It might have been comprehensible — even pure — if the attendees of Sunday evening’s Grammy Awards had determined to go subdued. If they’d opted to seem toned down and quietly respectful of the trauma nonetheless being visited on Los Angeles within the wake of the latest wild fires, in easy black fits and equally easy attire. If they’d restricted their vogue statements to the little blue hearts worn on so many lapels in honor of the rebuilding efforts, the way in which host Trevor Noah toned down his jokes to concentrate on the fund-raising for hearth victims. That’s actually what everybody was anticipating.
However that’s not what occurred. As an alternative, they went huge. They went, if something, wilder and wackier — extra L.A. — than ever earlier than. Not simply excessive, however excessive and across the bend. It might be tempting to criticize the costume as tone deaf, besides it is usually potential to see it as a extremely public shout of defiance within the face of catastrophe; a refusal to provide in to giving up and a celebration of the sheer glory of character. Or characters.
Chappell Roan made her entrance in a corseted Jean Paul Gaultier tulle confection from 2003, printed with pictures of Degas ballerinas, earlier than becoming a robin’s-egg blue corseted Thom Browne quantity, earlier than becoming a bow-bedecked Pimples Studios frock to just accept her award for greatest new artist. Woman Gaga donned a customized black leather-based Samuel Lewis robe with puffed sleeves and a voluminous skirt that made her appear like a gothic model of Queen Victoria in mourning — not for Albert, however Altadena — after which switched it out for a equally historicist Vivienne Westwood corseted look. Doechii supplied up 4 Thom Browne variations of the not-so-little grey go well with, culminating in a single with an enormous puffball of a pinstriped skirt.
Sabrina Carpenter channeled olde Hollywood in an ice blue silk satin feather-trimmed JW Anderson negligee and a gold crystal mesh va-va-voom Versace column, as did Cardi B in sequined leopard Roberto Cavalli. Charli XCX wore 230 yards of shipwrecked Jean Paul Gaultier couture. Alicia Keys regarded like Renaissance royalty in gilded Dolce & Gabbana.
And so it went.
There have been pearls throughout Teddy Swims’s cafe au lait go well with, a whole flower store atop Avery Wilson’s, a fortress on Jaden Smith’s head and acres of eco-leather fringe that looped across the neck of Shaboozey’s Diesel jacket. And there was the bare look (nicely, there’s all the time the bare look), courtesy of the stunning look of Ye’s spouse, Bianca Censori, but in addition due to Chrissy Teigen’s sheer Christian Siriano robe with strategically positioned swirls, Madison Beer’s sheer Miss Sohee with strategically positioned beads, and Julia Fox’s sheer … T-shirt. With lingerie.
Willow Smith didn’t even hassle with the tee. She wore only a glittering bra and panty set below her McQueen coat.
The crimson carpet may be many issues, particularly throughout award season. It may be a priceless advertising and marketing alternative for a vogue home. (See: Schiaparelli, which dressed Beyoncé within the gold-beaded, bandanna-print, body-conscious slither of a robe and matching opera gloves for her historic album of the yr win.) It may be a private branding alternative for a celeb. It may be boring and superficial and fully faraway from actuality.
Style is straightforward to dismiss as frivolous. However there’s a motive that even within the worst instances, it survives. The will to decorate up also can, as this yr’s Grammys confirmed, be a testomony to perception: in magnificence, creation, chance.
And on this case, within the enduring magic of Los Angeles, the town constructed out of fantasy, make-believe and the power of creativeness, the place irrespective of how unhealthy issues get — and so they can get fairly unhealthy — desires someway nonetheless survive.