Golden Globes: The Errors of Autumns

At the 2011 Golden Globes, Autumn celebrities did not miss the color mark as widely as their Winter colleagues (see my earlier post below) - but the hits were few and far between. Here, some of the evening's biggest Autumn let-downs, along with a few pleasant surprises.

Julianne Moore

I adore Julianne Moore, as an actress and as a great beauty. She's an interesting Autumn; her coloring's warm, deep, vivid and delicate at the same time. When she gets it right - which is often - she's startlingly lovely:

So it was sad to see her get it so very, very wrong at the GGs.  All her redheaded loveliness wiped out by this totally wrong color:

Now, Julianne can take a fair bit of brightness, though perhaps not this much. The biggest problem is with the hue itself.  There's nothing in her skin, eyes or hair that this color calls to. We see Julianne and her natural colors up top, and we see the color of the dress below, and never the twain shall meet. It's Julianne vs. the dress, and the dress wins.  Just sad.

Another example of an Autumn existing on a different plane than her garment was Jennifer Lopez.

There's glorious, golden Jennifer. Then there's this icy white ensemble. Nothing connects them. JLo is lost.

Surely you've seen how gloriously golden this Autumn girl can look! -

 - even with those darn icy earrings. I'd include a pic of her in a beautiful Autumny gown, but they're very hard to find. JLo seems irresistibly drawn to cool, pale looks that are disconnected from her natural beauty. Maybe she wants to look interesting rather than beautiful... who knows? I personally think beautiful is interesting.

Eva Longoria was a let-down. And not because Deep Autumns can't wear black. After all, the hair often has black tones. But Deep Autumns need contrast, and they certainly need some warmth. This look provides neither.

On a person with black already in the hair and eyes, the black gown doesn't create much contrast. And once again, the irrepressible warmth of this Autumn's skin (even the black dress  reduces but doesn't eliminate it) seems totally detached from her dress. It's as if they're from different photos.

Here's Eva looking more like herself in a dramatic, warm and powerful color:

The bright, warm red contrasts strongly with Eva's natural colors while calling out to them at the same time. The gown emanates from her.

(But is the blush a bit too orange? Methinks so...)

Of course I couldn't spare Angelina, having devoted an entire blog post to convincing everyone that she's a Soft Autumn.

Now, to see what I'm seeing in this pic, you have to remind yourself that Angelina is incredibly, amazingly beautiful, and will never, ever look truly bad in anything. Ever. So when you see her here and think "She looks pretty good!" - well, of course she does. But I don't think it's her best.

Always, I'm looking for balance: balance of saturation, balance of value, balance of temperature. In other words, I'm asking "Are Angelina and the gown the same brightness? The same lightness? The same warmth?"

In this case, I feel strongly that the gown's much brighter than she is. A Soft should be able to glow with subtle luminosity in the correct soft color. Here, we notice the shine of the dress much more than we notice any shine from Angie.

For a green that balances her instead of outshining her, how about this?

An older photo, and a different setting, but still. The dress is more matte than shiny, and the color's much more muted (not to mention more warm), and I'm looking at Angelina's face. That's the real test.

On a very, very happy note, I was delighted to see this on the GG red carpet:

Dianna Agron

Talk about balance! Everything is equally soft, warm and medium-light. I'm usually loathe to praise any look that includes very unnatural hair color, but Dianna Agron is just gorgeous here. (The natural hair would have been even more glorious,  imho, but moving on...)

Note that Warm and Deep Autumns won't be flattered by this kind of monochromatic look. On a Soft Autumn, though, it can be heavenly.

And for one more Soft Autumn who got it right, check out Kelly MacDonald.

Again, balance. Gown and makeup are soft, warmish and medium-light, as she is. I'm  loving the natural hair color, of course.

I couldn't find good examples of Warm and Deep Autumns who nailed it, sorry to say. But that could just be my natural Soft Autumn bias noticing my SA ladies more.  If you spotted some great WAs and DAs at the GGs, please share them with me. If I agree, I'll put them up.