Fashion Don'ts: Worst Movie Outfits

[Wiendish Fitch]

Just for the heck of it, let's release our inner Mr. Blackwells and discuss horrid movie fashions!

Pretty in Pink:

Why, Andie? Why did you rip apart 2 perfectly nice dresses to make this dowdy, shapeless, Frankenstein monstrosity? Why did you go out of your way to look like a Florida retiree at a charity gala? WHY?!?!

 

Ella Enchanted:

Some people like this dress, but I don't. It manages to be both boring and tacky (seriously, the skirt looks like cling wrap). The sparkly fake tattoo on her hand is the only decent thing about this ensemble. Anne Hathaway deserved better than this!

Edited July 20, 2022 by Wiendish Fitch

[Mabinogia]

29 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Why, Andie? Why did you rip apart 2 perfectly nice dresses to make this dowdy, shapeless, Frankenstein monstrosity? Why did you go out of your way to look like a Florida retiree at a charity gala? WHY?!?!

As a huge fan of vintage fashion I was heartbroken when she started tearing apart Annie Potts' old prom dress. Forget what the dress Andie's dad bought looked like, but if it wasn't a garbage bag with arm and neck holes then it was better than that mess Andie made. 

I get they wanted to make Andie that quirky artsy girl but Annie Potts' Iona filled that bill far better. Andie just...I mean, even by 80s fashion standards that dress is hidious!

The Ella Enchanted dress looks like the actual dress you get from Amazon when you order a knock off Disney Princess Dress. lol

[Browncoat]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Just for the heck of it, let's release our inner Mr. Blackwells and discuss horrid movie fashions!

Pretty in Pink:

Why, Andie? Why did you rip apart 2 perfectly nice dresses to make this dowdy, shapeless, Frankenstein monstrosity? Why did you go out of your way to look like a Florida retiree at a charity gala? WHY?!?!

Worst dress ever.  There is absolutely nothing right about that hideous monstrosity.

[Shannon L.]

The bridesmaids' dresses in My Best Friend's Wedding were mentioned in the other thread, but I hated Kimmy's wedding dress, too.

Good call on Andie's gown.  I winced, too, when she started cutting up the vintage gown her friend gave her.

[Mabinogia]

12 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

The bridesmaids' dresses in My Best Friend's Wedding were mentioned in the other thread, but I hated Kimmy's wedding dress, too.

Who thought that was a good look? It looks messy and like it's about to fall off. Did Andie grow up, open her own bridal shop and design that dress for Kimmy because for some reason she hates her?

[Spartan Girl]

Ooh AWESOME idea for a thread!

25 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

The bridesmaids' dresses in My Best Friend's Wedding were mentioned in the other thread, but I hated Kimmy's wedding dress, too.

Good call on Andie's gown.  I winced, too, when she started cutting up the vintage gown her friend gave her.

Blech. The neckline would have been nice on her if it didn’t look like a sloppy patchwork quilt of material. And speaking of crappy wedding dresses, what about the monstrosity in Betsy’s Wedding? I seriously question Molly Ringwald’s taste in fashion!

[Wiendish Fitch]

32 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

The bridesmaids' dresses in My Best Friend's Wedding were mentioned in the other thread, but I hated Kimmy's wedding dress, too.

Good call on Andie's gown.  I winced, too, when she started cutting up the vintage gown her friend gave her.

In some shots it looks like she has hankies under her pits to stop sweat. The gown has potential, but it's a touch too all over the place (I felt the same for Elizabeth Taylor's dress in 1950's Father of the Bride).

@Spartan Girl: Ye gods, what is up with the wedding... thing in Betsy's Wedding?!

Ginger Rogers is one of my favorite Classic Hollywood stars, and one of my fashion idols. She had impeccable style and could look good in nearly anything...except this disappointing mediocrity from Shall We Dance. Don't get me wrong, Ginger looked good dressed down in her duets with Fred Astaire, but this dress is too plain and casual on top, and the skirt looked like something Maria von Trapp would throw together. 

[Bastet]

This will be fun -- I either dislike or am meh about many of the outfits posted in the favorite fashions thread, so we'll see if I'm the opposite here too.

So far, I like that dress on Ginger Rogers, but only in the first photo; the second reveals the fullness of the skirt, which I don't think works with that pattern.

The rest, though, I agree - yuck.  Especially that thing Andie made in Pretty in Pink. 

[Irlandesa]

I love Ginger's dress.  The rest are bad.

