Simplicity rules for Oscars fashion

Six hours since I sat down to watch my first ever full-length Oscars ceremony, I've come to a few conclusions regarding the spectacle of excess that was.

We saw somewhere in the realm of a hundred incredible gowns, but what kept popping into my mind was the mind-boggling irrelevance of it all.

We're barely out of a recession, we're living in a world where a woman can battle a man - and beat him - to win a Best Director Oscar, so why does she have to do it in a dress she can barely walk in? The whole institution of elaborate, wildly-costly gowns (works of art though they may be), seems as archaic as corsetry.

So with all that in mind, my best dressed lady award goes to Maggie Gyllenhaal in deep-blue, graphically patterned Dries Van Noten - beautiful in its simplicity and a breeze to wear.

As for the men, I'd have to say the opposite. I was thinking before the ceremony that it'd be nice to see some guys do something completely different, but it's my opinion that the best dressed men were the most traditional. Ryan Seacrest in his perfectly tailored shawl-collared Burberry tuxedo, Colin Firth in Tom Ford, Tom Ford in Tom Ford. It's the age-old male adage: if it ain't broke, why fix it?

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