Confession: I did not watch the Memorial Day concert, so I don’t know exactly why Bailee Madison was there or what she was doing — this, to be clear, is from rehearsal — but I hope it was promoting this truly cringeworthy-sounding expansion of the surprise Cinderella Story franchise (yes, the original is the one that starred Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray). Bailee is 21 and seems like a nice young lady, but those jeans are being unkind to her. They are… how can I put this… heinistic (sadistically heinous). Fugseating (so bad they make you queasy). Crapungent (speaks for itself). Between those and the severe tuck, we should not be re-emerging into the world by reaching for a Sears catalog from 1987, which coincidentally also might be the last time denim was this thick and stiff-looking. I don’t entirely blame Bailee. She wasn’t there the first time. I just worry that the elders in her life are not showing her enough old photo albums.
She reached into the ’80s again for the event itself, but blessedly, it’s so much better:
With Special Guest Star Mary McCormack, whose presence I also cannot explain, and I don’t even know that they’re in anything TOGETHER? Mary’s split-pattern skirt is fun, though. And Bailee’s leg-of-mutton sleeves are JUST retro enough to tickle Anne Shirley’s fancy, but not so much that I expect her to bust out a Trapper Keeper with pictures of Alex P. Keaton on it and “Mr. and Mrs. Burt and Bailee Reynolds” scrawled on the back in paint pen. In other words, she finished strong.
