Natalie Portman Got Married on Saturday, And Something About Her Dress Bothers Me

I mean, the dress itself is pretty simple, which I like. She asked Rodarte to custom make it for her traditional Jewish ceremony to ol' Benny Thousand-Feets, which is cool. But...something about this dress looks "budget", for lack of a better word. The sleeves are stiff and remind me of paper towel rolls, and maybe it's just the way she's standing here, but the hem looks kind of funky. I dunno, I just expected to be wowed by a Rodarte original, and this looks like something that anybody could pick up at their local David's Bridal.

What do you think? Agree or disagree?

Original image and story found here:
http://stylenews.peoplestylewatch.com/2012/08/06/natalie-portman-wedding-dress-photo/

Costume Crush: Can a Song Save Your Life?

I've been a movie buff since I was a little girl, and one of my favorite parts about any movie is the costume design. Period pieces always offer up the best costume porn, and fashion-y movies are fun even though by the end you're like "Enough already - I want jeans and tees!", but my favorite costumes are the ones that can take perfectly normal clothes and style them in a way that lets you know exactly who that character is. I'm seeing a lot to like in these images from a movie called Can a Song Save Your Life?, which stars Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo and is due in theaters in 2013.



That is a great red dress. You could wear that shirtdress on a hot summer day in any city in the world and look perfectly pulled-together. I'll take the car too, please.



According to imdb.com, this movie tells the story of a dejected music business executive who forms a bond with a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan after he discovers her singing in a coffee shop. I'm assuming that Ruffalo is the music executive, mainly because he's the one wearing the (adorably rumpled) suit. Knightley is the singer-songwriter, and I'm really digging the easy feminine/tomboy vibe I'm getting from her character's wardrobe. She and I could go shopping at Madewell together :)




Hailee Steinfeld is also in the movie. You'll remember her from her Oscar-nominated performance in 2010's True Grit. She looks cute and age-appropriate here (she's almost 16 irl), and I think it's always nice for teens to see how you can find your own "look" without showing lots of skin or coating yourself with glitter.



How adorable does she look here in her pencil skirt???



Keira Knightley has been in some of my favorite period movies (the green dress in the library in Atonement? SWOON), but it's so refreshing to see her in modern clothes. I'm sure it's a nice change for her too, not having to shoehorn herself into a corset every day for three months straight. If you look at the place where her dress meets her upper thigh, you can see her Spanx peeking out. I hear that most of the starlets in Hollywood wear Spanx even if they are very slim - shapewear gives you a smooth line under your clothes and can even squeeze inches off of hips and thighs. It's rumored that Beyonce will double Spanx for red carpet events.



Another red dress and I LOVE it. Simple, polished, flattering, with a romantic quality. Keira has a long narrow torso with shorter legs and fuller hips (well, full being a relative term for a movie star), and this style of dress is perfect for her figure. That's something else I do when I watch movies: if one of the actresses has a similar figure to mine, I pay attention to what looks most flattering and try to incorporate those ideas into my wardrobe. Keira is pictured here with Adam Levine of Maroon 5, who apparently plays her boyfriend at the beginning of the film. Nice beard. I guess he's sporting the... Amish Hipster look? He's got the moves like Jedediah.



This is obviously her "creative working artist" look. Cute brogues and boyfriend jeans.



Yeah, now I'm convinced that the costume design team spent some time shopping at Madewell - Keira looks like she walked right out of the catalog.



Digging this look. Very cool. Simple silk blouse, linen trousers cuffed just so, perfectly worn in leather accessories, and a messy ponytail. She's your always stylish yet low maintenance best friend.




Get it, gurl! Kiss that Ruffalo! Mark Ruffalo is such a terrific actor - I've loved him in every role I've seen him play. He was so perfect in 13 Going on 30, and he was the only thing that made Just Like Heaven watchable. I haven't seen The Kids are Alright yet, but it's on my Must Watch list.




Keira is obviously enjoying her job. "What did you do at work today?" "Oh, not much, just made out with The Incredible Hulk on a sidewalk in Manhattan." What a strange life that must be... no wonder most of them are batshit crazy.




Nice little bit of on-set cameraderie here, and I love the addition of "Creepster Neighbor Guy" in the window in the background. This movie already looks fun to watch and I like the cast a lot, so it's likely that I'll fork over $12 to see it in the theater next year.

All images from LaineyGossip.com and The Daily Mail online.

Katie Holmes in Madewell Dress and J.Crew Ballet Flats

Source


Obviously I am TEAM KATIE, and I have been not-so-silently cheering her on in her separation and divorce from Tom Cruise (and The C of $). I loved Tom when I was 8 years old, but crushes fade when faced with CRAZY. Now I can stop referring to her as RoboKatie, and it feels so good! Here is why I, personally, have been TEAM KATIE for years:

~She was Joey Potter on "Dawson's Creek", and I was addicted to that show in college
~She always wears subtle, interesting jewelry
~She isn't afraid to experiment with short haircuts, which I love b/c everyone in Hollywood worships extensions
~She's tall, and I know what it's like to be a tall girl
~She's trying to break into the fashion design world, which I admire even though she doesn't seem to have much affinity for it (Holmes & Yang has not been impressive so far)
~She apparently loves J.Crew since she wears it all the time. I can relate....

