November 2001
Two words: lace-up jeans.
June 2002
My favorite part about all these retrospectives is how TERRIBLE everyone's shoe choices were in the early aughts. NOBODY had any idea what to do with their feet. Sadly, Anne also had no idea what to do with her chest. Hopefully someone introduced her to underwire after this.
July 2002
I am fascinated by the kitten-heeled prayer circle happening behind her, but let's not overlook THE BELT. You know that's one of those items where, when she got it, she was like, "THIS IS GOING TO COMPLETE ME," and she was so excited to bust it out. And now she probably looks at this photo and wonders why she's wearing a purse strap from 1985.
July 2002
Nipples 101: Keep a lid on them.
December 2002
Terrible fit, even more terrible boots. They're so witchy with this gown. And not in a fun way where you secretly want to take the witch out for cocktails after she ruins the goody-two-shoes heroine.
January 2003
This happened. AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES, no less. Remember when they used to be a crackathon? I wish she'd wear this again, on its tenth anniversary.
September 2003
Don't blame Anne. It was probably a full moon and her nipples just needed to howl.
February 2004
Okay, she legitimately looks like a deranged Real Housewive of Somplace Full of Awful People.
February 2004
And NOW she looks like that girl in high school who told everyone she was going to become a model, and that she had a real big scout interested in her headshots, only to end up standing on a rotating dais next to a car.
March 2004
She wore a dress over ratty jeans to the premiere of HER OWN MOVIE. It boggles the mind.
April 2004
Somewhere, Dilbert is getting super turned on by this.
December 2004
This is the first time she's even really looked REASONABLE at anything.
February 2005
I guess in 2005 people STILL hadn't figured out the shoe thing. Also, that's not really sexy cleavage; it's a breakfast special. Syrup for your pancakes, milady?
February 2005
Hateful, spiteful trousers. In fact, I think that entire outfit on the right cost $29.99 before tax at Forever 21. Which would be fine if it didn't also LOOK like it, AND she was at Fashion Week. Man, I wish we'd been covering it back then. The field day we'd have had...
April 2005
Anne's dress-shirt is going through a very tumultuous time of hormonal changes, so please let's all be sympathetic to its struggles.
June 2005
This was for the Tony Awards, and it is hellacious. The skirt parted to reveal a slit up to the thigh, but frankly, my first stop would be surgery on the kelly green straps and bow. The whole thing is ripped from a Project Runway challenge where you have to make a dress out of anything in Candy Spelling's gift-wrapping room.
June 2005
Wow. This may be one of the worst incarnations of this trend that I've ever seen, and it was from MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS AGO. It makes The Return of the Sheers even more egregious. She looks convex. YOUR ABDOMEN IS NOT A LENS, ANNE.
September 2005
This was in support of Brokeback Mountain, and if you think I'm NOT note that it's appearing to squeeze both breasts out the left side of the dress at once and then make a Brokeboob Mountain joke, then you don't know me/have a higher opinion of my maturity than is warranted.
December 2005
... I guess? Certainly it's a winning look by comparison.
January 2006
I remember disliking this at the time -- her makeup is overpowering her face, and the dress is not making friends with her chest.
June 2006
And THIS dress has officially made an ENEMY of her chest. She wore this for The Devil Wears Prada, and for a movie about fashion, I really think a bigger premium should've been put on her looking great.
September 2006
Ninth-grade party dress.
September 2006
This is actually pretty great on her (she wore it in Venice for Devil Wears Prada). I'd say maybe darker eyes or a redder lip, but at least we're finally seeing something regal out of her.
September 2006
This turns her abs into a charity ribbon.
September 2006
Everything about those pants is making my spirit convulse. Not that the shirt is a picnic, either, but the pants are so painful that I can't even think about the rest.
November 2006
Ooh la la, Miss Hathaway. A bit sexy, no? It has potential, but I'm seeing far too much buttockial detail. It all screams "What Donald Trump's Next Wife Will Wear As Her Fourth Wedding-Day Costume Change." With apologies to Melania for my dim view of his lasting marriage prospects.
February 2007
I ALSO hated this at the time. Just the bow on the back might've been a witty surprise, but with the one on the front, it's too aggressive -- and worse, that bow exacerbates that the dress isn't too flattering from that view, either.
July 2007
Her facial expression indicates that Anne is as fond of this dress as I am. Which is to say, burn it.
November 2007
Noooooooo.
Feb 2008
This was from the nascent days of Marchesa -- Anne wore it to the Oscars -- back when most of what we thought they did was draping. LITTLE DID WE KNOW. I don't hate this; I maybe liked it better at the time than I do now, though. The flowers look cheap, like a Party City lei.
