The red carpet raises all kinds of questions. What is the age range of a feather boa? Sequins: mutton or lamb? In the face of the carping and scrutiny, Paltrow has issued a bold sartorial retort
T
he 50s are an awkward decade for women on the red carpet. So, the Oscars, being the ultimate red carpet, are like a dramatisation of the awks, a silent movie told in One Dress After Another. It’s complicated by the convention that “over 50” and “in her 50s” are the same category for Hollywood, the existence of a greater age being so anathema to the condition of womanhood that it’s more tactful not to mention it. Sigourney Weaver (76) is an “Oscars over 50”, as is Goldie Hawn (80).
The case of Hawn was particularly confusing this year. When she was pictured alongside her daughter, Kate Hudson (46), they became the same age, it being semantically easier to pretend that “nearly-50 to 100” is a continuous phase of woman than to brook the idea of an age beyond “middle”.
Anyway, the main problem for actors in their 50s, wardrobe-wise, has traditionally been: are you supposed to dress as your screen age, probably that of the mother or grandmother of a man who is only four years younger than you? Or would it be better to dress as a timeless romantic interest, which would put you 20 years younger than the same man and open you up to criticism such as: “What on earth is she doing showing her upper arms?” Since there is no way for a 50-year-old to exist in fiction, she has no wardrobe in real life, either.