[Spartan Girl]

Here’s another from Ella Enchanted:

Like really?! You’re making a fairy tale movie and you’re dressing up your characters with some cheap rags you’d probably find at the dollar rack in the mall?

For that reason, the entire costume department in the crappy Amazon Prime Cinderella movie should be on here as well. Especially the ball gown:

The material was nice but the cut is hideous. Especially the butt bow not pictured. But at least Billy Porter looked better than Lucinda.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[Wiendish Fitch]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Here’s another from Ella Enchanted:

For that reason, the entire costume department in the crappy Amazon Prime Cinderella movie should be on here as well. Especially the ball gown:

The material was nice but the cut is hideous. Especially the butt bow not pictured. But at least Billy Porter looked better than Lucinda.

For a movie that's supposedly "not like other Cinderellas", they sure as hell made Camila Cabello look like "other Cinderellas"... but worse! The color is so blah and muddled. Is it pink? Lavender?* The skirt also makes me think it got bunched up and stuck in her pantyhose.

I agree Billy Porter looks great.

Another disappointing Cinderella dress? 2014's Into the Woods. I was thrilled Anna Kendrick was cast as Cinderella, but her ball gown is so lacking. The skirt is saggy, the silhouette and details are boring, and the color is so dull. I know I should be happy that they didn't give Cinderella a pink, white, or blue dress for a change, but considering that most of the action takes place at night, the dress just fades into the background. I think if they'd followed the cue from the original Broadway production and given her a ridiculously over-the-top floofy, flouncy dress in the familiar pink, white, or blue, it would have looked nicer visually. 

For crying out loud, the movie was released by Disney! They tend to have fat budgets, they could have totally sprung for a fabulously frou-frou gown of the Enchanted mold!

*The correct answer: who cares?

Edited July 21, 2022 by Wiendish Fitch

[Ohiopirate02]

Another Disney ball gown fail is the yellow dress Emma I'm-a-feminist-so-I'm-not-going-to-wear-a-corset Watson wore in the disappointing live action Beauty and the Beast

[Wiendish Fitch]

22 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Another Disney ball gown fail is the yellow dress Emma I'm-a-feminist-so-I'm-not-going-to-wear-a-corset Watson wore in the disappointing live action Beauty and the Beast

Oh, God bless you, Ohiopirate02!! I hate this dress with a passion. Where to begin?

1. The color. For the record, Animated Belle's dress is gold, NOT yellow. Yellow is a difficult color for brunettes to pull off, but they didn't even try to flatter Emma Watson. Instead, it's that dreadful canary-piss yellow that looks good on exactly nobody. 

2. The skirt. Oh, my, the skirt. More than one person has said it reminds them of Kraft American Cheese slices, and I couldn't agree more. To quote Paige of the delightful YouTube channel The Princess and Scrivener (who put out a wonderfully vicious, multi-part critique of 2017's B&B) put it, "It looks like someone stapled a bunch of napkins to her waist". 

3. The material. Disney, we need to talk. You're a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, surely you can afford fabric that doesn't look like the cheapest rayon/polyester blend available? No joke, I have seen nicer looking formal dresses at fucking Ross and JC Penney.

4. The top portion. You know, they could have had fun, thought outside the box, leaned into the 1700s time period, and maybe create a more time-appropriate look with elbow length sleeves and a jeweled neckline, instead of making it look like a clearance rack prom dress from 1998. And if they were so hellbent on paying tribute to the animated version, would it have killed them to spring for gloves?!

6. That fucking necklace. I hate this thing. It's too modern, too ornate, and just butt ugly. HATE.

7. The ear cuff. Oh, this makes me so mad, I can't even form a coherent sentence. Next!

8. Her hair. The dress is so, so, so, so boring and disappointing, so I guess they decided to go two for two by making Belle's hair just as lame and lifeless.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

@Ohiopirate02 @Wiendish Fitch
Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree with both of you that the dress could have been way better, especially the skirt. The white dress she wore at the end was way better, and they did make her hair look nicer too. @Wiendish Fitch I don’t know if you’ve seen the production pics of West End’s new production of Beauty and the Beast but that’s what the gold gown SHOULD have been.

[Ohiopirate02]

The Beauty and the Beast costumes were such a let down when you compare them to what Sandy Powell did for the live action Cinderella.  She understood the assignment. 

 

[Spartan Girl]

36 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The Beauty and the Beast costumes were such a let down when you compare them to what Sandy Powell did for the live action Cinderella.  She understood the assignment. 

