Hot or Hot Mess: Evan Rachel Wood in Alessandra Rich at the Venice Film Festival

By Charlotte

If you read this column regularly you will know that I rarely move from the fence. I like the fence. Plus, the deciding factor is always up to you. I like picking outfits that I’m not quite sure how I feel about. So here we are, another outfit of indifference.

Evan Rachel Wood wore this Alessandra Rich dress to the Venice Film Festival this week. The dress is almost a big-girl shirt dress, with a cinched in waist and full skirt with a thigh-high slit.

I absolutely love white dresses (despite it now being past Labour Day- please ignore that old rule!) and I love how this one is sophisticated and doesn’t have that bride-y look about it. But I’m still not too crazy about it. I’m not a huge fan of shirt dresses, maybe because I personally, can’t pull them off. I usually find them shapeless and unflattering. While this is neither shapeless nor unflattering, I’m just not sold.

I think this is a brave and unusual choice, but it is a strange juxtaposition of seeming a little casual on the top half and then incredibly elegant on the bottom half. Maybe it’s the material. I don’t know, I feel this will divide people. In some respects it’s perfectly old Hollywood, in other respects it’s a very posh men’s shirt.

The shoes I like, but not with this dress. There aren’t many black accents in the outfit and they seem a little too much of a stark contrast. Makeup I love, and while I see where they were going with the hair, I think it would have been nice to have had something a little more dramatic.

But what do you think, hot or hot mess?