March 2008
GOOD GRIEF. Even the spirit fingers aren't selling it.
July 2008
Oh, but THIS is pretty and elegant. If memory serves, Anne promoting Get Smart means that her creepy potential scam-artist beau had just gone to prison, which is when she kind of came out of her shell a little and, wisely, rubbed it in his face by looking fantastic even though he'd just completely and thoroughly embarrassed her.
September 2008
This dress is insanity. Then again, she WAS in Cannes, which is the place to go insane. Oddly, I'd have liked it better if it were completely full-length. The short part makes it look silly; full volume AND full-length would've been a statement.
September 2008
Okay, she looks fantastic here. Jaunty, stylish, ladylike with an edge... yes. This should be on an inspiration board somewhere at Kristen Stewart's stylist's abode.
September 2008
Hmm. Is it gorgeous, or is it a rug? Or both?
January 2009
I really wanted to like this, but there are a few bits that don't add up on her, like the dropped waist for example. But the color is stunning.
January 2009
Wonderful.
February 2009
And I REALLY liked this. Shimmery and romantic, and flattering. Hurrah. Unfortunately for her, this was, I believe, the Oscars where she got up in a different dress and sang with Hugh Jackman, and after she hit and held a high note, she stood on stage with her arms spread wide, staring up at the sky with her eyes closed, and did that thing where she flicked her fingers at herself as if to say, "Come on, you guys, I'd better get some applause for this, because YOU ARE BEING SERVED," and all goodwill I was building toward her evaporated.
May 2009
She looks kind of like Liv Tyler to me here. Also, that's absurd. The Met Ball is not a gynecological conference.
June 2009
If I couldn't see through the skirt in parts, this would've worked for me.
October 2009
If this were a totally different oufit, it would've worked for me.
February 2010
Somebody please give this girl a few inches for Valentine's Day, okay? And I don't mean that in a pervy way, although her character was a phone-sex operator, so maybe she'd appreciate the wordplay.
February 2010
Needs to be floor-length, for one thing. Actually, something about the design of the draping makes me think she brought in a photo of Helena Bonham Carter and said, "Make me look like this, but disco, and less homeless."
May 2010
I just loved this. I know it's nude, and snore, but it's perfect and princessy and glowing on her -- and it's SO MUCH BETTER than the satin napkin she wore to the other Met Ball. Also, we need to discuss that SURELY she will be invited to this year's, and now that she's gone crackadoodle with her taste in clothes, I am deeply excited about what she might do.
October 2010
Even on Halloween, there is no excuse for those cocktail pajamas.
November 2010
I want to cut off that stale bow. I also want to pretend this movie doesn't exist.
January 2011
At the time we didn't like this, and it was controversial. But the Anne Hathaway of yore didn't really have the innate attitude for this dress; current Anne Hathaway does, a little, and I can apply some of that in retrospect and tolerate this more. Still, I want to carve the sleeve right off this. It'd have been sexier that way.
February 2011
Anne wore this on the red carpet the night she co-hosted the Oscars with James Franco, a.k.a., the night that would've killed a lesser person's career. The entire slideshow of what she wore all night is worth looking at again, because there's some good and great and then wonky stuff in there. But this was what she chose for the big dog and pony show up front, so this is what I put in this piece. I don't care for it -- it looks like it's pulling tight in some places, and overly ornate in others.
August 2012
Anne performed much better in support of One Day than she did in the movie. Going through this slideshow made me realize that I have rarely ever liked an Anne Hathaway movie. I'll go with The Princess Diaries but only the first one, Get Smart because I thought it was a fun update that took away a lot of the annoying characteristics of Maxwell Smart, and probably Les Miserables. I liked her parts of The Dark Knight Rises, too, and I don't count Brokeback Mountain because it really wasn't an Anne Hathaway joint. Most of the movies she has been asked to carry, though, I don't actually like. I guess she's a supporting-actress kind of lady for me.
July 2012
The Batman press tour was not a high point, although I am sure she did a stirring dance by the May Pole.
September 2012
An unholy terror.
December 2012
And BOOM: Great hair, lots of volume, and some dashes of Rooney Mara edge, which I guess is in short supply since Rooney finished the Dragon Tattoo circuit and receded into a (temporarily, I'm sure) quiet life of shooting movies and not doing press. The evolution of Anne Hathaway has certainly been an intriguing one. She's beginning to get a better idea of what fits her -- a long time in coming -- and she's also starting to play with drama. But is her taste writing checks her aura can't cash? I hope so, because that's way more fun.