Fug Madness 2018, Round 1: Haim Is In The Building

The rules: The photos we show are NOT the only ones in consideration; just a representative sample of everything worn from after the Oscars in 2017, all the way through the Oscars that just finished (so, March 2, 2017, to March 5, 2018). Polls close after roughly 24 hours. Consider the entire body of work, as much as you can — we provide links, including to each celeb’s archive — and then vote on any device, as often as you want to or can.  The Fug Madness FAQ is also here for you if you need it. Below, click on the name of the matchup you want and you’ll jump to it directly.

(2) Haim vs. (15) Janelle Monae · (3) Ashley Graham vs. (14) Kate Mara · (6) Zosia Mamet vs. (11) Greta Gerwig · (7) Kendall Jenner vs. (10) Vanessa Hudgens

(2) HAIM vs. (15) JANELLE MONAE

Janelle may seem an unlikely candidate, given that her dramatically unusual fashion sense almost always works for her. But… almost. I’m going to lead with the strongest punch here just to remind you how very eligible she really is.

That legit looks like something a snowboarder’s mother invented to keep his pants on while he ripped through the pipe at the Olympics. (Y’all, it is a miracle none of them lost their drawers. IT WAS CLOSE.) It is CRAZY and it is not a garment that even her J’nelle Sais Quoi could save. It is also not alone.

I think she lost a fabric store challenge. She also wore somewhat haphazard, non-matching, potentially detachable mega-sleeves to the Black Panther premiere. She is a bold and special flower in this garden of ours, and I love it, even if I think stuff like this goes beyond:

Yes, she’s quirky. But imagine putting that on. ALL the pieces of it. Fixing the mouse ears just right. And then imagine wearing it in the car, probably in L.A. traffic, and then getting out and wearing it ALL NIGHT to a party — one at which you are going to be photographed for distribution to the media. You don’t do all that, I don’t think, unless you are SUPER OKAY with the ensemble.

Haim has been, as I’ve noted before, really reveling in being Haim this year. Invitations to fashion shows have come in fast and furious, leading to this trio of musical sisters traipsing goofily around various international cities in stuff that looks like they threw it together during a raucous slumber party when they were 11. Case in point:

Oh, Haim. No.

NO, Haim.

HAIM. NOOO.

*shakes fist at sky* HAAAAAAAAIM.

We haven’t even touched on Right Haim’s see-through lace pants, or her equally sheer top. Y’all, Haim did a lot. Haim went FULL HAIM this year. Take a tour through the archives, visit Janelle’s if you need, and then follow your heart.

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(3) ASHLEY GRAHAM vs. (14) KATE MARA

Kate Mara doesn’t often get the fug cred that her sister, Rooney, enjoys. But we had a bit of a Rooney void this year and that let Kate really come into her own. Sometimes, she wore perfectly good dresses that went desperately un-hoiked. Sometimes she wore hideous shoes. And there was that one time she presented an award in a dress with a giant chunk gone from the front, all but assuring the premier seats a saucy view of her family treasure chest.

And of course, we have undersized gleaming sheers:

I am also sad she’s not going up against Saoirse Ronan — well, not unless this whole competition gets REALLY insane soon — because I would love to know which dismal pink dress you dislike more:

Oh, Saoirse. Perhaps if you’d seen this photo, this bizarre cautionary tale, the Oscars could have gone differently.

At first I was bummed there wasn’t a better view of this black partial-pizza — by the way, “pizza” is an old GFY joke-synonym for “transparent” — but then I realized she dipped into that same basic well twice.

And that one actually seems worse, so hooray for effective visual aids!

We also have a sheerish white thing and a minty Valentino chest valance. It’s a very compelling case. But is it compelling enough to defeat this?

 

That nightmare of an outfit totally counts, by the way, because she wore it for an entire segment of ANTM and she wasn’t performing; she was just being a mentor. It also is not the only time Ashley has appeared confused about what shirts are supposed to look like:

There’s a bra top in the mix, too. Of course. Always. In fact, there are so many sheers in her catalogue, I had a hard time deciding which one to embed and which to link. I yelped when I rediscovered this little gem:

And this glorified pair of underwear is made even worse by a) Gemma’s cuter gold lame shirt-dress, and b) how fantastic Ashley’s head looks.

Granted, her head almost always looks fantastic. It makes it that much sadder when she deploys it atop, say, a leotard and a transparent sheath. AT HER BOOK SIGNING. Or this, which also made me scream:

And don’t forget the shot I used in our crazy bracket graphic up top, which is a mesh shirt over a black bra. And when Ashley isn’t leaning into sheers, she’s leaning out of skirts — by which I mean, wearing stuff that allows her to spend maximum time jamming her thigh through a weird slit. Which you can behold here at the Time 100 Gala — her chest AND her leg are both erupting from the gown — and also here.  I also wish her Oscars dress had fit. Sigh. So many avoidable pitfalls that are somehow so beloved by this very lovely person. So you decide: Did Kate Mara do enough, or will Ashley advance?

