Well, Oscar fashion was historically infirm this year. A few dresses were excitingly bad, but overall, the Red Carpet of 2018 was bloated with enormous lethargy and pigheaded mediocrity. We saw lots of long, baggy, shapeless nonsense, and an alarming collection of necklines that looked like they were prepping for open-heart surgery.

Warning: You won’t be able to unsee these dresses. They are food without flavor. They are jokes without wit. They are wet socks and limp handshakes and chewed-up peas. If you feel all interest in life draining from your veins by the end, that’s good, because it means you actually have a soul. Or at least you did before you looked.

Lupita Nyong’o

Carolyn: Not gonna lie, it looks like they skinned a crocodile. Wild life!

Ashley: It’s a pretty safe dress. Very pageanty.

Gwen: Everyone is expecting Wakanda, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. I don’t hate the dress, I just hate being reminded of the movie in any way. Actually, is that her LEG going on for miles? Never mind, I do hate the dress.

Emily Blunt

Collective: WHOA! What happened?!?

Gwen: Oh Emily, you’re so lovely, but it’s a tissue paper nightmare. “Help, I’m stuck in a gift bag and can’t get out.”

Barbie: A turtle-neck dress with cap sleeves? It looks like she made it herself and doesn’t know how to sew.

Ashley: It’s eating her alive! Five too many ideas. If it didn’t have those sleeves, it’d actually be nice.

Carolyn: I can’t believe we’re actually saying “less fabric.”

Meryl Streep

Gwen: Ew, no. That red is so rude. Everything needs to be hiked up six inches. There’s room for a whole nother head beneath her head.

Naomi: The dress doesn’t look nearly as nice as Meryl can make things look. It’s much too long. And those glasses! GRANDMA!!

Ashley: Looks like a cosplay dress from Princess Bride. She usually has great taste about what’s appropriate. It’s entirely fit issues. And the belt. The belt is an issue.

Carolyn: Any red dress on the Red Carpet is painfully bad, but this particular shade…. You know better. You have your own opinions, Meryl—stick with them.

Melinda: It doesn’t seem age appropriate…

Carolyn: It doesn’t seem anything appropriate.

Danai Guiria

Gwen: Hm, not bad. I’ll give her this: She looks a lot better not Walking Dead.

Ashley: It IS Walking Dead. Look, it’s the shape of the coffin.

Melinda: And she’s wearing the satin lining.

Carolyn: It’s so understated, it’s not saying anything.

Ashley: It does nothing for her. She’s a beautiful, beautiful woman, so anything that makes her look less beautiful is a crime.

Haley Bennett

Collective: <SNORT>

Gwen: Looks like a longhaired hamster took an ink bath.

Carolyn: She grabbed a bush and jumped into it. Striking out, Christian Dior! Striking out.

Ashley: Astro turf dress! Her hair and makeup are both cute, so this could have been so much better as a simple black dress in the same silhouette.

Sally Hawkins

Carolyn: Star Trek happened! 1960s Star Trek.

Melinda: It’s too long and too high!

Ashley: It’s actually age-appropriate, but this is another styling issue. With more polished hair, it’d be better. The dress looks like it simply doesn’t fit.

Gwen: Tragic. Her stylist is a sadist. They hate the feminine form. Poor Sally is trying to fix the hugeness with a belt and good posture but neither are enough.

Nicole Kidman

Collective: OH MY GOSH NOOOOOOO

Carolyn: The color is magnificent with her white blondness—but those huge Southern bows!

Gwen: That slit goes clear up to the Alps right there.

Ashley: I really hope those saddlebags are loaded with snacks.

Gwen: At least she’s not channeling the oil spill this year.

Sandra Bullock

Carolyn: Definitely going for Cleopatra. I do love the impression of falling water.

Ashley: I like the shape, but why is she hiding her pretty neck? Cool texture though—it’s shiny but not prismatic. At least it isn’t high-school shiny. But change the hair! Very Cher hair. Too stark. That part down the middle is…yikes.

Gwen: Unacceptable. Sandra can look RAGINGLY STUNNING. She just paid the other girls to look terrible so she could wear this bizarre thing and look relatively human.

Emma Stone

Collective: WHAT THE—NOOOOOOOOO!!!

Gwen: My eyes! I was not prepared. Putrid. Evil. Ugly, inappropriate, bad to infinity and beyond. The brains that concocted this were scrambled in some evil witch’s brew.

Ashley: Leggings are NOT pants and should not be on the Red Carpet PERIOD. This is MTV awards. It’s not jiving.

Carolyn: It’s a SMOKING JACKET. Red? With the pink bow??

