Conversations about who gets to wear what, and why, on the red carpet are a lot more riveting (and honest) nowadays than ever before. But this clip from Adam Ruins Everything, Adam Conover's sketch comedy/explainer series, proves the topic doesn't have to be so serious all the time. For the latest installment, the comedian called upon Rachel Bloom to "ruin" red carpet fashion — i.e. simply state the facts about how X gown ends up on X celebrity for X event.
In the clip, Bloom, the co-creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, arrives at a fictional star-studded event being broadcast on Eew!, and quickly fact-checks the gushy banter about her appearance. First: No, Bloom definitely did not wake up all made up, decked in diamonds, in a formfitting red gown. "Most of the time, we look schlubbier than the crowd at a Dave Matthews concert," she explains before dropping knowledge about what makes stars not like us — glam squads. "Anyone would look fantastic if they had a pit crew of hair and makeup experts Frankenstein-ing them for six hours," she notes.
Bloom also dismantles the romanticized notion that a celeb chooses a dress for a fancy event because she's inspired by the designer's vision, or label's reinvention, or, perhaps, had a love-at-first-sight moment on the sales floor of an ultra-high-end department store that's totally out of our price range. That's not the case, she rightly calls out. "I didn't choose it; those people did," Bloom says, pointing to an army of stylists and marketing specialists. "My stylist tells me what to wear, and then the designer's marketing team says yes or no, depending on whether they think I'll sell the product."
The economics of the red carpet are too complicated to be condensed into a 45-second "Who are you wearing?" soundbite, but are well known within the industry. The cost of it all has been talked about plenty, but Bloom breaks down another, less-discussed truth of the step-and-repeat process: "Some designers can refuse to loan somebody a dress if that person doesn't fit their brand or has the wrong body type," she notes. Sound familiar? Conover's co-host bemoans that this stuff isn't really all that fashion-focused, and he agrees — it's all advertising. "I'm basically a human NASCAR," Bloom says.
The sketch, while satirical, pretty accurately takes on the (often-disheartening) "best dressed" discussion. It's not surprising that Bloom's taking a stab at this, though: After all, she's the one who wrote a "Sexy Golden Globey Song" about her Spanx-and-corset combo for the awards show. And when fashion critics Tom + Lorenzo blasted the one red carpet look Bloom happened to style herself, the award-winning actress laid down even more truth about exactly how many carefully calculated decisions go into a high-profile outfit choice.
Watch the full clip, below.