Fan Bingbing in Christopher Bu
I mean. From the front, Fan Bingbing is the clear winner to me. That golden sheath could not be more immaculately tailored, and you can see just enough of the cape details to know it's also spectacular. "China: Through The Looking Glass" was a theme people seemed to want to embrace, yet did a very uneven and often surface job to me, and I'm bummed (but not surprised) more of them didn't turn to Chinese designers. I suspect they took one look at this and had big regrets.
Rihanna in Guo Pei
This dress weighed 55 pounds -- and apparently that was the slimmed-down version -- and took 20 months to make, plucked from a 2010 couture collection. Rihanna told Vanity Fair last year that she felt "like a clown" in it as they circled the block, fearing that she'd gone way overboard and that everyone would laugh at her. And there were omelette and fried-egg memes, but honestly... that's dumb and she looks RESPLENDENT and she's f'ing Rihanna. Guo Pei said only she could wear this, and I think that's true. She looks sexy as hell wrapped in a fur-trimmed cape.
This is so beautiful. It bears repeating. What else can you say? This is the more accessible dress, in terms of "Could anyone else/could I ever imagine myself in this?" It's no less exquisite but easier to imagine shouldering.
But this is... THIS. I saw this in person a couple years ago and it was breathtaking. It makes perfect use of the stairs. I guess people have sincerely referred to this as "the omelette dress," but to me it's just THE DRESS. OMG THE DRESS. I'm enamored of it -- a perfect union of wearer and gown and event.
I'm not trying to sway the vote at all; I just didn't have any other pictures of Fan Bingbing, and had forgotten this one.
