So, I’m accidentally watching Dancing With The Stars this season. I cannot stress enough how little I have enjoyed that show in the past, and how disgusted I have been with some of its casting choices. This season, though, Carole Baskin left early, and I think the next week I sat down to work after corralling the beans to bed and turn on the TV and just… channel surfed, old-school style, and that’s where I landed. And then the next week I landed there again. And again. Tom Bergeron always felt like a very weird host for that show; I wonder if they thought they needed a straight man to play against the camp? But they yanked him and put Tyra in, and honestly her brand of self-aware over-the-top statement dressing gels way better for me. She often wears multiple outfits in a night, which is an even bigger deal given that many weeks are themed and she dresses accordingly. Last night, though I don’t have a photo of it, she finished the telecast wearing a GIGANTIC metal headdress (the theme was “villains”), and she began it in this:

It’s amazing. She looks like she has a colony of bats living on her arms, ready to rise up in defense of Modelland and its mistress.

I will be gravely disappointed if she isn’t carried in on a litter at any point this season. Can “Celine Dion’s weddings” be a theme one week?

I believe this was on the same night, as I seem to recall noticing this change when I was watching, and the fact that she kept the same shoes. It’s like ONE nod to sartorial efficiency. I actually think both of those are fun EXCEPT for the heavy crease in these pants.

This is Escada, and I LOVE IT. It was for ’80s week, and I don’t think that reference jumped to my mind — she could pass in that today as a contemporary look — but certainly Escada itself was more popular in that decade, so. This look is the last one in the following carousel:

And honestly, the other two are perfect too. I cannot help but appreciate someone who wants to lean this hard into her job. It honestly makes the show feel more joyful — and like it takes itself less seriously, in a good way — than it used to with cheesy staid Bergeron up there. (He might be the nicest man in the world, but whenever I caught an episode with him, it always felt a little like he couldn’t figure out what he was doing there, either.)

So if she changed three times, that means this was the fourth outfit from that night, and it doesn’t scream 80s to me EITHER. It feels more like Lady Marmalade Night.

This theme was obviously Kurt Cobain’s Seattle In 1992.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Hope I make you proud, @minniemouse. I’m channeling you tonight on the @dancingabc. ❤️

A post shared by Tyra Banks (@tyrabanks) on

Sometimes I really, really wish Tyra Banks had become a figure skater during one of her reinventions. That’s not really apropos of this outfit — except for maybe the sleeves — but I figured we could appreciate that idea here together. Perhaps this season’s contestant Johnny Weir can give her a tutorial.

And then this is, by comparison, fairly bland:

Just by COMPARISON, you understand. It’s still got a lot happening, but I’m so trained now to look for the big twist that it JUST being a sheer skirt feels like a missed opportunity. But we have a whole boatload of weeks left, so I’m pretty sure her batting average is still going to be very high.

Tags: Tyra Banks
38