Opinion by Siobhan Macdonald
Growing up I have always been interested in fashion and beauty before I knew how to turn these interests into hobbies of my own. I loved awards season and red-carpet fashion, something that I have taken into my 20s with me as well. Watching the Met Gala red carpet is something I look forward to every year.
One thing that used to always come hand in hand with these events, is the best dressed and worst dressed lists.
I remember being 12 looking through the magazines and newspapers in the shops seeing these lists and absolutely cringing at the outfits on the worst-dressed lists. Because, 12-year-old me clearly knows fashion better than the designers who created these dresses, the stylists, hair and make-up artists who all worked for hours to create whichever celebrities look.
Worst dressed lists are something that most papers and magazines have dropped since 2008, unless you’re The Daily Mail. The whole premise of them is to bring women down and make them feel insecure and unhappy after a night that they probably felt beautiful on.
Celebrity stylist Cher Coulter, who works with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley told The Telegraph in 2016: “But thanks to the emergence of these lists, things that should stay in people’s heads are there in black and white for the whole world to see online. The world we live in now is so judgmental and so passive.”
“I think you have to really look at who is judging them. You’re just looking into someone’s own thought bubble. They might not be fashion people or people who understand fashion,” she says.
People have put the rise, and now subsequent fall of these lists as the reason why actresses take less risks on the red carpet. Fashion is meant for self-expression, risk-taking and creativity and as lovely and classic as the little black dress trend is – we do want to see bold choices on the red carpet. It’s easy to understand why people choose the safe option now to avoid the embarrassment and humiliation that would come with being a worst-dressed meme on one of these lists.
The main thing is, fashion is subjective. An outfit or designer that I adore could be the ugliest thing to someone else. My opinion that it’s great, doesn’t make it great or make someone else’s opinion invalid.
Worst dressed lists are the embodiment of everything wrong with the media – women hating whilst acting as if fashion choices are breaking news stories. They perpetuate the idea that it’s okay to dissect woman’s fashion choices as a way to zoom in on their ‘flaws’ for clickbait to pick apart and belittle them.
People are becoming less interested in reading tabloid trash, and just this week #IBlocckedTheMailAndTheSun was trending on Twitter. I say we stick with this by not only blocking media outlets that push hateful messages into our society, but by also blocking out hateful articles such as these worst-dressed lists – no matter what publication they came from.
