Earlier today I noted that big shapeless dresses seem to be proliferating (thanks largely — pun intended — to Valentino), and now, we have another dude in a turtleneck, joining the likes of Armie Hammer and Alexander Skarsgard and Justin Hartley. What do we make of this? I’m undecided. I don’t dislike the turtleneck in theory, but… Alexander’s was a mock version that worked a bit better, but Armie and Justin — particularly Justin — looked like they were trying to hide a neck brace or something. And Jake Gyllenhaal here, to me, looks flat-out goofy. Maybe it’s that with suits they read a bit more… professorial than any of these particular people are, or maybe I just think that they’re a garment for when you’re skiing or shoveling snow, and not so much at parties. Maybe it’s that they give me a Roger-from-Outlander vibe, and all he does is look sad and stare longingly at things and then drink some whiskey and cockblock himself with his own biases. So I’m perhaps Roger-biased against them.
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan look very happy; I haven’t seen Wildlife, but I am hopeful it will get some attention during awards season, because Zoe co-wrote it with Paul Dano (he also directed) and they just seem super nice. I have always liked her on Twitter, but when the Cavs won the NBA finals, she live-tweeted Paul (a lifelong fan who missed it because… I think he was on an international flight, and he was unspoiled as to the outcome) watching the final game on their DVR, and the whole thing was hella endearing. I saw myself in his sports fandom. At any rate, Zoe’s and Paul’s covertly born child definitely seems real, because on Election Day she tweeted a photo of her “I Voted” sticker on what was clearly a Baby Bjorn of some sort. That may explain why she’s tended toward semi-dowdy and loose-fitting stuff, like this dress, which is not very inspiring and has the kind of overlong sleeves that are impossible not to pick at nervously. Childbirth is tough on self-perception: Everything takes a while to feel right afterward, even if you look the same to everyone else. It’s like breaking in a new pair of sneakers that you bought to replace identical older ones. You need to live in them for a bit before you forget you made a change, and so it is with the post-baby bod, which can feel like a complete mystery for longer than you think. So I’m not going to sweat the style that much, and I do like the color, so there’s a win. Carey looks nice, too. The full zipper is not my aesthetic cup of tea at all, but she exudes a kind of crisp and warm professionalism, as if she’s the young, progressive, rising-star new principal at an elementary school and has a ton of ideas about how to wake up the curriculum because she hasn’t yet experienced the soul-sucking chafe of district red tape. Or actually, the way this is photographed, it’s more like she’s the groovy new Unitarian minister who’s about to marry the two of them on the spot. Now that would be a surprise for Paul Dano.
