Fug Madness 2019: Round One Continues With Bebe Rexha

Did you miss yesterday’s matchups? Sneak in while you still can. Here is the bracket, if you need one. The photos we show aren’t the ONLY ones in consideration; just a representative sample of everything worn from after the Oscars in 2018, all the way through the Oscars that just finished (so, March 6, 2018, to Feb 26, 2019). Polls close after roughly 24 hours. Vote on any device, as often as you want to or can. Do you need a refresher on how this works? The Fug Madness FAQ is here for you.

PSA: Click on the link where applicable to hop to that match. Herein:(2) Bebe Rexha vs. (15) Ariel Winter · (7) Emily Ratajkowski vs. (10) Meghan Trainor · (3) The Hadids vs. (14) Karen Gillan · (6) Laverne Cox vs. (11) Janina Gavankar(2) BEBE REXHA vs. (15) ARIEL WINTER

Ariel Winter seems to be headed in the right direction, sartorially. On balance this year, she did have more good than bad, which is an exceptional relief. But of course, like all habits, Bad Fashion can be hard to kick. And so we also got this:

Could it be worse? Yes. Does that negate the ways in which it’s bad? No.

This was also… a lot of look, as the great Tim Gunn used to say:

The shoes are cute, though, and there’s a germ of an idea here. The dress is too busy for me, but it’s not SHOCKING or HORRIFYING or MAKING ME WANT TO SCREAM. I know none of that sounds like a super argument for why she should win this thing, and… sometimes you can’t fake it, and I don’t think she will win this fight… but it’s important to note progress, right? At least she looks dressed for a fashion party, and not — as has been the case in the past — some whole other shindig.

That was the problem here:

That blouse is droopy and sad, and her jeans are sawn-off, and I am pretty sure the dress code for this thing was not, “Laundry day.”

This was also better, in some respects:

But it’s also too tight to the point of being tissue-thin in some parts, and I cannot get over a) the terrible nylon socks, and b) how COLD SHE LOOKS compared to what the dude next to her is wearing, even if she’s just dashing into a building. I don’t think she can dash THAT fast in those shoes — not if she’s also taking time to acknowledge the paps thusly — and so GIRL YOU’RE GONNA CATCH YOUR DEATH. This is why wool was made.

So, look, they’re not great looks, but they’re BETTER; are they enough to knock out Bebe Rexha?

Ooooh, Bebe’s got her hackles up. She isn’t going down without a fight, Ariel. Look, she even has ANOTHER defensive ruffle in her arsenal this year!

She also has some pink latex Blonde Kim Kardashian cosplay:

Bebe does love a costumey look, as evidenced by this head-to-toe Moschino tribute to CDs — or I guess DVDs — which included gigantic matching earrings. She also wore a shirt made of old tinsel, and something I referred to in my research document as HOLY SHIT BAD:

Bebe loves sparkles. LOVES THEM. Look, she even wore this glittering hoodie with more bad Moschino:

You know what else she loves? Deep, deep, wide v-necks. And high, high wide leg slits. No, she really loves those. Like, a lot. SO MUCH. The most. And sometimes both together. And SOMETIMES, the slit is in the front, pointing right up at her rexha:

And I’m pretty sure this is a bathrobe. But I think my favorite terrible thing she wore this year was… whatever in God’s name this is:

Sit down with Auntie Bebe while she tells you all about it.

Archives: Bebe Rexha, Ariel Winter

(7) EMILY RATAJKOWSKI vs. (10) MEGHAN TRAINOR

This one is gonna be a doozy. Meghan very nearly got overlooked this year; I stumbled on Meghan while hunting and gathering for other people, and lo and behold, I had completely forgotten how bad this was:

In fact, Meghan had a year full of horrid pants. The time she wore a gown wasn’t great, either, but it was not as egregious as her crimes against the almighty trouser — or, if you like, the almighty trouser’s crimes against her. I mean, be prepared, because you are going to make a DISPLEASED NOISE here:

Ohhh, child. And then there was this, up in Canada:

How does one even select some of these? There cannot have been any magic to be had here on the hanger, and it certainly didn’t come to life OFF the hanger, so… were there hallucinogens involved?

She’d just gotten married here, if I recall correctly, so she might’ve been feeling very bridal on this day. But I hope her actual wedding ensemble was nicer than this on her. It’s so… no. She wore a similar theme in black earlier in the Grammys weekend, and you can see really clearly where she tripled down on the boob tape.

This caused me to question whether her stylist hates her:

That was at the top of the eligibility period, and we were potentially very prescient. One of the things I enjoy about Fug Madness, too, is it brings into stark relief how many people wore things from the same lines. Nicki Minaj for example, also wore one of the Off White crime-scene tape outfits, I think. She may have been at an Off White show, or party, which is a better excuse than just… doing it out and about on your own? And those PANTS. MEGHAN. You have cobbled together quite the Fug Madness run here, young lady.

