The Good
No, that's not Kid Rock next to Leslie Mann (whose dress we think looks totally Mad Men and beautiful). That's actually director Robert Rodriguez, who is wearing a crushed velvet sports coat with what appear to be black leather appliqués. (We do not actually want to encourage anyone to wear a crushed velvet sports coat with black leather appliqués; left to our own devices, Rodriguez would be in the Bad. We just liked this photo of them together.)


Budding actress Yara Shahidi shows them how it's done. Perfectly age-appropriate without being cutesy. And she looks like she's having so much fun!


Kat Dennings — the starlet who reads books, everybody! — plays it extremely safe here in an LBD. However: the structured, 50s-style cut is very flattering, and the clutch is a nice touch.

We are pretty sure that "Jolie Vanier" is a made-up name. But whoever this girl is, she knows how to pick a dress. Our only niggle with this one is the non-functional belt on the bodice that threatens to mess with the cool drop-waist silhouette; the color is perfect on her, the cut is interesting but demure, and she looks like she can definitely walk in those shoes. Adorable.


The Bad

Lorielle New, we have three words: Too. Many. Butterflies.

Ashley Edner's outfit wouldn't be an actual Bad, if those outdated slouch cowboy boots didn't give off an I'm-From-A-Large-Discount-Retailer volatile organic compound stench we can smell from here; if cropped black leggings under tunics were not so boring; if Gothic black nailpolish were not so trite; and if those bracelets around the 90s-born actress's wrists did not look like bar bands. That is all.


It's hard to make a balloon-sleeved shrug work. Something with that much volume should probably only top a long, lean silhouette — a column dress, or skinny pants and a long blouse. But Kate Lindor looks like she's not even trying: the shrug is twisted up and hanging wrong, the proportions are wrong, the colors are all wrong. And, if you are going to wear a leather dress, the most important thing is that it fit well. Hell, the only important thing is that it fit well.


Oh no, Leo Howard. We are sure some awful stylist gave you these clothes and said this is how real Hollywood kid actors do it for the red carpet, and you replied, incredulous, "Really?" And the stylist grinned and said, "Yuh-huh!" and you slowly let yourself be convinced. But no. No to the fedora, no to the hoodie — it is August in Los Angeles, remember? — no to scrunching up the sleeves on the hoodie, no to the blinging watch that weighs more than you do, no to the sneakers — do those even fit? — no to the tee shirt with the no-doubt lame, generically off-center, screen print. The pants can stay, if you insist.


What Say You?

Is Lexi Ainsworth wearing an awesome outfit that looks fun without being either too old or too young, with extra props given for a truly great pair of vintage boots? Or is this a naff denim romper, and a borderline-inappropriate slogan tee shirt that appears to say, "Madonna Boy Toy"?

[Images via Getty]

The truth of this assertion was borne out to me when my boyfriend and I went shopping to supplement his wardrobe of two pair of Dickies with something lighter. He tried on some inexpensive cargo shorts: a frat boy stood before me. Slim seersucker knee-lengths transformed him into the veriest urban fop. Hemmed denim, meanwhile, made him feel like a middle-schooler, and one who sported Tevas at that.

Now, this will raise hackles. I'm sure many have husbands and boyfriends and friends and brothers who sport each of these styles quite creditably. My own dad is as wont to pull on a pair of the Abercrombie cargo shorts my brother discarded in high school (the latter now wears only skintight jeans even in high summer) as some diminutive pair he bought in the 70s as the denim varietal my mom gets him - all accessorized with black socks pulled all the way up the leg, of course. Obviously plenty of men can transcend the tyranny of style.

It's funny; we don't think of menswear being as transformative - or as fraught - as our daily clothing decisions. But here I saw my boyfriend, who normally doesn't think about clothes, feeling as ill at ease and confused as I often do in a dressing room. And it was weird that something so seemingly functional and basic should provoke the anxiety. In the end, he just lopped the legs off one of his two pairs of pants and called it a day, effectively bowing out. And I've heard other guys express a strange anxiety over shorts: several just don't wear them. "Short pants are for children," said one cryptically, although he's not known for opining about such things. Another revealed, in confidence, that someone once said he had skinny legs, and now he doesn't like to show them. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of women who aren't into shorts, but that sort of anxiety and consideration is not unique, for us, to summer.

