Dancing with the Stars – Who Wore it Better, Part V
…and the fun continues! Alright fashion critics, have at it 😉
On a side note, we have to give a very special thanks to our friend Marcela, who frequents this site all the way from Brazil! Marcela was kind enough to share with us many dittoes that she had found, and even sent us side-by-side pictures of them. Marcela, here’s a big “Obrigado!” from all of us here at Pure DWTS…you rock! 😀
Battle of the black & white floral-print ballgown: Brooke’s quickstep with Derek in season 7 vs. Cheryl in the pro dance to Michael Buble in season 9
Courtney: Hmmmm. I’m not hugely fond of this dress, so I think it’s making it hard for me to figure out who it looks better on. I think it probably suits Brooke’s body a bit better (surprise, surprise…that woman could make a burlap sack look good!), but I’m not a fan of the severely pulled-back side bun hair they gave her. I think it doesn’t suit Cheryl’s body quite as well, but I think her loose, carefree hair & hoop earrings better suit the breezy feel of the dress. I dunno…I’m defaulting to Heidi.
Heidi: Does liking Brooke’s partner better count?? 🙂 Seriously though, look at both of the men – I think you’ll note that the men’s outfits match the hairstyles on the ladies. They made Brooke much more formal, to complement Derek’s dinner jacket and bow tie and slick hair, whereas Cheryl’s hair is more loose and flowy which compliments Jonathan’s lack of jacket and undone bow tie. BOTH couples are very finished, for what they are trying to portray.
The winner: Have to call it a draw for two complete ensembles – men included. 😉
Battle of the gold-fringe Latin dress: Chelsie’s salsa with Ty in season 8 vs. Nicole’s jive with Derek in the season 10 finale
Heidi: Derek and Nicole’s Jive was just fan-flippin-tastic – and that includes seriously rocking that dress. Chelsie might be too sweet to be that fierce. And that ain’t no jive talkin’. 😉
Courtney: Now as fierce as both these ladies look in this sparkler, I’ve gotten give it to Nicole – she just slightly out-fierces Chelsie with that fabulous hair flip. That jive was seriously awesome – and Tina herself sure knows how to rock a gold fringe dress!
The winner: Nicole, by a Tina Turner ‘tude
Battle of the hot pink, cut-out ballgown with matching gloves: Kym’s foxtrot with David in season 8 vs. Melissa’s preseason photo shoot with Mark in season 9
Courtney: This gown is just adorable – reminds me so much of Marilyn Monroe’s dress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes…which is why I think it looks so cute on both of these lovely blonde ladies 😉 Love Melissa’s 40’s-esque finger waves, but I also love Kym’s tighter curls. In the end, though, I just have to give this one to Kym – while I don’t particularly remember David well that season (except for his rather embarrassing exit speech), I do remember Kym just working it in this foxtrot, and this dress just sparkling away as she moved. Therefore, I must give this one to our favorite Aussie blonde 😀
Heidi: They both do look awesome. But when you mention Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it made me think of Marlee Matalin’s dance with Derek, Mark, Fabian Sanchez and Genya Mazo and I ran to check the video. Nah. Not the same dress as Marlee. 😉 ANYway, I have to give it to Kym too – that body is hard to beat and I just like her personality better anyway.
The winner: Kym, for being the Aussie answer to Marilyn herself!
Battle of the itty-bitty, coral one-sleeve Latin dress: Edyta’s cha-cha with Jason in season 6 vs. Julianne’s pro dance with Derek to Jennifer Hudson in season 7
Heidi: That Julianne had the guts to wear a dress AFTER Edyta wore it – well, I have to hand it to her. Girl is brave. Of course she works it just as well as Edyta, so why not? I like it better with Julianne’s coloring, I think.
Courtney: This has got to be one of the TINIEST costumes I’ve ever seen on the show – and that’s saying something, considering that Edyta is, to quote Lawrence Taylor “allergic to clothes”, hehe. Not that I blame Edyta at all – as I’ve said before, if I had a body that fabulous, you’d have to put me in a nudist colony, because I would be naked ALL THE TIME. However, this dress looks too much to me like many of the others Edyta has worn, while the look is a little more surprising on Julianne – the coral looks surprisingly flattering on her. So kudos to Julianne for out-Edytaing Edyta!