 

Really, put that dress in a gold color and it would have been perfect for Belle.

The wedding dress they put Jasmine in Aladdin and the King of Thieves was sadly a dud. Shoulder pads?!?! Come on, Disney, even your cheapquels could have done better for one of your best princesses!

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Really, put that dress in a gold color and it would have been perfect for Belle.

The first time I saw that Cinderella dress that was my exact thought. Emma Watson's yellow dress looked like cheap cosplay. If some tiny little studio had made that movie, okay, whatever, it's ugly but hey they did what they could, but Disney has all the money. They could have made  breathtaking dress corset or no corset. Instead they made that. :(

[Bastet]

10 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Really, put that dress in a gold color and it would have been perfect for Belle.

I'll be the outlier again already: I think those two dresses are equally awful.

[Spartan Girl]

Here’s a fashion don’t if there ever was one: Norma’s prom getup in Carrie.

We get it, you’re a nonconformist. But anyone who had the nerve to mock (and help dump pig blood) on Carrie’s lovely simple prom dress (that she worked her fingers to the bone making herself) when she just showed up in that stupid baseball cap and a dress that looks like a nightgown DESERVES to get nailed by a firehose.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[Wiendish Fitch]

On 8/7/2022 at 10:35 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Here’s a fashion don’t if there ever was one: Norma’s prom getup in Carrie.

We get it, you’re a nonconformist. But anyone who had the nerve to mock (and help dump pig blood) on Carrie’s lovely simple prom dress (that she worked her fingers to the bone making herself) when she just showed up in that stupid baseball cap and a dress that looks like a nightgown DESERVES to get nailed by a firehose.

Hated Norma, hated the hat, hated the dress!

I find 98% of fashions from the 1970s absolutely awful, and Norma's prom dress is the perfect encapsulation with everything that annoys me about formal wear from that decade. The flimsy, cheap-ass material that looks like it's staticky AF, the frumpy, frou-frou details, the unflattering silhouette, the sickly color, just... ugh!

[Spartan Girl]

6 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Hated Norma, hated the hat, hated the dress!

I find 98% of fashions from the 1970s absolutely awful, and Norma's prom dress is the perfect encapsulation with everything that annoys me about formal wear from that decade. The flimsy, cheap-ass material that looks like it's staticky AF, the frumpy, frou-frou details, the unflattering silhouette, the sickly color, just... ugh!

Carrie’s dress was the prettiest in that whole prom of tacky flimsy, frilly outfits. Yet she got pig’s blood dumped on her. Go figure.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[JustHereForFood]

*small voice* I love the dress from live action B&B. This topic will prove a challenge to me 😄. I even wore a light yellow dress to my high school graduation party and I had brown hair at that time, so I told myself I look a bit like Belle. Of course, Emma Watson later looked about 100 times better than me.

But to keep on topic, while I love the color of Keira Knightley's dress in Atonement, I don't like anything else about it. I still don't understand what was supposed to be so wow about it.

[Wiendish Fitch]

The Wiz (1978)

How dare they-how DARE they- take a stunningly beautiful, fabulous legend like Lena Horne, and dress her up like a mutant Christmas tree angel?

[Spartan Girl]

Well, well. Molly Ringwald apparently hated her Pretty in Pink prom dress as much as we did.

[Browncoat]

Right up until the end of that article when she says she'd love it now.  Nope nope nope.  Not then, not now.  Still, always, and forever a hideous dress.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Completely agree. I try to keep an open mind, but there are some things I don't want a critical reevaluation of, and that loathsome sack dress is one of them!

Edited March 3 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

Just because Andie wanted to be true to herself didn’t mean she had to look like a bag lady!

Moving on to another hideous outfit, I’m sorry but Emma Stone’s poofy sleeved big shouldered dresses in Poor Things are ghastly. All of them were horrible but this one deserves to be in our Terrible Wedding Dresses Hall of Shame.

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 minute ago, Spartan Girl said:

Just because Andie wanted to be true to herself didn’t mean she had to look like a bag lady!

Moving on to another hideous outfit, I’m sorry but Emma Stone’s poofy sleeved big shouldered dresses in Poor Things are ghastly. All of them were horrible but this one deserves to be in our Terrible Wedding Dresses Hall of Shame.

Yeeeeeesssshhhh.

It's like a perverted parody of Ariel's wedding dress!

[Browncoat]

The only redeeming value to the dress in Poor Things is that it fit the aesthetic of the movie.  In a quirky movie like that one, you need quirky costuming.  

