“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” When Shakespeare wrote these lines, I’m fairly certain he was talking about celebrity court appearances. Hollywood stars taking their turn on the stand have become some of the most high-profile theatrical performances of our time. Look at how, for better or worse (largely worse) we were glued to the horrific detail (and the snarling online ecosystem which began to surround it) of the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp case in 2022. It echoed the complicated intrigue, decades earlier, of the OJ Simpson trial. We cannot help but find fascination, perverse or otherwise, in a legal procedure that is, by its nature, performative. Throw a celebrity into the mix, and it is box-office gold.
The most recent production we’ve been glued to, thanks to an overflowing fountain of memeable moments and an embarrassment of zeitgeist-baiting riches is, of course, the personal injury case against Gwyneth Paltrow. The entire affair was nothing short of high-performance art, seemingly directed by The Row. For, of course, what is a performance without its costuming?
Paltrow, in court to counter-sue a man claiming that she crashed into him at a ski resort in Deer Valley, Utah, in 2016, appeared to be mounting her defence sartorially. ‘I am in the right,’ screamed her oversized cream knit, which caused an online meltdown over its origin (The Row, Loro Piana or G Label by Goop?) Each outfit was the carefully curated look of an image-savvy woman who, instead of settling out of court, wanted it known that she was not at fault. To do so, she enlisted the aggrieved subtlety of head-to-toe navy Prada and the deafening chorus of tonal grey, replete with neatly-layered, Cali-chic gold necklaces, a Smythson notebook and an artfully clutched pair of tortoiseshell glasses. Paltrow’s ‘courtrobe’ was a pivotal tool in her performance. Many saw it as a neat echo of…
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