The Grammy Looks Bring a Welcome Hit of Joy

It would have been understandable — even natural — if the attendees of Sunday night’s Grammy Awards had decided to go subdued. If they had opted to appear toned down and quietly respectful of the trauma still being visited on Los Angeles in the wake of the wild fires, in simple black suits and equally simple dresses. If they had limited their fashion statements to the little blue hearts worn on so many lapels in honor of the rebuilding efforts, the way host Trevor Noah toned down his jokes to focus on the fund-raising for fire victims. That’s really what everyone was expecting.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, they went big. They went, if anything, wilder and wackier — more L.A. — than ever before. Not just over the top, but over the top and around the bend. It would be tempting to criticize the dress as tone deaf, except it is also possible to see it as a highly public shout of defiance in the face of disaster; a refusal to give in to giving up and a celebration of the sheer glory of character. Or characters.

Chappell Roan made her entrance in a corseted Jean Paul Gaultier tulle confection from 2003, printed with images of Degas ballerinas, before changing into a robin’s-egg blue corseted Thom Browne number, before changing into a bow-bedecked Acne Studios frock to accept her award for best new artist. Lady Gaga donned a custom black leather Samuel Lewis gown with puffed sleeves and a voluminous skirt that made her look like a gothic version of Queen Victoria in mourning — not for Albert, but Altadena — and then switched it out for a similarly historicist Vivienne Westwood corseted look. Doechii offered up four Thom Browne versions of the not-so-little gray suit, culminating in one with a giant puffball of a pinstriped skirt.

Sabrina Carpenter channeled olde Hollywood in an ice blue silk satin feather-trimmed JW Anderson negligee and a gold crystal mesh va-va-voom Versace column, as did Cardi B in sequined leopard Roberto Cavalli. Charli XCX wore 230 yards of shipwrecked Jean Paul Gaultier couture. Alicia Keys looked like Renaissance royalty in gilded Dolce & Gabbana.

And so it went.

There were pearls all over Teddy Swims’s cafe au lait suit, an entire flower shop atop Avery Wilson’s, a castle on Jaden Smith’s head and acres of eco-leather fringe that looped around the neck of Shaboozey’s Diesel jacket. And there was the naked look (well, there’s always the naked look), courtesy of the shocking appearance of Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, but also thanks to Chrissy Teigen’s sheer Christian Siriano gown with strategically placed swirls, Madison Beer’s sheer Miss Sohee with strategically placed beads, and Julia Fox’s sheer … T-shirt. With undies.

Willow Smith didn’t even bother with the tee. She wore just a glittering bra and panty set under her McQueen coat.

The red carpet can be many things, especially during award season. It can be a priceless marketing opportunity for a fashion house. (See: Schiaparelli, which dressed Beyoncé in the gold-beaded, bandanna-print, body-conscious slither of a gown and matching opera gloves for her historic album of the year win.) It can be a personal branding opportunity for a celebrity. It can be boring and superficial and entirely removed from reality.

Fashion is easy to dismiss as frivolous. But there is a reason that even in the worst times, it survives. The desire to dress up can also, as this year’s Grammys showed, be a testament to belief: in beauty, creation, possibility.

And in this case, in the enduring magic of Los Angeles, the city built out of fantasy, make-believe and the force of imagination, where no matter how bad things get — and they can get pretty bad — dreams somehow still survive.