Archives: Ashley Graham, Kate Mara

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(6) ZOSIA MAMET vs (11) GRETA GERWIG

Zosia, Zosia, Zosia. I will say that you at least make me laugh, as with the crackpotty Chanel ensemble you’re wearing in the header graphic. It’s really the poor sunglasses choice that does it, but it is so amusing. However, this is just unfortunate.

I wanted to laugh, but instead I wailed. Her shoe choices this year were something else, y’all. These have giant pearls all over them. This is her MOST sane pair, or one of them…

… but the denim dress is frayed at EVERY edge. WHY. Did she slice it herself with one of her Cutcos? (Oh, and she wore those shoes again…. with short, shiny, paper-bag-waist shorts. Oof.)

I also promised you way back in the Bjork bracket that there would be one more veil in this round, and I told the truth:

I actually really LIKE the rest of it. Why muck it up with so much extra on her head? Then again, Zosia loves extra. Like all this extra fabric:

And on these pants, also. They are pooling on the floor around her feet. How do you wear those and not faceplant and break your own nose?

IT HAPPENED AGAIN. Zosia, here is a pro tip: Take your phone. Open Google Maps. Put in “tailor.” Feast upon the bounty it delivers.

And WHAT happened HERE?

Embed from Getty Images

Her world is ever so puzzling.

Greta Gerwig snazzed up her styling a bit toward the end of the year, as Lady Bird drove hard toward the Oscars. So you might have forgotten that this happened.

Even her boobs are frowning. Maybe that’s why she later corralled their emotions within this giant orange chest bow.

And that is just…. way, way too strong on her, and accordingly a bit clumsy. This one, I described in my notes as, “dumpy proportion waist cinch,” which is not elegantly written but is also not inaccurate. And for this one, I wrote, “shapeless carpet bag.” Too true.

And this one is Monse.

Sigh.

If you, like me, dislike mixing white and cream, then your soul is probably making the same unholy noise mine is right now.

And now my soul sounds like when a seal gets into an argument.

Archives: Zosia Mamet, Greta Gerwig

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(7) KENDALL JENNER vs (10) VANESSA HUDGENS

Kendall has learned well — so, poorly — at the knee of her siblings. Behold one of her Coachella outfits

That shirt could ALSO be pants. There’s enough of it. But she is not always so imbalanced with her fabric. Here she is very evenly clad in denim:

But, DUMB denim. That off-center jacket makes me nuts, and I know this to be true because she wore it twice and I had the same vehement reaction. In fact, Kendall’s gadding-about-town clothes have been especially bananas this time. You have to treat yourself anew to THE ANKLE CUFFS:

They are fabric manacles, attached TO HER SHORTS. Which are so short that her shirt pokes out the leg. Did she MAKE these or did some poor unfortunate soul actually CRAFT them? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Kendall’s formalwear is also highly dodgy. Sometimes, she goes with a tremendous amount of fabric, for which she turns to Giambattista Valli. She wore a black one to the Globes and a floral to Cannes, which feel like cousins. For the Oscars, she chose fabric on only the top half of her body. And then for the Met Gala, she chose… no fabric at all:

And no, the theme was not, “Nakedness: Lots Of It,” despite what she would have you believe here. Even the shoes are see-through. And yet, if you can believe it, there is a POSSIBILITY that what Kendall wore to the after-party is even worse:

I have seen that photo a lot today before sitting down to embed it, and write this, and I STILL scrolled past and sucked in my breath and went, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”

Vanessa Hudgens has Fug Madness bona fides; she’s an ex-champion, and she downed Lindsay Lohan to do it. Can she take out Kendall? She’s gonna try:

It’s like she accidentally deleted the middle part of an essay in a cut/paste accident and never noticed it.

This was not a costume party, by the way. We’re pretty sure. And yet:

I wonder if Vanessa was feeling a tiny bit unseen, as it had been awhile since her well-received turn in Grease, and so she… just decided to come as Rizzo? If only Stockard Channing had been present.

The Hudge also went to Coachella, as one expects by now, and went FULL 1970s Cher/hippie:

In fact, a lot of her stuff has graduated from the sheer pants days, and into just lots and lots of material:

You cannot convince me that fabric does not line somebody’s luggage. It just DOES.

Archives: Kendall Jenner, Vanessa Hudgens

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[Photos: Getty, Backgrid, WENN, InstarImages.com, Rex/Shutterstock]