• We said our final au revoir to Moe [sniff]
• The McCain campaign said it's final goodbye to tasteful commercials with its eminently mockable Paris-Britney one, its new Moses one and it's kicky Spanish language one.
• Watching Gavin walk a mile in Tracie's shoes made for far, far better viewing.
• We tried it out ourselves, metaphorically speaking, in posts talking about sterilization, teen pregnancy and sex workers.
• Walmart talked to its workers about voting Democratic. It's bad, they think. [HuffPo]
• It might have been cool to be a pretty girl when we were younger, not that it keeps you from getting hurt or getting Photoshopped into something supposedly prettier, but some people think it might help you get a man.

• Obama got taken to task for supposedly not paying enough attention to the issues of the African-American community, and we took a woman to task for making a stupid list about what dudes don't know about her.
• Moe tackled the complexities of mass murderers' psyches and the psyches of female suicide bombers while finding time to weigh in on boy-shorts — but left the even absurder man-tights questions to Sadie and the important questions about the decline of the ladies' magazine industry (to which her departure will certainly contribute) to Dodai.
• Margaret and I got a little obsessed with incest. Yeah, don't ask.

• You knew this already, but Project Runway judge/style tome author/ELLE fashion director Nina Garcia has parted ways with the magazine that made her. At least, ELLE has yet to tell anyone the rumors are false.
  
• Our sources say Garcia came in Friday morning around the hour fashion people usually get to work Friday morning, and was gone with all her earthly possessions by lunch time. Her assistants apparently cried all day, packing the rest of her things.
  
• New rumors are starting to surface that she's "in talks" with ELLE regarding some sort of position there.
  
• We suspect the fact that ELLE fashion news director Anne Slowey and creative director Joe Zee are getting their own Tyra-produced show this fall doesn't exactly make for a great environment. (Coupled with the fact that the magazine's fashion coverage has gotten a million times more interesting since Zee came on board.) But these are just our speculations. Know anything? Drop us a line! [WWD, MediaBistro, NYMag]
  
• And in other very important world news, Project Runway guest judge/style tome author/ELLE covergirl Victoria Beckham's denim line DVB has been dropped by Kitson and Fred Segal. Um, anyone else seeing a trend here? [News of the World]

• A reader wrote in to Guardian fashion writer Hadley Freeman asking when it is okay to wear shorts. Freeman's response? "When it's flipping well warm enough to do so, like, duh." [Guardian]
• Despite the rumors, Kate Moss is not on the outs with lingerie line Agent Provocateur and just shot a wedding-themed ad campaign for them. [This is London]
• Phat Fashions is suing Victoria's Secret for copyright infringement. Apparently, no one can use a frilly letter 'P' but the Phat designers. And while I can't believe I'm saying this, I think it's gonna be Kimora FTW. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoa, Vidal Sassoon was a resistance fighter during WWII?! [Telegraph]
• Elton John: Wears Tom Ford's fragrances! (Also likes that Tom Ford's ads frequently contain naked men? Again, JUST speculation.) [Page Six]
• The John Varvatos store in the old CBGB's space? Could suck more. [Washington Post]
• Yay for Cambodia, the latest country to allow its young female citizens to be exploited by the western world by making them into runway models. (And Cambodia is usually such a leader on the youth exploitation front.) In all seriousness, [ITN]
• Nicholas Huxley, the director of the Sydney Institute's Fashion Design Studio, says Australian women dress "cheap and nasty." [News.com.au]
• Want to have guaranteed success as a jewelry designer? Than go into a career in anything but jewelry design [WWD]
• OMG will or won't Prada go public in June? The suspense is killing me. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Carolina Herrera junior is pregnant again. Just what the world needs: Another kid with a trust fund. [WWD, 2nd item]