The absence of any significant drama wasn’t the only boring thing about Sunday night’s Oscars. On the red carpet, the overused, underwhelming “naked” dress trend — if you can still call something that Kate Moss was doing 30 years ago a “trend” — was regrettably abundant.
The worst offenders at the Vanity Fair afterparty included Ciara, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, but others like Emily Ratajkowski also opted for the worn-out look.
First of all, the “naked” dress just isn’t flattering. The risque look can’t even be described as suggestive — it’s not suggesting anything; it’s just spilling the beans all over the red carpet.
It’s generally not a good thing if your outfit keeps people from noticing your face, and the odds of that happening here are high. Neutral, nude tones work best when used to highlight the wearer’s face or hair or the cut of an outfit. When those neutral tones are instead emphasizing a visible thong, that effect is completely lost.
See-through mesh fabrics in variations of skin tone don’t provide enough visual contrast to be stunning on their own, either. “Naked” dresses rely on the wow factor of the wearer being, well, nearly naked — a factor which is reduced considerably when you’re the hundredth celebrity to do it.
Maximum skin per square inch isn’t always sexier, either, and Vanity Fair attendee Hunter Scafer’s decision to forego a shirt in favor of a single feather is as good a proof of
