The Golden Globes Red Carpet Was a Winter Formal in 70-Degree Weather

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star Rachel Bloom showed up at Sunday night’s Golden Globe awards with portraits of her fellow cast members painted on her nails.

Few stars were so committed to custom detail on the first major awards show of the 2017 season, but the famous people arrived with plenty of little shiny bits to show off. Sparkles, spangles, and lush textures of all sorts dominated the red carpet this year, making a hot evening out in Los Angeles look like a winter ball after all.

In a dramatic long-sleeved number with cues taken from a tuxedo jacket, Kristen Bell admitted in a red-carpet interview that she was steaming up in the California heat. Amy Adams and Janelle Monae, also in black sequins, did the look two ways: simple and elegant for Adams, and playful in cartoonish paillettes for Monae.

Tracee Ellis Ross, who won for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, was a stunner of the evening in two fistfuls of rings and a pearl-white gown meticulously structured around her curves. Michelle Williams made white look like ’90s goth in full-on lace and a doll-like choker.

Jeweled flowers adorning the hips of Jessica Biel and Kerry Washington added a bit of pleasant chaos to already-busy patterns.

Drew Barrymore dressed as a flying fish for this year’s Golden Globes, in a Monique Lhuillier dress with stripes of shine in the wings. Trace Lysette wore her sparkles in swirling emerald, one of the sexiest dresses on the red carpet.

Two stylistically opposed floral gowns from Zuhair Murad were perfect on Lily Collins and Olivia Culpo. Culpo looked like an impressionist painting come to life, and Collins looked like she stole the fluffy princess comforter from L.A.’s most spoiled little girl. (These are compliments.) Extra points to Collins for making short sleeves work in embroidery.

Loving’s Ruth Negga, in slinking silver, and Sienna Miller also chose T-shirt sleeves, a fresh, youthful look in a sea of straps and strapless.

I know from women in suits, and still, I was impressed by the menswear on the ladies this year. Nominated for her brilliant turn in Hidden Figures, Octavia Spencer wore a navy suit with perfectly fitted pants and satin lapels. Her bob is her best-ever hairstyle in this bob-owner’s opinion. Kathryn Hahn, one of Transparent’s top talents, wore just a bra under her more feminine jacket. And Evan Rachel Wood, praise be, wore a rather topical pussy bow and a debonair pompadour. Wood has spoken at length about the internal and external challenges she’s faced as a bisexual woman; she told Ryan Seacrest that she wore a suit to send a message to young girls that dresses aren’t the only option for fancy womenswear. It was also an homage, she said, to fellow androgyne David Bowie, whose 70^th birthday would have been Sunday.

Viola Davis, Regina King, and Priyanka Chopra opted for all-over sparkle and shine, making the case for glamorous metallics as neutrals.

Nearly the entire cast of Atlanta dressed in Slate’s favorite holiday fabric, velvet, making the Golden Globes a true winter formal. The show’s Zazie Beetz was a standout in a lush ballgown, and Teresa Palmer (not from Atlanta, but somehow peeping the memo) looked old-school fabulous in a waterfall of navy.

Brian Tyree Henry and Lakeith Stanfield, also of Atlanta, paired a velvet jacket and pants, respectively, with unexpected accessories, giving them more personality than most of their fellow men in tuxes. But in his white brocade Chanel jacket from 2012, Pharrell wore the night’s best bling: some kind of bejeweled cross-body strap. Also: a beanie!

Ryan Michelle Bathe and husband Sterling K. Brown both had big years—Bathe in This Is Us and Brown in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story—and comprised the red carpet’s most shimmering power couple.