Yes, toss your hair, be proud of it. Clearly, it took a lot of work.

But can it beat Emily?

It amuses me, darkly, that she wore this to the premiere of a movie in which she plays the human embodiment of unrealistic beauty standards, and to which Amy Schumer’s character originally aspires. It’s like she tore the skirt open to be like, “Check my abs! Tight as hell!”

“Also you can look freely at this, on the streets of New York City, at a random time and place where the paparazzi just happened to be!”

“And here are my thighs!”

“And I strapped this giant rosette to my boobs! Let’s call it a shirt!”

This cannot rightly be called a shirt. It’s a giant tarp that she attached with boating rope. She wore another red shirt that flashed a lot of sideboob (there are two pics at that link), this time in red, and a top made of metal, and this thing that my shorthand called “red dress crotch promise” because as soon as she moves you can tell it will fly open.

There was also some yellow midriff weirdness, some really bad mixed patterns, and then one outfit that combines both ideas:

She also pledged ill-thought-out allegiance to Brock Collection, wore a shirt to the US Open that was falling off, found a t-shirt that has its own floor-length ponytail, and wore something that was NOT see-through but really seemed to want to be:

Sigh. This one might be my favorite battle of the ones I’ve had to write. WHO WILL TAKE IT?

Archives: Emily Ratajkowski, Meghan Trainor

(3) THE HADIDS vs. (14) KAREN GILLAN

It’s two against one, which are tough odds. Especially when Bella Hadid is doing stuff like this:

I mean, she came to PLAY. That is neither a shirt NOR a bra, even though it might be pretending it’s both. And look what she wore to the Harper’s Bazaar ICONS party at Fashion Week:

Pirate Jazzercise is not a thing, Bella. Don’t try to make it happen.

Gigi also wore a catsuit with plastic shoes:

Oh, I’m sorry, did I say a catsuit? I meant two catsuits:

OK, that might be a shirt tucked into spandex pants, but it’s effectively a catsuit. And did I say two, because I definitely meant three:

But wait, there is more from Bella, like ACTUAL SPLIT-SIDE SHORTS:

Yes, this is the same Louis Vuitton outfit where she had a purse buckled to her thigh. She also wore a see-through-ish red gown, and hey, Gigi ALSO did a transparent and confusing red situation. Her sense of formalwear is highly questionable; despite looking great at the Met Gala, THIS thing is just sort of hanging on her. She also wore what I would term Britney shorts, one of those Moschino CD outfits similar to the one Bebe Rexha wore, and then barely wore this orange blouse; in one of her appearances with Bella, they BOTH looked crazy, although at his one Gigi seemed fairly normal and Bella and all those insane strings really took the fug cake.

Okay, Karen Gillan, THE EYE OF SAURON IS UPON YOU. What’ve you got?

WOOF. Okay, that’s… really terrible, actually. What else?

Yikes. That must have been quite a cat that scratched you.

First it was marabou shoes, and now sleeves? Don’t those get in the way of… basic life functions? Please add that to the list of fashion items in which I would find it challenging to navigate a bathroom.

And I cannot look at this without wanting to yell at it to STOP cupping her boobs.

Archives: Bella Hadid and Gigi Hadid; Karen Gillan

(6) LAVERNE COX vs. (11) JANINA GAVANKAR

You might remember Janina Gavankar as the lady who swanned into the royal wedding in this hella-dramatic orange ensemble…

Embed from Getty Images

… which actually looked super on her. She got some notoriety for noting, or perhaps complaining, that no designer would give her anything so she had to pick up this herself. Which… okay. And then she parlayed that brief fame flare… into this:

And yes, it’s shorts.

I wish this were a better-quality photo — it’s a bit blown out, but if you click to the Getty version here, you see that it’s PROBABLY pants and the waistband DEFINITELY borrows thematically from a pair of tights.

Embed from Getty Images

I can’t even. As badness goes, that is tied with:

Pardon me while I heave the BIGGEST SIGH. And then pardon me while I double down on it as we shift to Laverne:

Is this the work of an evil Spiderman? Laverne, Laverne, LAVERNE. One reason her seeding is as high as it is: She stormed onto the scene with a lot of really lovely, memorable moments, and now we’re winding down into some inanity. Like this:

Scrolldown City welcomes you across its border.

This one had a very lovely back, which I think is one reason the front was so bothersome. I understand wanting to turn around and make a SURPRISE IMPACT, but not at the expense of the part most people see all night. This is too droopy.

Oh, and in case you thought we were done with sheers:

KABOOM.

Archives: Laverne Cox, Janina Gavankar