Fug Madness, Round One: Can the Kards Advance?

Forgot your bracket? It’s here; grab it and play along. 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:(1) The Kardashians vs. (16) Alison Brie · (8) Tracee Ellis Ross vs. (9) Ciara · (5) Nicki Minaj vs. (12) Celine Dion · (4) Chloe Sevigny vs. (13) Lucy Boynton(1) THE KARDASHIANS vs. (16) ALISON BRIE

Topping the Kards is a tall order. It CAN be done — of all the years they’ve been in it, only Kim has won, although it’s worth noting she is our first repeat winner and took it twice in a row. But she and her brethren are not shoo-ins by any means, no matter how hard they try. And they did try.

Whether you think Kim wore this winkingly, or what, the poit is that she very much DID wear it and continues to take that hard-earned, expensively sculpted bod and pour it into things that make it ridiculous. Like this sack at an amfAR event (where her sister Kourtney also looked pretty nice), or this utterly wretched ensemble she wore — and nearly fell out of — at an event called Beautycon.

It’s a shame, too, because remember her Met Gala look? Frankly, I thought she looked FABULOUS in this. So naturally, she changed into something worse for the post-parties:

Nor should we forget the lace-up pants/bootaloons combination, or what I called in my notes Kim Pink Hideous and Kim Plastic Shoes, a sin she repeated here, with actual highlighter-yellow hair. Khloe also went blond this year, although hers is not a wig, and it’s bad.

That was extremely subtle.

If you understand any of the above, please let me know, because you might be a) an alien, or b) a Kardashian, and either way I have a lot of questions.

If it feels like Kim did the lion’s share of the family heavy-lifting this year, that’s surprisingly true. But she wasn’t TOTALLY stranded by her Kardashian siblings. Case in point:

Shaking my damn head.

Shaking my damn head enough to give me whiplash.

Now I’m just dizzy, from all the shaking. Also, it’s up to you whether you think these people gain or lose — or get any kind of Fug Madness credit — for Kanye.

Let’s be real: It would be astonishing if Alison Brie took down this krew. Not that she was perfect; for example, she wore Vera Wang, which at this point in the timeline is something that I think people only do when they are the victims of an elaborate practical joke:

Sigh. Oh, there are worse Wangs, but this is still too… bra-forward. She also has a terrible fondness for Brock Collection, including one of the skirts with a lap ruffle, and this:

Even her facial expression is like, “Mmm-hmm, not thrilled, let me out of here as soon as you’ve got your shots.”

She is also, as the star of an ’80s-set show, perhaps becoming influenced by the decade in which she lives at work. There was this floral, and now a strange stretchy thing:

Woof. Did we seed her too low? I forgot about this:

AND the fact that she too caught the sheers:

Is it enough? That, dear friends, is up to you.

Archives: Kim, Kourtney, Khloe; Alison Brie

(8) TRACEE ELLIS ROSS vs. (9) CIARA

Tracee Ellis Ross loves pink. LOVES pink. And probably Pink — I will never forget the first year she hosted the AMAs, when Pink danced on the side of the skyscraper in downtown LA, and I think both Tracee and I did not breathe the entire time and then possibly cried when it was over because Pink is THE BEST — but it’s the color we’re discussing here. She swaddled herself in it at the Emmys:

And while she is lovely, that is nigh on impossible to pull off. It even looked like SHE wasn’t totally sure how to wrangle it.

She also seems like a hoot, but not even that can save some of the more overwhelming ensembles. That’s a funky idea, but unless she is doing funny posing, it doesn’t really fly. She also wore an oversize weird light pink suit that likewise seemed to defeat her considerable charm powers.

As did this Rodarte:

It’s just too much, and while I appreciate her FEARLESSNESS in the face of A Whole Freaking Lot, that’s not always the only ticket.

This gold lame coat came off as strangely subdued on her, too. I am not sure WHAT person needs a pocket this large. And this ACE Awards garment was extremely divisive in terms of execution, although I think we all did applaud the effort. (However, despite using it in the cutout piece above, I stand by thinking she looked awesome in the winged Giambattista Valli.)

I wish she hadn’t been SO in-your-face Gucci with this, and the capris aren’t great, and there may be a reason we didn’t have any better photos of THIS thing she wore to a Marc Jacobs show.

This was just dismal:

Dearest Tracee, how did this happen to you?

Ciara also attended that Versace show, and did it in pants that have some sort of tiered ruffle situation at the hem. And speaking of tiers:

Sorry, did I write “tiers”? I meant “tears.”

