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Red carpet wrap: how the frocks stacked up this week

In this week's red carpet roundup, Naomie Harris is pure sunshine, Emma Stone is on a roll and Rita Ora gets it oh-so-wrong - twice. By Emma Day.

Emma Stone gives us three solid looks this week by sticking to her winning red-carpet formula - two parts great colour blended with a hearty glug of architecturally interesting and just a smidge of off-beat quirk. While not every one of these gowns - Roland Mouret, Giambattista Valli and Prada, respectively - might be to everyone’s taste, you can’t deny she’s come out for awards season kicking and fighting. Stone’s definitely dressing like a gal gunning for an Oscar (and I now think she should definitely do a warm marigold gown and sideswept waves for the Academy Awards). Photo: Getty
Simple, chic, elegant… I could basically have used every synonym for elegant here in lieu of an actual sentence. Viola Davis in icy, baby blue Michael Kors is what red-carpet dreams are made of, as the actress proves you don’t need to go over the top, design wise, to look queenly. The sleek, subtle sequins make it awards-show appropriate, but the fresh seafoam hue and softly sporty neck keep the whole thing looking contemporary. She truly could get away with murder if she was wearing this at the time (such is the power of a well-cut dress and a bouncy blow-out). Photo: Getty
Naomie Harris looks like pure sunshine in this zingy, botanic Rosie Assoulin. On a cold, bleak December night (well, in New York where she was, climate change hasn’t left the southern hemisphere in such a state yet), this strapless number is so fun, so bright, and so grin-inducingly lovely that just looking at it feels as warming as a shot of tequila. (Except even better - this dress won’t make you sing Mariah at karaoke, tell you sambuca is a great chaser, or get you to leave your phone in the back of a cab after telling your driver just why your ex from 2002 is much worse off without you). Photo: Getty
This might be Sarah Paulson in Vera Wang, but it feels very much like Jackie O imagined by Karl Lagerfeld (and I mean that in a very good way). It’s all kinds of classy, as pearls often are, but the contrasting peplum and T-shirt-like top make it super modern. I feel like the accessories were an afterthought, but on the whole I’m won over. (And wondering how one sits down in this without completely losing all circulation in the thigh). Photo: Getty
Yes it’s prim, proper and a tiny bit twee, but I happen to think Michelle Monaghan looks cute as a button in this jumper, shirt and pencil skirt combo. It’s a lot of shoulder, yes (one could say a tad too much, same about the collar), but overall I’m getting Mad Men set in 2012 vibes. Photo: Getty
I was so sold on this Dior gown, in fact I was even eyeing it for the #1 spot, until I clocked the one irksome component. The web-like lace, gossamer-thin layers and delicate straps are glorious on the delightful Felicity Jones, but why oh why must you ruin it, Dior, with such chest-squashingly small cups? And it’s not just high-fashion houses - whether you’re shopping in H&M; or haute couture, fitted bodices never seem to stray beyond an A cup no matter what dress size you buy. And as a woman whose cups runneth over, like a faulty pipe has finally given way and the entire ground floor is waist-deep in murky water, nothing annoys me more. Photo: Getty
This evil Elsa gown on Bella Thorne is like a electrocardiograph reading come to life (you know, the machines in the hospital that could beep as they scratch out your heart rate)… except maybe these scraps of material would have been better off slowly dying on designer Steven Khalil’s atelier floor. Photo: Getty
No, even a Victoria’s Secret model can’t make this car crash of a jumpsuit look good. Which is fitting, really, given that Shanina Shaik looks like Britney in her Oops video… if she’d been a Martian making ends meet as a cut-price car mechanic. Photo: Getty
Rita Ora has an adventurous spirit, wardrobe wise, and that’s certainly worthy of admiration. However this week the adventure she took us on was the high and low of a botched-batch acid trip. From a disco Anne Boleyn discovering her Avril Lavigne side to the hallucinations of a video game designer, there’s experimental - and then there’s this. Photo: Getty
Well, this dress that I’m nicknaming the Hipster Mummy™ shows just about everything you’d usually want a frock to cover up, hey? From a whisper of crotch to a wink of belly button, plus a hearty dose of kneecap, Halsey’s gaping bandage of a number looks like it’s been whipped up by someone with the emergency room know-how of Dr Drake Ramoray. Photo: Getty
Fifth Harmony’s stylist seems to treat awards-show dressing like the red-carpet equivalent of rooting around in a lost property box. And while none of the girls have ended up with the stained running shorts we all so feared (though they haven’t fared much better), luckily our high school’s crate of sartorial humiliation didn’t stock heels crafted from a human colon. (Just wait, you’ll see ‘em). Photo: Getty

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