Talking Dutch: Oh, the judgment

Men have an easy time of it on the red carpet. They just need to turn up reasonably sober in a standard tuxedo. But female actors have to look like supermodels. And unfortunately Baetens’ dress – fashioned by Antwerp designer Haider Ackermann – was voted a dud.

Veerle heeft een perfect lichaam, en de jurk was prachtig, maar niet juist voor haar – Veerle has a perfect figure, and the dress was beautiful, but it just wasn’t right for her, said Anne Poelmans of Elle magazine. Om zo’n volume te kunnen dragen, is Veerle eigenlijk te klein. Daar moet je heel groot en heel slank voor zijn, zoals de modellen op de catwalk – Veerle is too small to carry off such a voluminous dress. You have to be very tall and very thin, like the fashion models on the catwalk.

Writing in De Standaard, Linda Van Waesberge argued that the dress was fabulous, but it wasn’t photogenic. De jurk was gewoon te groot en te zwaar voor haar – the dress was simply too large and too heavy for her.

So what should she have worn? Iets van Raf Simons voor Dior – something by Raf Simons for Dior, suggested Elle. Iets van Dries van Noten had gekund – Something by Dries van Noten could have worked.

Or a dress she had worn at an earlier event. En de roze jurk van Anna Heylen, zo frêle en breekbaar in combinatie met de rode lippen, die was echt perfec’ – And that pink dress by Anna Heylen, so frail and fragile in combination with her red lips, that was really perfect.

If only she had gone with Anna Heylen. But, no, she wore the big baggy dress that everyone hated, especially the Huffington Post. Ik heb geen idee wie ze is, waarschijnlik is ze Frans ofzo – I don’t know who she is, she’s probably French or something, wrote the Huffington Post (as reported in De Standaard).

French! Why in the world would she be speaking Dutch if she was French? Ik weet niet in welke film ze spelt, maar nu wil ik dat ook niet meer weten – I don’t know what film she was in, but now I don’t even want to know, the Huff Post continued.

But the most hurtful comment came in the photo caption – We haten vormeloze, onflatterende jurken die mooie vrouwen eruit laten zien als een zak patatten. Genoeg gezegd – we hate shapeless, unflattering gowns that make otherwise beautiful women look like sacks of potatoes. Enough said.

Well that wasn’t very nice. But I would guess that Veerle can take anything they throw at her, even a sack of potatoes. 

Photo: MIKE NELSON/epa/Corbis