The above is pretty standard Ciara fare: thigh-centric, tight, black, boob slivers. In case you think I’m exaggerating, about three of those four:

And this has cutouts in other places:

She does look really gorgeous in it, but let’s not lie, it’s a fancy Kleenex.

Ciara did try a suit, and while the pink was welcome, the multiple SHADES of pink did not quite go her way. There was also a glorified jacket as a dress, and something I wrote down as being “thematic sports nonsense” at the Kids’ Choice Sports Awards.

Oh boy.

Archives: Tracee Ellis Ross, Ciara

(5) NICKI MINAJ vs. (12) CELINE DION

I rather want these two to perform together. I want Celine to sing the hits and then have Nicki pop up occasionally and rap about them while Celine bops her head in what she imagines is How The Kids Do It Now. Sign me UP, Vegas.

Anyway, Nicki. Remember when she wore a glorified bathing suit to the VMAs?

Unbelievably, I had forgotten. How is that possible? Well, she wore some other stuff that I guess elbowed it out of my memory banks. Like this leopard ensemble from the night she hurled a shoe at Cardi B:

It’s… a whole lot of look, as they say, and the wet hair is just killing me. I don’t find it sexy and it’s hard to understand the allure. She was, indeed, hella costumey this year, from the pink bra she wore in a front row to a hilarious Versace hat, to what looks like another insane beach getup sealed with Off White crime scene tape. Oh, and she wore sheer lace pants at an airport, AS ONE DOES, and a massively dramatic feathery thing.

She does not pull punches even at a basketball game:

That is all so Game of Thrones. Oh, and I saved the best-worst for last, courtesy of Marc Jacobs:

SHRIEK.

Can Queen Celine compete? Well, she’s taking aim:

Has everyone in that photo been directed not to make eye contact with the coat?

I laugh out loud at those shoes EVERY TIME.

Do we think that’s the same bow from her coat? Or A DIFFERENT ONE that she had on hand to tie her hat to her head?

Maybe she just stole and repurposed this tube top. Truly, Celine, you are a bonkers trove of gleeful batshittery. In case this didn’t make the argument, she wears a lot of intriguing nonsense on her Instagram that we don’t get photos of from our services, and there was also this terrible 80s look she served up. She wore these heinous jeans for a photo shoot, but also gamely posed in them for paparazzi photographers AND consented to donning them at all, so… you decide.

Archives: Nicki Minaj, Celine Dion

(4) CHLOE SEVIGNY vs. (13) LUCY BOYNTON

It wasn’t her first job, but Bohemian Rhapsody is the first time Lucy Boynton managed to get on my radar and stay there. (Part of the problem is that my radar is not as sticky as it used to be, and by “radar” I mean “brain.”) This was not an auspicious debut:

And while I can honestly say her style doesn’t tend to be my cup of tea, it’s honestly her eye makeup that drives me the most nuts. This dress is bad, but the eyeliner is WHOA.

That Chanel is way too twee, but WHAT is happening with the eyelashes? She looooves those spider legs around her eyes, eh? And this Gucci already had a lot of drama going on; it did not need her makeup artist to set the brushes to WHEE:

I mean. And HERE:

SO MUCH. Look how lovely she is when she keeps it contained! Although that dress is a lot.

Speaking of a lot:

And we might as well wrap up her case with a dress from the Overlords of A Lot, aka Rodarte:

At least her bobbed hair is cute?

One contest against Chloe Sevigny that Lucy has already lost was in Oscars fashion. Lucy’s dress was pretty good, and Chloe’s was… this:

I applaud her confidence, always, even in the face of absurdity. This definitely qualifies:

Fendi really pumped out some crap in Karl’s last couple years, huh?

I also thank Chloe for giving serious face in this situation:

That was one of the first thing she donned in her eligibility period, and I still can recall the sweet rush of realizing she was once again in it to … well, if not win it, at least compete hard. Case in point: Her loyalty to Lagerfeld in this past year was not entirely warranted. Chanel contributed this table runner, a madly theatrical 80s Prom outfit, a black gown with some kind of weird silver butler’s pull holding it up, a heavily ruffled bodice that looked like she got creative with a napkin, and this:

Not to mention the gold lame shorts she sported with a blouse that vaguely resembles a tongue, and then this hot mess:

Her hair looks like a wig she found in a shop that hadn’t been touched up in ten years, and that skirt is the pits. Yes, it was a strong one for our vetaran; did the rookie do enough to unseat her?

Archives: Chloe Sevigny, Lucy Boynton