March 17, 2016

If you had to design an outfit that made a person look extremely covered up and simultaneously disturbingly sort of really naked...

... it would be this very strange thing worn by Gwyneth Paltrow the other day.
And there is something a little ’70s sci-fi about the look that endears it to us a little. Very “Space 1999” or “Logan’s Run.” She needs feathered hair and a big plastic raygun that looks like a hair dryer to complete the picture.

But no, really. It’s awful. We kind of love her for wearing it, but it’s truly, truly awful.

41 comments:

MadisonMan said...

Space 1999 is right.

I can only assume she was paid to wear it.

Oso Negro said...

Well, Gwyneth famously loves to rock that '70s vibe.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Before the day is over someone is going to photoshop a big plastic raygun into one of those pictures and probably with a Logon's run background.

traditionalguy said...

What you say to a woman dressed like that is "Have a good time, but don't any on you"

rhhardin said...

It looks like pajamas to me. Unexceptional.

rhhardin said...

There's a problem that naked women always border on ridiculous. It takes clothing to make you imagine something.

Microbikinis get around that by actually showing what you're supposed to be imagining, while looking vaguely clothed.

This case though is just a pajamas look.

rhhardin said...

The problem isn't "disturbingly naked" but "boringly naked."

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

I've seen more fashonable clothing on a horse.

Laslo Spatula said...

Her eyes are starting to show the Wither of Age in the third photo (seated).

Pay Attention to My Fashion she says, grasping onto Fleeting Youth.

I hear them Talking Behind my back.

If I commit Suicide now everyone would remember me as Pretty.

They will say How Could Such a Talented and Pretty Girl do such a Thing?

I feel Cold. Is it Cold in here?


I am Laslo.

rhhardin said...

Actresses are evolutionarily selected for looking interesting clothed, not for looking interesting naked.

I have many romcom dvds that prove the point.

Ann Althouse said...

"Before the day is over someone is going to photoshop a big plastic raygun into one of those pictures and probably with a Logon's run background."

Logon's Run... it's like "Logan's Run," but it all takes place on the internet.

Henry said...

It's the outfit you wear if you want your head to look like it was photoshopped onto your outfit.

That fabric looks like a remnant from Hugh Hefner's upholstery.

Ann Althouse said...

The very thin fashion-model physique is a clothes hanger. That's the standard metaphor. Clothes hang on such a person and the clothes, with some hang, some draping, however minimal, look especially good. A fatter body would detract from the attention to the clothes.

But when the clothes, especially light-colored clothes, are utterly skin tight, what we see is not the clothes, but the body underneath. It's weird to see the super-thin body like this. It's not meant to be seen. It's painfully exposed. The lower rib ridge, the ilia. That's what I find disturbing.

I don't like seeing a super-thin person naked, and I'm speaking from experience, having done many, many life drawing classes with different models. Thin people look great in clothes. Naked, they seem too exposed, like photos from the liberation of the concentration camps.

Virgil Hilts said...

If its true she never wears deodorant/antiperspirant, I wonder how long before she completely pits out that outfit.

Laslo Spatula said...

Common People don't know what it is like, to be Pretty and then feel it slipping away.

I look at myself in the mirror for hours: I can see every minute change.

I may not be able to control Age, but I can control staying Skinny.

Food is a Luxury my Sense of Style cannot afford.

Shall I part my hair behind?

Do I dare to eat a Peach?

I am Laslo.

Laslo Spatula said...

“For I have known them all already, known them all—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

And visits to the Spa

In Switzerland.


I am Laslo.

rhhardin said...


ANNA Wait a minute. What about me?

MAX I'm sorry? You think you deserve the brownie?

ANNA Well... a shot at it.

WILLIAM You'll have to prove it. This is a great brownie and I'm going to fight for it. State your claim.

ANNA Well, I've been on a diet since I was nineteen, which means basically I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a sequence of not nice boyfriends -- one of whom hit me: and every time my heart gets broken it gets splashed across the newspapers as entertainment. Meantime, it cost millions to get me looking like this...

HONEY Really?

ANNA Really -- and one day, not long from now...

ANNA ... my looks will go, they'll find out I can't act and I'll become a sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.

MAX Nah!!! Nice try, gorgeous -- but you don't fool anyone.

- Notting Hill

rehajm said...

My nana wore an outfit like that to key parties.

Clyde said...

I think the worst part is the hideous oversized bell-bottom cut of the pants. You don't even know if she has feet! It's like a horrible '70's acid flashback.

