Star Awards 2021: From a ‘tampon’ to a poncho, here are some of the outfits that tried too hard

we took a look at some of the outfits which scored a ‘win’ in our books during Star Awards 2021, and there were many. It seemed that celebrities were going for some classic looks and traditional gowns — safe, and always a winner.

Then there were those who took some risks, like Felicia Chin and Hong Ling with their pantsuits and Chen Hanwei with his harem/pleated pants, and it paid off.

But what about those whose looks fell flat? Well, let’s take a look at some of them.

Elvin Ng

It really doesn’t take much to make Mediacorp’s resident heartthrob look good, especially when he’s born that way. But somehow, this Alexander McQueen suit manages to do just the opposite. Our female colleague mentioned that it looks like a used tampon and we’re inclined to agree. The saddest thing is, we’ve seen this fashion faux pas before on the red carpets of Hollywood.

Edwin Goh

Was he dressed for a slumber party or an awards show? Or perhaps he was going to attend a slumber party with his bros after the show? Who knows? All that was certain was that the young actor was giving us the woke-up-like-this vibes and not in a good way. Those shoes are pretty neat though!

Desmond Tan

Another hottie makes the list and it’s got us shaking our damn heads. How in the everloving world did this happen? Desmond’s first suit — which he wore in the backstage show — looks like it went through an amateurish attempt at a tie-dye, and one netizen even described it as “got splashed by loansharks”.

When he said that he would have a change of clothes because he couldn’t pick just one outfit, we sighed with relief. Then he turned up to the awards show looking like a secondary school boy in a uniform that is just a size too big. Someone should let him know that just having a nice colour can’t save a look. Picking between those was like choosing between getting hit in the head with a baseball bat or getting stabbed in the stomach with a knife.

Xu Bin

Truth be told, he’s been growing on us ever since his turn on the popular drama series My Star Bride. His wardrobe was also really on point there. Somehow though, his reel life fashion sense didn’t translate to real life as he walked the red carpet wearing a PVC-like vest that, to some of us, resembled a poncho, and to others, the green vest you’d wear during corrective work order.

Frankly, all he needed to do was remove that upper layer and he would have been perfection. We’re not even mad that he was giving us a modern take on the ’90s Backstreet Boys, I-Want-It-That-Way look.

Thankfully, just before the awards show, he had a change of clothes and looked real sleek in a classic, crisp white suit.

Hong Huifang

Now, this was rather unfortunate. We love the colour, we love the design of the gown, and we totally love Huifang. We just don’t love the gown on Huifang. It wasn’t flattering on her and it drew focus to the wrong areas. We also applaud the daring slit and the Angelina-Jolie-right-leg vibes going on, but it just wasn’t enough to save this look.