Examining style on the iHeartRadio Music Awards 2017 red carpet
By Brittney MacDonald, Life & Style Editor
Are you one of those people who dislikes it when you see other people in outfits or garments similar to your own? Having a personal sense of style is important to most people, but for those who follow trends, it can become difficult to make an outfit your own, and avoid looking like a carbon copy of the mannequin you bought it off of. When learning what you like when it comes to fashion, it can be helpful to examine how something is styled. How you style something is what will set it apart from everyone else who may buy it in the future, because you’re infusing your vision or personality into the outfit. To give an example, let’s look at two similar outfits from the iHeartRadio Music Awards 2017 red carpet.
Both Karrueche Tran and Halsey wore similar silhouettes to the awards event, strutting past paparazzi in oversized pantsuits.
Model and actress Tran wore a red satin Yousef Akbar Resort number, pairing the look with a burgundy lace bralet and simple jewelry and hair. Overall the look was very morning after, like the person she hooked up with the night before was really cool, and offered her some pajamas and told her she could hang out for a bit—maybe do brunch? We can see the attempt to make this look a sophisticated style of sexy. The pretty, expensive-looking lingerie and the muted make-up are details to soften the overt sex appeal—it’s those details that separate taboo from raunchy, and I think Tran is riding that line rather well. The minimalism of the look helps to establish it as almost casual in an effort to make the beauty we see look effortless.
Halsey, though wearing a similar garment, is completely different stylistically. Her tangerine inspired bondage dream was whipped up by Versus Versace, and features tightly cropped pants, an oversized trench coat, and a matching belt. If you’re doubting that these outfits as similar, try to imagine each one on the other person, eliminating the more definitive aspects, such as the belt and the bralet. The overall look is basically the same, and definitely invokes the same morning after imagery. In Halsey’s case, she didn’t stay for brunch, she snuck out while the other person was sleeping.
So what are the stylistic differences? Halsey was going for a more edgy look, which still kept the sexy. In both cases they managed fairly well, as neither Tran nor Halsey look overdone, or like they’re trying too hard. Halsey went even more minimal, because she wanted the attention to remain on the belt and her tattoos to accentuate that edgy rock star vibe. Overall, the look is a lot cleaner than Tran’s, and definitely doesn’t seek to soften anything. Halsey doesn’t want to look natural and effortless, she wants to look like a badass—which is a perfectly admirable goal. In this case, the minimalism is more to accentuate the features of the outfit that are unconventional or non-traditional, as opposed to normalizing them like Tran’s outfit did.
So in the end, who wore it better? Neither of them. These outfits are incredibly ugly and the silhouette does nothing for either of them—but my point remains the same. How you choose to style something is what makes the outfit unique.
