thing, with which she at least wore great shoes; the dress itself is… fine? But not captivating. And her Met Ball gown was neither rock nor roll. Just… snore. On the whole she wasn’t as egregiously WTF as she has been in the past, but it wasn’t leaps and bounds in the right direction, either.

As for Jessie, pulled out the strange non-design of wearing a dress that was JUST a tube top and a drape, basically, and fell prey to the epidemic of enormous leather pants that apparently hit celebs like the swine flu this year. And then there were performance costumes, like this lace-up leotard. But let me close with what really struck me bizarre:

She wore this to meet Charles and Camilla. She wore, essentially, slacks AND HER BREASTS. I mean, sure, there is a little netting and a lot of scrollwork, but please do NOT dare the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall to play Spot The Nip on a night on which propriety is required.

As EXTREMELY different as these two’s styles are, though, somehow I feel like they’d have a grand old time if they went out for drinks, so maybe the randomizer will be a platonic love match of sorts. Come on, ladies, go out together and plot how to take this sucker in 2015. Hell, bring Camilla. I’ve heard she’s quite fun.

Archives: Jessie J, Lena 

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(7)SELENA GOMEZ vs. (10) MALIN AKERMAN

I was all bummed out that Anna Camp didn’t wear more nightmarish outfits this year, because I so vehemently, violently despised what she wore to the Teen Choice Awards. And then I was reminded that the outfit is still PARTLY eligible because good ol’ Selena Gomez wore the black version:

She did at least have a coat on for this part, wisely. But presumably she took it off once she went on Letterman, and besides, it only earns you a dispensation if you BUTTON the coat and keep us from SEEING the horrors ‘neath it.

Malin also wore a peekaboo number, and it is a shitstorm:

Hideous. That bodice looks like two 8-bit Tyrannosaurs trying to tongue each other.

This jumpsuit should never have happened. It’s saggy, it’s droopy, it’s WAY too long… it looks like she got the wrong outfit in the mail, OR that something went woefully wrong with what she ACTUALLY wanted to wear.

Malin did not have much luck with white jumpsuits either, as this one may be trying to smother her:

And then back to Selena:

You wear that to run your art studio, girl, not to a cancer benefit.

Such unkind things to do to a nice lady’s pelvis.

But here we have unkind things to do to a nice girl’s thigh:

There had better be a giant Champagne bottle in there about to uncork itself, because otherwise, what is the point?

Malin also wore some highly dubious sleeves and a grey Emmy dress that was very boring and by-the-book. But one of her worst outfits, and possibly the basis of her strong seeding this year, is this:

You can see the whole thing here, if you want to, but why torture yourself? The semi-psychotic scribblings on the fabric itself PALE in comparison to the HIDEOUS things it is doing to her chest. It’s like a t-strap sandal for your boobs. It’s AWFUL. It’s T for Traumatizing.

Some of Selena’s other offenses include a crop top AND a split skirt, the MOST terrible Jingle Ball performance outfit, a football halftime performance, and pelvis-abusing jeans, The closest she came to a wardrobe malfunction was trusting in this very hopeful seam indeed, followed by a peekaboo outfit on which there MIGHT be a gremlin gawking at me from the vicinity of her right boob.

And then this:

Sigh. Just sigh.

Archives: Selena, Malin

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