Laslo Spatula said...

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor -

And this, and so much more?

I need my Assistant to bring my

Lorazepam.


I am Laslo.

mikee said...

I googled "knit bell bottom pants" and am informed that these clothes are now, once again, likely for a very limited time, fashionable among some women. Just like in 1975.

The last time this fashion happened to women I had a 24 inch waist and a pair of sky-blue Levi narrow-wale corduroy pants that made my ass look glorious. And I'm a guy.

Enjoy the picture, for she will never wear those clothes again, unless she is paid more to do so. God, they are as ugly now as they were 40+ years ago.

Curious George said...

I imagine the photo of Philip Lui in the previous post is of him seeing Paltrow in that outfit.

MaxedOutMama said...

Wasn't Gwyneth the one who came under internet fire for her hilariously incompetent food stamp shopping attempt?

This particular outfit makes me think of Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind". It appears as if Gwyneth has switched from food stamp thrift exercises to low-budget clothing exercises, and that she ripped the material for this outfit off a sofa that has been sitting in someone's garage since the late 70s, and then thriftily used an old pattern from the 70s. It damned sure wasn't curtains.

I look forward to her attempt to model clothing made from old shower curtains. Hopefully jungle-patterned.

Wince said...

I'm Gumby, damn it!

kjbe said...

Yes, but Lupita Nyong’o's outfit is stunning.

J. Farmer said...

Is it good fashion sense to deemphasize a woman's chest and emphasize her vulva? Holy shit.

William said...

Did you ever read about Marie Antoinette? Her clothes were a form of torture. It took hours to prepare her hair and and,when finished and properly festooned, her hair weighed up to ten pounds. On a subconscious level, she was probably seeking decapitation.......I get the sense that Paltrow's life is as fretted and strutted as that of Marie Antoinettte. She goes to bed hungry every night, spends more time with her trainer than a field hand does with the overseer, and has to wear uncomfortable, vaguely ridiculous clothes to public events. It's a hard life. She gets to live in a nice house and screw rock stars, but, all the same, it's a hard life.......We should take a pause in our busy day to take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices that movie stars make for us.

holdfast said...

Our hostess makes a good point - and that's why SI swimsuit models and catwalk models look quite different, though there is occasionally some convergence (i.e. the true "supermodels" of the 1990s). I suppose the current "celebudels" like the Haddid sisters too.

wildswan said...

It's funny to see how a fashion designer can take the elements - skin tight clothes, swirly clothes and a beautiful woman and mingle them into ugly-weird.

Vittorio Jano IV said...

Colombia Women’s Cycling Team Uniform in 2014:

http://guardianlv.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Columbia-Womens-Cycling-Team-Uniforms-A-Controversy-650x357.jpg

Roughcoat said...

Laslo:

Hilarious. "Prufrock" is one of the most bullshit pseudo-profound poems in the English language--any language, actually. Eliot was full of shit. He wrote it in his 20s, pretending to know what it was like to transition from late middle age into old age. Pure crap. Shows no understanding or knowledge of life as it is really lived. Treacly, gooey, weepy: the sort of poem you'd expect from pretentious twit like Eliot.

walter said...

Right the bell bottoms are out of place. Should be"footies".
She has some color in her face for a change.

khesanh0802 said...

Looks like Jane Fonda in the 70's. Something that needs to be forgotten.

southcentralpa said...

Hrm, from the description, I was expecting something like what Zhora was wearing when she was killed.

That (with a little less bell-bottom flare), looks like something a 3/4 year old would be in.

(That's Zhora Salome from Blade Runner, for those of you playing at home.)

whitney said...

Thank you so much for introducing me to Tom and Lorenzo's website. I enjoy it very much

Paul said...

Naked? You guys need to get a life.

jg said...

countersignal/peacocking. "oh yeah? imagine what YOU would look like in this hideous number!"

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Isn't that what the gals used to call a "scroll down fug?" Not super-terrible up top (although she is super skinny that actually makes her, ah, assets stand out more) but from the waist down just terrible and unflattering in the extreme. The front area, the, ah, groin part? Yikes.
Much as I dislike her GP's not an unattractive person physically, but she does her best to look bad here. The best part, to me, is that the outfit was probably quite expensive!

Etienne said...

I'm reserving judgement until I see the flip side.

JAORE said...

It makes her head look massive. For my taste more GP head showing is not a good thing.

Thuglawlibrarian said...

Camel toes almost happening