It would have been understandable – even of course – if those present of the Grammy Awards had decided to be modest. If they had chosen to seem to be watered down and to argue that the trauma is still being visited on Los Angeles in the aftermath of the wild burning, in simple black suits and equally simple dresses. If they had limited their fashion statements to the small blue hearts that were worn on so many lapels in honor of the reconstruction efforts, the way in which host Trevor Noah has been able to concentrate on the fundraising for fire brigade victims. That is really what everyone expected.
But that’s not what happened. They grew up instead. They went, if something, wilder and wackier – more la – than ever before. Not only exaggerated, but exaggerated and around the bend. It would be tempting to criticize the dress as a deaf, apart from the fact that it is also possible to see it as a very public scream of challenging in the light of a disaster; A refusal to admit to giving up and a celebration of the pure glory of character. Or characters.
Chappell Roan made her entrance in a cut Jean Paul Gaultier Tulle confection from 2003, printed with images of Degas Ballerinas, before he turned into a Robin’s Egg Blue Corseted Thom Browne number, before he turned into an arched Acne Studios Frock to grant its allocation Accept to accept her her allocation for the best new artist. Lady Gaga wore a customized black leather Samuel Lewis dress with puffed sleeves and a voluminous skirt that seemed to her as a Gothic version of Queen Victoria in Mourning – not for Albert, but Altadena – and then eliminated it for a comparable historicist Vivienne Westwood corset look. Dechii offered four Thom Browne versions of the non-so-small gray suit, culminating one with a giant puffball from a pinstriped skirt.
Sabrina Carpenter has channeled Olde Hollywood in an ice blue silk satin spring-trimmed JW Anderson-Negligee and a golden crystal mesh va-voom Versace-column, just like Cardi B in loverslopard Roberto Cavalli. Charli XCX wore 230 yards from Schipwruit Jean Paul Gaultier Couture. Alicia Keys looked like Renaissance Royalty in Gilded Dolce & Gabbana.
And so it went.
There were pearls everywhere about Teddy Swims’s Cafe au Lait Suit, a whole flower shop on top of Avery Wilson’s, a castle on the head of Jaden Smith and hectare Eco-leather edge that ran around the neck of Shaboozey’s diesel jacket. And there was the naked look (well, there is always the naked look), thanks to the shocking appearance of Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, but also thanks to the pure Christian Siriano dress by Chrissy Teigen with strategically placed swirls, Madison Beer’s Sheer Miss Sohee with strategically placed beads and the pure … t-shirt from Julia Fox. With underwear.
Willow Smith was not even concerned with the tee. She just wore a glittering bra and tights that was put under her McQueen jacket.
The red carpet can be many things, especially during the award season. It can be an invaluable marketing option for a fashion house. (See: Schiahararelli, who dressed Beyoncé in the Golden Grande, Bandanna print, body-conscious sliter of a dress and matching opera gloves for her historical album of the year victory.) It can be a personal brand option for a familiarity. It can be boring and superficial and completely removed from reality.
Fashion is easy to reject as a frivolous. But there is a reason that it survives even in the worst times. The desire to dress up can also, as this year’s Grammy demonstrated, be proof of faith: in beauty, creation, possibility.
And in this case, in the permanent magic of Los Angeles, the city is made up of fantasy, make-alive and the power of imagination, wherever things become and they can still be pretty bad dreams.