Here is Katie in NYC yesterday with her daughter, Suri, and mom, Kathleen. I'm 100% sure that the dress is Madewell, and about 80% sure that those are J.Crew's Cece ballet flats. She's looking great, is able to have her own friends and family surrounding her again (as opposed to the last 6 years when all of her "friends" had to be Scientology approved), and is starting a new chapter of her life as a young single mom in NYC.

Katie Holmes: BAMF.



Madewell Chambray Songbird Dress


J.Crew Cece Suede Ballet Flats in Oasis Green

Blogs That I Like: Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style

The Academy Awards are tonight! Hollywood Awards Season has always been my Superbowl (being forced to watch sports is my idea of cruel and unusual punishment), so I always get excited for this time of year and all of the great movies that are on tv. The stories, the costumes (oh, the costumes), the drama...both in front of and behind the scenes.

My love for movies and celebrity gossip began with my paternal grandmother when I was a little girl. I'd spend the night at her house and we would bake sugar cookies and read through her old Golden Age of Hollywood books like "LIFE Goes to the Movies". I loved looking at the pictures of the Classic Hollywood stars, but the stories that she could tell me about them rivaled the images on the page and on the screen. That's why I was so delighted a few years ago when a friend told me that I needed to read this blog.



Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style is written by a woman named Anne Helen Petersen. Anne has a Ph.D. in The History of Celebrity Gossip from the University of Texas-Austin. This alone pretty much makes her my idol, but she is also terribly insightful and funny, and incredibly knowledgeable about the topics upon which she writes. She also contributes articles on Scandals of Classic Hollywood to the terrific and terrific-ly funny ladyblog, The Hairpin, and I have lost myself for hours reading those stories. You learn so many fascinating things about the private lives of these stars, many of which were covered up or totally fabricated by the big studio publicity machines.

Here are two of her articles that I loved:


Ava Gardner: The Second-Look Girl


Cary Grant's Intimate Bromance

If you love movies, Old Hollywood, celebrity gossip, or PR spin, you will love reading Anne Helen Petersen's work. It's the perfect thing to get you in the mood for Oscar Night!

Images courtesy of The Hairpin and Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style.

What would Regina George say?

So apparently we can rule out "going to the dentist" as one of the things that Lindsey Lohan was doing instead of completing her court-ordered community service.

Pic courtesy of RadarOnline.com.

Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon

Madonna's daughter is 14 now, and she is not only infinitely cooler than I was at 14, she is about a million times cooler than I will ever hope to be. EVERRR. Not like this is a news flash - her mother is Madonna. She looks a lot like her mom did when she was a teen, but her face is longer and she's got dark eyes like her dad, Carlos Leon, who apparently dotes on her and has a great co-parenting relationship with Madge. I love this. I always imagined the conversation between Madonna and Carlos, who was one of her backup dancers, to be like: "Hey C, I'm thinking that I want to have a baby. You're a nice guy, you have great genes, and I really don't need a relationship but you can be in the baby's life as much as you want. Wanna knock me up?" Carlos said yes since, well, who says no to Madonna?

Little Lola has her own fashion collection now, "Material Girl" (it's actually Madonna's tween line inspired by Lourdes), and her own blog to go with it. Lola accompanied Madge to a Jay-Z concert and blogged about it, and I found this part to be completely fascinating:

"My mom was dancing the entire time which is LOL now that I think about it, but in the moment I was just like, ”mom…..no…please no”.

Lourdes was embarassed by Madonna's dancing. AMAZING.

Chelsea Clinton is Getting Married

The former first daughter is getting married this Saturday to Marc Mevinksy, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs whom she's know since college, at the Astor estate in Rhinebeck, NY. The media is going NUTS over this, and I've got to say I'm kind of annoyed.

Not because I have anything in the world against Chelsea - quite the contrary. I have always really liked her a lot. She and I are almost exactly the same age, and I remember thinking at 12 years old how strange (and awesome and sometimes sucky) it must be for her to live in the White House. I felt so bad for her when people were calling her "ugly" as an adolescent - arguably the WORST time to have to be in the public eye, and so I thrilled at seeing her with her pretty new bob haircut and sleek suit, perched between Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna at fashion week in 2002. She handled her father's presidential sex scandal quietly and with dignity (on the campaign trail for her mother's Presidential run, a reporter had the gall to ask her how she felt about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, and her reply was, "I don't think that's any of your business."). At a time when Britney and Christina and Jessica (also my age) were gaining fame and fortune by taking off their clothes and/or singing poorly, Chelsea was going to Stanford, then Oxford, then getting a job and enjoying her independent young womanhood - far more of a role model for me than any reality star celebrity.

I guess that's why I'm so bothered by the media coverage. She's lived a normal, albeit pretty exceptional, life since leaving the White House - you can't just let her have this day to herself and her friends and her family without trying to sell it to someone? I guess people just LOVE weddings so much that they want to get in on the action. I have done same thing with royal weddings and some celebrity weddings, but I guess I would just like Chelsea's wedding to roll by with a little online blurb about the details that I could read and think: "How nice, I like Chelsea. I hope that somebody saved her a piece of cake."

Someone should tell Britney.

You would think that out of everyone who hounds Britney Spears on a daily basis - her entourage, her family, the friggin' paparazzi - SOMEBODY would be her friend and tell her that her weave needs some serious maintenance.

I just feel bad for the girl now.