Gwen: Help me out, is that a very pale shirt under there?

Ashley: That is very much NOT a shirt under there.

Jennifer Lawrence

Gwen: Adore her hair!!!! Can she win something for that? Look, she’s got a breathtaking tan and perfect Malibu hair. I want everything on her head. Just ignore the dress. It’s whatever.

Melinda: She needs to pull her top up.

Carolyn: Not flattering. It’s like “I’m wearing armor; am I female enough for you?”

Ashley: It’s actually very pretty, but not groundbreaking. Her tan and hair would be prettier with a contrasting color—like blue. Plus, not to be mean, but I know they’re all wearing like three layers of Spanx and you can still see lumps! So if you’re trying to create the image of perfection—which Jennifer CAN because she’s beautiful—then this is a fail. You’re exposing too much. She would look more stunning less exposed.

Melinda: And she should pull her top up.

Gal Gadot

Collective: <silence>

Carolyn: At least the bottom’s modest. She could wear anything! Why is she wearing this? Picture her in a Rita Hayworth draped satin—she’d kill!

Naomi: It’s a dressing gown!!

Melinda: She needs to pull her top up.

Ashley: The overall palette is wishy-washy. It’s hard to look at any particular thing, like a Magic Eye, constantly trying to see the REAL picture. I could never do Magic Eyes. But her face is incredible! This definitely isn’t showing you off, Gal Gadot. It is not doing your curves any good. “Look at my sternum! Let’s draw ALL attention to this interesting area of blank chest here…”

Gwen: You know, when you could jump rope with your necklace and your neckline is even lower…that’s a hint your neckline might be too low.

Saoirse Ronan

Carolyn: Again with the giant bows! Make it stop, people.

Naomi: She looks like she’s five!

Gwen: Kindergarten graduation.

Ashley: You know when we said hike the hem up…we didn’t mean you, Saoirse!!

Melinda: It needs a belt.

Barbie: A belt wouldn’t help this, Melinda.

Melinda: And they did the part again on her head. It’s like Moses parting the Red Sea! Moses should NOT part the Red Sea through your hair.

Ashley: It’s extremely plain in the front. Lots of puckers on the seams is unacceptable in a haute couture dress.

Margot Robbie

Gwen: What a relief! Everything works except the sleeves.

Carolyn: Those aren’t sleeves, they’re Christmas tinsel. Take off the tinsel, and she’s my Number One.

Melinda: Her purse has a magic-wand look about it.

Ashley: This dress makes her look really nice. But I don’t understand the skirt wrap….plus the slightly different white below. It’s an afterthought.

Barbie: Yeah, she has the opposite problem as Nicole with the slit going up to the Alps.

Gwen: It’s actually a lot like a skating costume, which reminds me never to watch I, Tonya.

Jennifer Garner

Gwen: Love this! Gracious and lovely and magnificent.

Naomi: Love it.

Ashley: It looks like a fun dress to pose in. I would pose all day in that dress.

Carolyn: That’s my winner.

Zendaya

Carolyn: “I’m edgy and I know it, clap my hands…”

Ashley: It looks like it’s melting off her.

Naomi: Chocolate fondue.

Carolyn: Just get rid of the sleeve, make it a one-shoulder dress.

Ashley: And make the top fit; the skirt itself is really pretty.

Gwen: Hairstyle’s weird, but it does show off the beautiful perfection of her head.

Ashley: I’m still concerned that I can’t tell what the top is doing.

Gwen: Are they window blinds? Can I see through those blinds? I don’t want to see anything through those blinds.

Carolyn: Ladies, the bracelet wins.

Viola Davis

Collective: GAHHHH!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING???

Gwen: I’ve been watching her for years and this is the first loser I’ve seen on her. This is knee-knockingly bad.

Carolyn: Pepto-Bismol.

Naomi: It’s the 90s all over again. She raided her daughter’s closet.

Ashley: The main issue is the color and the way the top fits. The bottom is amazing. But the top really makes her look like she’s 22 and she doesn’t need to look 22. Pink is great, but it’s WAY too young.

Gwen: Her hair looks like pigtails! She normally looks so gracious! Can she blink Morse code to let us know she’s under duress?

Carolyn: She’s a beautiful woman—she just missed it. A proper square-neck would fix a lot.

Allison Williams

Carolyn: It works for me.

Melinda: The color is a little…a little…

Gwen: Nudist colony?

Ashley: Great fit, but I’d like it even better in different color. I’m very over the naked dress thing, so let’s just avoid all the naked dresses, ladies. Overall, it’s a comparative success.

