Grammys Fashion: Whimsical, or Just Plain Weird Weird?

Every year from about December to March is known in the fashion and celebrity world as "award season". Some of the more popular award shows are the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Oscars, the Emmys and of course, the Grammys.

The Grammys are the olympics of all the music award shows, putting the MTV Video Music Awards and the American Music Awards to shame. However, the most defining part of the award show may not be the actual music, but the fashion. Every year the fashion gets more wild and outrageous, and dare I say, just plain weird?

For example, Rihanna's outfit.

What the heck is she wearing? If the whole dress were that white, fluffy, cotton-ball resembling material than it would not have been that bad. But it looks like a five-year-old stole his mother's scissors and decided to "improve" the dress. How is it okay for a dress to show that much skin? Is that even legal to be on television? Please, Rihanna... I know you are rebellious and daring, but next time just put on some clothing!

And how about Nicki Minaj?

I don't even mind the dress. Sure, its about a hundred feet too much leopard print, but what is really bothering me is the hair. I was not aware the Bride of Frankenstein hairstyle was fashionable. Minaj said of her outfit, "Its fashionista meets fabulosity." I have to say, I'm not seeing the "fabuolosity."

I know that singers are more daring in their fashion choices than actors and models, but should they keep their "daring" outfits for their stage performances only?

These outfits were only the lead up to the biggest "huh?" of the night. There had been great anticipation over what Lady Gaga was going to wear to the award show as she has always employed, shall we say "interesting" fashion techniques. And when I say interesting, I mean somewhat bizarre. I'm not sure I've ever seen a recent picture of Lady Gaga where she is in less than full theatrical makeup and a bizarre headpiece, not to mention a pair of high heels at least five inches high.

However, this time Lady Gaga outweirded even her infamous meat, and I mean literally raw meat, dress. At about five pm on Sunday, Gaga arrived to the award shows not in a fancy hair piece or some innovative, fashion forward dress, but an egg. An actual egg.

Apparently the famous pop singer was "incubating". Not really sure what she meant by that, but she was quoted as saying, "I was in the vessel for about seventy-two hours and it was a very creative experience and it was time for me to prepare and really think about the meaning of the song. I really wanted to be born on stage."

So, are Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, and Lady Gaga years ahead of their time fashion-wise? Or are there attention-getting outfits just that, worn purely for press? One thing is sure, the Grammy Awards are the only place where celebrities could get away with such outrageous outfits. As odd as some of the outfits are, I for one cannot wait to see how the artists top themselves next year!

The Skinny on Fashion's "Little" Problem

People are exposed to fashion everyday, whether in magazines and newspapers, on the streets, or on television. People look to these magazines and television show to see the latest trends, and they follow them religiously. Skinny jeans, jeggings, leather jackets; the minute people see the newest trend they go out and buy it. What is fashion's most popular and influential trend? A size 0.


Size zero is the new standard in modeling, and the kids and teenagers who see those models on television and in photo spreads see that size and think they have to conform to it. It is just in the past few decades that this size has become the new desirable one, in fact, one of the most recognizable models in all of history, Marilyn Monroe, was a size 8! That would be considered plus-size in the current modeling history.

Models are turned away by designers if they aren't a certain size, and the pressure on models to weight a certain number is not decreasing. If anything, its increasing. In fact, on November 17th, 2010, a French model named Isabelle Caro died after two weeks in a hospital with acute respiratory disease. While the exact cause of her death is unknown, at the time of her death she was 5'5 and weighed 73 pounds, and at her lowest weight she weighed 55 pounds. The ideal weight for a 5'5 woman is 125 pounds, 52 pounds over Caro's weight at the time of her death. And while her case is an extreme case, there are less extreme but equally important examples. 

Ralph Lauren made headlines in 2009 when one of his ad-campaigns featured a model photoshopped to look impossibly skinny. The website Photoshop Disasters put up a post with the photo, titled "Dude, Her Head's Bigger than Her Pelvis." This image will be read by thousands of teenage girls in middle school, high school, and college and this is the standard they will measure themselves by. 


The reality of the  matter is that size 0 is not an attainable, realistic, or healthy size for most women. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents, 80% of 13 year old girls have dieted, and 50% if girls between 13 and 15 believe they are overweight. It is estimated that right now, 8 million Americans have eating disorders. 


The cost of Anorexia is great. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any illness. Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders get treatment, and treatment can cost anywhere from $500 to $2000 per day. 


However, slow progress has been made against eating disorders in the fashion world. Many fashion week events are starting to have weight restrictions, banning models who are underweight. However, more needs to be done so that young girls can have healthier women to look up to.