The winner: Julianne for bravery. 😉
Battle of the yellow & orange overdye Latin dress: Julianne’s salsa with Cody in season 7 vs. Lisa’s quickstep with Mayo in the new pro contest in season 8
Courtney: I found it very, very strange that they opted to put Lisa in a Latin dress to do a quickstep – I guess they were trying to fit the whole “Walking on Sunshine” theme with the colors of the dress. But it just looks so mismatched up to Mayo – he’s so covered & dark and she’s so…bare. And I hate that shaggy haircut of hers – I feel like it totally obscures her face. Now Julianne, on the other hand, is just an absolute delight in this dress – can you believe this was only about a week after her appendectomy?!
Heidi: Girlfriend did one hell of a jive with Derek a week after her appendectomy, so yes, I can believe it. 😉 This one is kind of a toss up for me – Lisa cut off the tail of the dress and the colors look better with her tan, but her hair and her overinflated lips get me every time. Love Julianne, but she added a huge flower up near the shoulder that I can’t get behind, plus it took me a minute or two to figure out that the tail of the dress was wrapped around her right leg. Don’t know what she’s got around her left ankle. Anyway, I guess I find the flower and the tail less egregious than the hair and the lips. 😉
The winner: Julianne, for normal lips.
Battle of the fringed, zebra-print Latin dress: Mel B’s jive with Maks in season 5 vs. Lacey’s preseason photo shoot in season 7
Heidi: I kind of find this dress awful. And Lacey didn’t follow the “take one thing off” rule before she left the house. 😉 That said, I like it better on her because of the gloves and the red hair. Add in that I am SO NOT a Mel fan and well….Lacey wins. 😉
Courtney: Another dress I just don’t particularly care for – looks like something off the sale rack at Wet Seal. However, I do think it fits both ladies’ feisty personalities well. I guess I’ll go with Lacey – the streaks of red in her hair offer a nice pop of color to offset the black & white in the dress.
The winner: Lacey…just barely. This dress sucks.
Battle of the red, cut-out, ruffly Latin dress: Shannon’s mambo with Derek in season 6 vs. Kym’s preseason photo shoot in season 7
Courtney: Wow, this batch is really a mixed bag for me – I’m either loving or hating these dresses. This, unfortunately falls into the latter category – BLECH. Am I the only one that thought that Shannon looked terribly awkward in almost every costume they put her in? Aggghhh, and that hair – looks like they were trying to style it like her ex-husband’s (look him up – Joe Reitman. Eek!) Kym does a decent job of making a crappy dress look acceptable, so I’ll go with her.
Heidi: I think Shannon WAS awkward in a lot of the dresses. This one is funny because she had lots of padding in the bra AND in the butt, and she wasn’t afraid to tell EVERYONE. It made all the media that week very entertaining, especially when Derek is pulling down the back of her dress to show reporters and she then proceeds to rip his shirt open. And to think they tried to tell people they were just friends. Um, right. 😉 I also have to give it up to Derek for once again attempting a camouflage (with all those ruffles) a lack of hip action. Despite me enjoying this dress on Shannon for all the backstage reasons, it’s pretty clear that Kym just wears it better. The confidence will get you every time. I bet Kym didn’t need the padding either. 😉
The winner: Duh, Kym! Even though this dress sucks too. 😉
Pssst! First time here? Then you should definitely check out parts I, II, III, & IV of our “Who Wore it Better?” series! 😀
Geez, I just checked in on the fly and now I may have trouble sleeping tonight. While these pictures do not reflect how dresses “move” in a dance, some of these outfits are awful. Period. That zebra thing and the hot pink cut-out evening gown… whaaaa? Has there been a dress so awful that it only appeared once? (Or that they couldn’t talk anyone into wearing again?)
Haha…sorry for the nightmares, Jay! While I actually really like the hot pink ballgown (I promise it looks DAZZLING in motion…check out David & Kym’s foxtrot on youtube), I agree – the zebra dress is just icky. As is the red monstrosity that they made Shannon & Kym wear. But you do bring up a valid point – has there been a dress that has been so god-awful that they couldn’t bear to show it again?