[Spartan Girl]

5 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Yeeeeeesssshhhh.

It's like a perverted parody of Ariel's wedding dress!

How dare you?! Ariel’s wedding dress was actually pretty! 😂

Like, okay, movie, we get it, Bella is oppressed, but you can still make the point without sticking her in those monstrosity dresses! Even Tim Burton’s quirky costumes have more style!

Edited March 3 by Spartan Girl

[Spartan Girl]

On 3/3/2024 at 9:25 AM, Browncoat said:

The only redeeming value to the dress in Poor Things is that it fit the aesthetic of the movie.  In a quirky movie like that one, you need quirky costuming.  

I still think it’s a travesty that they won the Best Costume Oscar over the ones in. Barbie. Those costumes were quirky too, but unlike the ones in Poor Things, they looked damn good!

[Spartan Girl]

Josie’s prom dress in Never Been Kissed

It’s like something a Barbie doll would’ve worn in the 80s/early 90s. It’s almost a blessing that Josie never showed up to the prom looking like that, but Billy’s stunt was so vile that I almost wish that Josie had dropped his name in her big op-ed at the end of the movie because he deserved some comeuppance after what he did to her!

You know what’s sad? Despite how hideous the dress is, I still think it’s better than the Pretty in Pink trainwreck! 

Edited April 28 by Spartan Girl

[Wiendish Fitch]

What annoys me about Josie's prom dress is that, doing the math, she most likely would have graduated from high school in 1991 or 1992, but she's wearing a dress that all but screams "deep 1980s". I realize Josie's a nerd and hardly a fashion plate, but surely they could have done their homework and given her a more early '90s dress? It still could have been kind of tacky and dorky (early '90s fashions were barely an improvement over the 1980s). 

It just feels like they were mining a cheap, easy laugh... and I don't want to laugh at an innocent person being humiliated!

By the by, SpartanGirl, I also would have been okay if Josie decided to name drop Billy in her article. It's the least that little shit deserves.

Edited April 28 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

What annoys me about Josie's prom dress is that, doing the math, she most likely would have graduated from high school in 1991 or 1992, but she's wearing a dress that all but screams "deep 1980s". I realize Josie's a nerd and hardly a fashion plate, but surely they could have done their homework and given her a more early '90s dress? It still could have been kind of tacky and dorky (early '90s fashions were barely an improvement over the 1980s). 

It just feels like they were mining a cheap, easy laugh... and I don't want to laugh at an innocent person being humiliated!

By the by, SpartanGirl, I also would have been okay if Josie decided to name drop Billy in her article. It's the least that little shit deserves.

It did feel like insult to injury making her wear that prom dress, didn’t it?

I know Rob was a crappy brother to Josie in general, but the very least he could’ve done was beat the crap out of Billy the next day!

[Browncoat]

And where were their parents?  I don't recall any mention of parents.  My mother never in a million years would have let me pick out that prom dress.  But she was there to take photos when my date showed up, and it would not have ended well for my date if he'd pulled that stunt with me.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Why not have Josie's dress be endearingly frumpy, like her later outfits? Or the kind of dress that her parents definitely picked out for her because they're overprotective? Did it have to be such an eyesore??

I realize that Never Been Kissed is supposed to be one of those "ugly duckling" stories, but there's a right way and wrong way to tell those stories! Besides, in the words of Sarah Millican, the ugly duckling was, in fact, "a perfectly lovely cygnet"!

[Spartan Girl]

From Thumbelina:

 

Diva from Musical Hell summed it up best (between hysterical laughter): “Look at her! It’s like Queen Amidala had Lady Gaga design her confirmation gown!”

Of course I’m not sure her “real” wedding dress was that much better. 
 

I mean, the gown is okay, but that thing around her head? Why did the animators have to keep giving her the stupidest hairdos? 

[Wiendish Fitch]

13 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

From Thumbelina:

 

Diva from Musical Hell summed it up best (between hysterical laughter): “Look at her! It’s like Queen Amidala had Lady Gaga design her confirmation gown!”

Of course I’m not sure her “real” wedding dress was that much better. 
 

I mean, the gown is okay, but that thing around her head? Why did the animators have to keep giving her the stupidest hairdos? 

It's never a good sign when your "ordinary" outfit is the best of the lot (see also: Ella Enchanted).

