New York Times rags on George Clooney's lack of red carpet style

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White Tie? Missed the Tux Memo

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From left at the Oscars, Jean Dujardin, in Lanvin, and Alexandra Lamy; Billy Crystal; George Clooney, in Armani, and Stacy Keibler.

By GUY TREBAY
Published: February 29, 2012

IT’S all about the fit and the details, men’s wear experts like Tom Kalenderian of Barneys New York and Michael Hainey of GQ said in a pre-Oscars article about evening wear for men, “How to Wear a Tux,” that ran in Thursday Styles last week. In particular: a point-to-point fit on the shoulders, a proper trouser break, a flash of white cuff to break the wall of black and accurate collar dimensions to keep guys from looking as if they’re wearing horse collars or a noose.

George Clooney, eagle-eyed readers complained after last week’s article appeared, tends to wear his Armani trousers puddled around his feet and he did it again at Sunday night’s awards. (He also looked as if he should have taken a tip from the ladies and spent the last month pushing away from the table: Mr. Clooney’s suit jacket looked like a corset on a barrel.) Meanwhile, Brian Grazer, the show’s producer, seemed to have borrowed a shirt from his older brother, and Antonio Banderas was one of many who fell into the increasingly common solecism of wearing a businesslike four-in-hand tie with an evening jacket, something that caused Tom Ford to say, “When I see men doing that, I go right up to them and say, ‘This is awful, just wrong.’ ”

Naturally, there were others (like Jean Dujardin, winner of the best actor award for “The Artist”) who strayed toward wing collars, a style best left to the guy carrying the drinks tray. And Billy Crystal, the baloney-colored host, wore anachronistic white tie, as if he were about to set sail for a dinner cruise aboard the Good Ship Lollipop.

Still, there were men who used this impeccable uniform to fine advantage.

Tom Hanks was a walking demonstration of what tailoring is intended to do — everything gravity and the good life can do to a man’s body neatly accounted for in his full-shouldered, double-breasted, six-button Tom Ford tuxedo.

The DreamWorks production designer Raymond Zibach was as crisp and graphic as newsprint (remember that?). Christian Bale, in gangster black, upended convention and yet, mostly because he is as thin as a knife blade, managed to make the suit look suitable and personal, an editorial commentary by a man raised in a circus family on just how respectable show people are obliged to be.