Helena Bonham Carter is as disastrous a dresser as she is brilliant an actress. The 44-year-old, nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award for her droll, plummy turn as the Queen Mum in "The King's Speech," is a woman for whom the word "kooky" seems to have been invented, the kind who could make Björk and Cher shake their heads ruefully and ask, "You're going out in that?" And that is why, like Björk and Cher, she is fabulous.
As in years past, the bulk of this year's crop of Oscar-nominated actresses has the carefully cultivated aura of Hollywood glamour. You'd never catch Nicole Kidman showing up at the Golden Globes, as Bonham Carter did, sporting bird's nest hair and mismatched shoes. The reliably stunning Amy Adams and Natalie Portman probably won't be going to the Oscars emulating the Queen of the Damned look Bonham Carter went for when she won the BAFTA earlier this month. Melissa Leo has been spending the last few months aggressively distancing her image from that of her big-haired frumpus character in "The Fighter," pulling out all the stops in a sequins- and fur-laden personal campaign. And even 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld knows how to pull it together in an elegant Marchesa gown.