Gwen: We’re in trouble when simply LOOKING nude instead of BEING nude is a comparative success. I refuse to be grateful. Where’s her date? I saw her on Tom Holland’s arm earlier. She should borrow his double-breasted blazer. She needs it.

Salma Hayek

Carolyn: <horrified gasp>

Ashley: Oh honey. What is with the severe center part and center whatever that necklace thing is. What is she doing?!!

Gwen: I’ve never seen such self-loathing in a color. And did she run right into a bling cobweb? That contraption is compressing her spine by at least two inches. She’s got a chiropractor appointment between this and the after party. Bulging disc.

Carolyn: It’s purple in all the wrong shades. Gypsy in a bad way. Like one of those ship figureheads!

Melinda: Fortune teller.

Naomi: It looks like Barbie.

Carolyn: Barbie wouldn’t be caught dead in that dress.

Helen Mirren

 Carolyn: My hero! I love this woman.

Gwen: This at least functions as a dress. Can’t believe I’m honestly requesting a lower neckline, but honestly, this is a bib desperate to catch every crumb. The necklace barely saves the day.

Ashley: The fit is perfection.

Carolyn: Thank you. <blows kiss> We will all bow down to a proper-length dress!

Laura Dern

Gwen: Holy smoking HOTNESS.

Carolyn: Score! Love it.

Ashley: It’s low, but dang, she looks so good!! I’m kinda floored. If you’re gonna do cleavage, make it look really good!

Naomi: Just get rid of the center seam.

Kelly Marie Tran

Carolyn: The bottom is amazing. Modesty would help her out tremendously.

Gwen: Whoa. I mean, I agree with the general idea of a halter, but YIKES AHOY!

Ashley: Her hair and makeup beautiful. She was super cute in Star Wars. At least cute-turned-glamorous is fun.

Whoopi Goldberg

Carolyn (petrified): OH MY GOODNESS.

Ashley: I love it.

Gwen: That is disgusting.

Carolyn: I can’t STAND it.

Naomi: Ditch the sunglasses.

Gwen: The pattern reminds me of getting dragged into Joann Fabrics when I was little and the only thing I could do to stay sane was search for the ugliest fabric in the store. Whoopi found it.

Ashley: I like everything about it. She’s a comedian, she’s not supposed to be glamorous. The fabric is really whimsical, I love the color combination, and the fit is tremendous. I like weird stuff and this is awesome and weird in the best way.

Carolyn: This is nature on acid.

Allison Janney

Gwen: WHAT. Her hair is plastered, that red is homicidal, and the neckline looks like she’s on a slab waiting for an autopsy—WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU.

Ashley: She’s very statuesque. This needs a different neckline, but the shape is amazing, if rather costumy. Overall, a more successful Princess Bride cosplay than Meryl Streep.

Melinda: The sleeves are cool.

Carolyn: And the skirt isn’t too long, thank you.

Elizabeth Moss

Ashley: I feel like everything about this dress focuses on whiteness rather than flattering her. Shoulders are wide; off-shoulder is a bad move. And everything is poofy.

Carolyn: Genuinely, she needs less poof.

Gwen: Monochromatic fatigue. Hair, skin, dress are all the same. Go for eye-popping blue or dramatic black or something.

Ashley: It’s really the definition of bland.

Carolyn: Concept bombed.

Frances McDormand

Gwen: OH. MY. WORD. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO GIRLS SHE LOOKS LIKE A DEAD THING.

Ashley: Aw, her face looks great, but the hair does not—does not look good.

Barbie: Ugly Christmas sweater.

Gwen: Heartbreakingly bad. She needs to be gently escorted back into Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day for a makeover. Does nobody love her?

Overall

Ashley: A very blah year. Tons of fit issues. Lack of imagination is a systemic problem in Hollywood in general. Trying to be like “oh, we’re so imaginative,” but really most of the movies were rehashes of other things. Same with the dresses.

Carolyn: They came prepared for a sleepover, not Oscar night. Trump’s stylist picked the dresses this year. It had all the creativity of a 1950s casserole. Campbell soup with a can of beans with gelatin. And meat.

Naomi: Meh, I’m half asleep already. <snore>

Michelle: Underwhelming.

Barbie: A lot of repeats. Red, blue, or no color at all.

Melinda: Were we too mean?

Carolyn: Let it be written down: the WRONG RED. They need Marilyn Monroe red.

Gwen: People have gone DOWNHILL since we started. This was tasteless in the astonishing extreme.

Melinda: Yeah, there were a lot of plain dresses and very bad material. And the shoulder pads are really bad. And Moses parting the Red Sea through their hair is really bad.

Gwen: Good job being mean, Mel.