Plunging Ahead

There wasn't much suspense at Sunday night's VH1-Vogue Fashion Awards in New York. But there was plenty of overdone d�colletage. So everyone knew who was going to win? Well, at least it was entertaining to guess who was likely to fall out of her dress.
�����Due to a snafu with Vogue's distributor, embargoed copies of the magazine's December issue were released early, complete with a list of winners, which the New York Post gleefully reprinted on Saturday.
�����This accounted for the blas� attitude on the part of presenters such as Madonna, who announced in a tone as flat as a supermodel, "Oh, my God, the suspense is killing me," before announcing Rupert Everett as most stylish male celebrity.
�����"I knew we were gonna win 'cause I read it in Vogue magazine this morning," said an apparently underwhelmed Shirley Manson of Garbage, the visionary video winner.
�����The most discernible trend at the show, hosted by Heather Locklear and Sean "Puffy" Combs, is not one that ordinary women are likely to embrace: gowns with fronts slashed to the waistline, or shirts unbuttoned to the belts with string bikini tops showing.
�����Many an observer was left marveling about how women such as most fashionable female artist winner Jennifer Lopez (who has reportedly insured her biggest asset - her body - for a cool billion) managed to stay decent given the gaping necklines. Must be some new kind of glue on the market.
�����Vogue's readers chose Tom Ford of Gucci as women's wear designer of the year and Alexander McQueen as avant-garde designer of the year.
�����As presenter Lil' Kim, successor to Cher's legacy of weird headgear, put it: "Avant garde is French for, 'Girl, what the hell are you wearing?' "
�����That's what we were wondering, too.