Well…I’d say yes and no. Some of the worst costumes on the show, IMO, are the ones that are so unique and specific to a certain theme that they couldn’t use them again if they wanted to – a good example I can think of was Lacey’s cha-cha costume from season 7, which had Lance’s face silk-screened right on the butt. Eee gad…definitely one of my top 10 worst costumes in DWTS history, and thank goodness I don’t see them pulling it out again, unless Lance performs on the show as a guest, for some odd reason. Another infamous example I can think of was Marie’s freestyle dress – y’know, the doll one? I can’t possibly think of any reason they’d pull that one out of storage again…thank goodness! 🙁
Another thing you have to remember is that many of the more popular costumes don’t get dittoed because they’ve already been sold. A few months after the close of each season, a good portion of the costumes used that season go onsale at the Randall Christensen website. My best guess is that they’re trying to recoup some of the exorbitant cost of making some of these dresses – the average Latin costume runs between $2-3K, while a ballgown can run up to $5k. Now it seems like some of the most popular costumes (or ones worn by popular celebs or pros)sell pretty fast – for example, all of Kristi Yamaguchi’s costumes from season 6 have been sold. However, some of the more unique and less attractive ones tend to stick around for awhile – i.e. the black & white paso dress worn by Cheryl & Chelsie. I figure the folks at Randall are like “Well, haven’t sold it yet…may as well reuse it!” and BOOM! We have dittoes, and its not always of the most attractive costumes. The dresses may also get loaned out to professional competitors sponsored by Randall – such as American Rhythm/Smooth competitor Devorah Kastner, who also wore that same dress at a recent competition (whoever first posted that link, thank you – I just can’t remember who you are).
I didn’t realize they use the same dresses so often on the show well other then the preseason pictures!! i guess that tells u how much i pay attention!! lol 🙂
how about in season 10 when the women in Team Madonna all wore the same outfit?
why don’t you put matt cedcedo on dancing with the stars season 11
@Cameron – We might do that one in a future edition, but what we’ve been trying to do is show costumes that have been worn for different occasions (i.e. one of the team paso dresses from season 7 was also worn in season 9 by Kelly Osbourne). So far, the Madonna outfits have only been worn for the Team Madonna cha-cha in season 10…but who knows, they might use them again. We shall see!
@gaby – I think you may be confused – this is not the official DWTS site. We’re just a fan site, so we don’t have any say in who gets on the show and who doesn’t. But it’s great that you have favorites that you want to get on the show! 🙂
what about alec baldwin josh brolin and robyn thicke on dancing with the stars season 11
what about past actors and actress from days of our lives on dancing with the stars season 11
@Courtney Kristi’s costumes are all gone because she bought them. I really liked Brooke’s quickstep dress. It was one of her better costumes that season.
@John – Really? I’m wondering if they made more than one copy of some of them, because I definitely saw a student from another local studio wearing her rumba dress at a recent competition. Could be that she just requested a replica, and paid more for it since it didn’t have self-tanner stains on the lining, like Julianne’s piano dress from the season 7 Design-a-Dance, which someone at my studio bought 😛
That might be the case Courtney. Randall said in an interview that Kristi bought all of her costumes and as did other stars. I liked Julianne’s piano dress from that design a dance. Cool that she bought it but not with the self-tanner stains!
Hmmm…wonder if they gave her a good deal. That’s a pretty penny to buy up every single costume you wore on the show! Wish I had that kinda cash laying around. Did she say what she was going to use them for? Like skating performances or anything? Or was she just keeping them for the memories, like a wedding dress?
Yah the piano dress was adorable…although I have to say it’s not quite as stunning up close as it was on TV, and that’s the case with a lot of ballroom costumes. All those stones glittering away under the dancefloor lights look great from far away, but when you get up-close – it’s just fabric with stones glued on. As for the self-tanner stains – you’d be surprised, some competitors think of it as a good luck charm of sorts…especially if the person who wore it before them was successful. I personally would rather have a nice, clean costume that I could dirty up with self tanner on my own, but hey…that’s just me 😉
That dress looked terrific on Julianne! But I can see it look less impressive in person.
I don’t know what Kristi planned on doing with it. I know she has worn some a few times at events like her jive and mambo costume. I think she kept them more for memories.
does it count if you were a former all my childern actor like james scott do you think he would be counted for for dancing with the stars season 11 he would be a great dancer please give him a chance
[…] your copycat costume fix while it lasts, kids! Reminisce over parts I, II, III, IV, V, & VI of “Who Wore it […]
[…] at costumes. So why not quell your appetite for fashion by reviewing parts I, II, III, IV, & V while you wait for next week’s […]