Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the worst dressed of them
all? Mr. Blackwell was the one to answer this vital question for decades. He
knew that fame and recognition can’t bring good taste and that a
well-cultivated fashion eye can’t possibly be taken for granted. Mr. Blackwell
did not fear to highlight the style crimes of celebrities, including legendary
actresses, singers and, why not, queens. No, I’m not talking about the Queen of
Pop (maybe he took on her, too). Mr. Blackwell criticized the outfits of Queen
Elizabeth, whom he wrote about, “From her majesty to her travesty,” as well as the
fashion sense of eclectic figures such as Brigitte Bardot, Barbra Streisand,
Bette Midler, Madonna and Marilyn Monroe.
He did not take too lightly their talent and outstanding
aptitudes. On the contrary, Mr. Blackwell expressed his admiration toward many
of the celebrities whose taste in clothes he often disparaged. But this did not
stop him from creating a new world of fashion, where designers counted too
little and flair managed to make a difference.
Unfortunately, icons fade away, too, and Mr. Blackwell
passed away on Sunday afternoon at Cedars
Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles due to complications from an
intestinal infection, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll. He was 86.
He may have been an actor and model, but Mr. Blackwell eventually
resorted to fashion design, a domain in which he enjoyed partial success.
Nevertheless, Mr. Blackwell, with some help from his popular tops of what he deemed
as the most outrageous in fashion, facilitated the popularization of the more
or less acid style remarks that take aim at distinguished figures by making fun
of their personal fashion sense or… non-sense.
Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Meryl Streep
and Lindsay Lohan are only a few actresses whose names have constantly filled
the worst dressed women lists of Mr. Blackwell. “With plump bosoms, rounded
hips, makes one think of the rebirth of the zeppelin,” he wrote about the
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” star, while he said about Zsa Zsa Gabor that
she reminded him of the “elephant in ‘Jumbo’ with all its glittering
trappings.”
More recently, Mr. Blackwell’s fashion trained eye focused
on Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, whose fashion sense he criticized
repeatedly, explaining that the two nowadays stars are like “two peas in an
overexposed pod.”
Mr. Blackwell’s 48th annual list was also his
last and featured Victoria Beckham as the worst dressed woman of the year. “Forget
the fashion spice - wearing a skirt would suffice! In one skinny-mini
monstrosity after another, pouty posh can really wreck-em,” he said of Posh
Spice, who was followed in the ranking by Amy Winehouse and Mary Kate Olsen.
He sometimes praised some celebrities for their good taste
in clothes, naming Joan Crawford and Audrey Hepburn in the 1960s, as well as
Nicole Kidman subsequently.
Born Richard Sylvan Selzer, Mr. Blackwell depicted in his
autobiography, “From Rags to Bitches,” an uneasy, paucity-dominated youth that
put him in the position of a shirker, crook and prostitute. However, he managed
to climb to the top and he will surely remain there, because if there’s one
thing that’s immortal in this world, it can’t be anything else but fashion.