[andromeda331]

On 4/28/2024 at 6:33 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Josie’s prom dress in Never Been Kissed

It’s like something a Barbie doll would’ve worn in the 80s/early 90s. It’s almost a blessing that Josie never showed up to the prom looking like that, but Billy’s stunt was so vile that I almost wish that Josie had dropped his name in her big op-ed at the end of the movie because he deserved some comeuppance after what he did to her!

You know what’s sad? Despite how hideous the dress is, I still think it’s better than the Pretty in Pink trainwreck! 

My barbie doll did have a dress like that in the 80s except it was blue.

[Spartan Girl]

The “black swan dress” in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

It’s not so much the dress itself—though the scarf does look tacky—as much as the context it was used it: the filmmakers purposely  putting Padme in her most skin-tight and revealing outfit to reject Anakin in a dimly firelit room, spawning a thousand sexist “Padme was a tease” jokes. 

But I’d probably still hate the outfit even if it was in a different scene.

Edited May 15 by Spartan Girl

[Wiendish Fitch]

12 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

The “black swan dress” in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

It’s not so much the dress itself—though the scarf does look tacky—as much as the context it was used it: the filmmakers purposely  putting Padme in her most skin-tight and revealing outfit to reject Anakin in a dimly firelit room, spawning a thousand sexist “Padme was a tease” jokes. 

But I’d probably still hate the outfit even if it was in a different scene.

I get your annoyance with it. For me, the problem is that it doesn't look like something our good-hearted heroine would typically wear. When our virtuous female protagonist, out of nowhere, shows up in a slinky black outfit, she's either

a.  Trying to ensnare her man with a "sexy new look", a la Sandy from Grease,

or 

b. There's something much dark afoot (she's possessed by an evil spirit, under mind control, or maybe a shapeshifter in disguise).

Now, in real life, we are all free to experiment with our looks without any need for an explanation, but if a character in a visual medium randomly shows up in an ensemble radically different from what they normally wear? Yeah, some of us are going to have questions!

[Spartan Girl]

@Wiendish Fitch I just think the outfit could have been a touch more elegant and less Black Swan Dominatrix.

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

@Wiendish Fitch I just think the outfit could have been a touch more elegant and less Black Swan Dominatrix.

Also fair. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

One more gripe about the "Black Swan" dress: the long scarf is ugly, distracting, and just makes me nervous. Why, you may ask? Google Isadora Duncan.

That is all.

Moving along, I love Margaret Sullavan, I love The Shop Around the Corner... but I hate her famous first date outfit. I don't mind the kind of jumper* style that was popular in the 1930s and 1940s, but I think the X-strap across her front is distracting, awkward, and looks so uncomfortable. And while Jimmy Stewart's character was a bit of a jerk about it, I grudgingly agree with him about her blouse. I'm admittedly not a huge fan of polka dots or ruffles, and the two of them combined just look clownish to me. One or the other, not both!

*To avoid confusion, I mean the American term "jumper", which is a dress that is modeled after overalls, not the British "jumper", which is a sweater. 

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

One more gripe about the "Black Swan" dress: the long scarf is ugly, distracting, and just makes me nervous. Why, you may ask? Google Isadora Duncan.

That is all.

Also kind of a bleak, disturbing foreshadowing of what happens to Padme, when you really think about it. 

Re The Little Shop Around the Corner polka dots are fine if used the right way, but if used carelessly, they look very tacky.

[Spartan Girl]

Edith’s nightgown in Crimson Peak 

I don’t care if it was a Victorian gothic horror movie, those poofed sleeves are HIDEOUS.

[proserpina65]

On 9/7/2024 at 8:09 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Edith’s nightgown in Crimson Peak 

I don’t care if it was a Victorian gothic horror movie, those poofed sleeves are HIDEOUS.

I think the sleeves were on the robe she was wearing over the nightgown itself, not that it makes it any better.  Poofed sleeves on a robe are terrible, too.

 

[Ohiopirate02]

57 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I think the sleeves were on the robe she was wearing over the nightgown itself, not that it makes it any better.  Poofed sleeves on a robe are terrible, too.

 

Her nightgown also has the leg-of-mutton sleeves, but the sleeves are fairly period accurate for the 1890s. 

 

[proserpina65]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:56 PM, Ohiopirate02 said:

Her nightgown also has the leg-of-mutton sleeves, but the sleeves are fairly period accurate for the 1890s. 

 

Yeah, still ugly though.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Puffed sleeves are tricky. For me, proportion is everything. If they are small or not overpowering the dress or the wearer, I personally think they’re darling. If they are the mammoth, saggy monstrosities Mia is sporting? Bleecchhh.