A Celebrity’s Look, For Less

Amalah,
Long time listener, first time caller. I’m in love with a dress….but how do I find it? Actress Elizabeth Banks wore the cutest little pink sheath with a portrait collar to present the Golden Globes nominations. (See it here.) This is exactly what I’m looking for in a rehearsal dinner dress: feminine, structured, and not black. But how do I go about finding it? I e-mailed the Fug Girls, and they had no suggestions for who designed it or how to find out (but they were very nice).
So I appeal to you for help. How would one go about finding this dress? Bonus points if it’s available in a 16.
Sandy
So, I don’t attend Fashion Week, I don’t subscribe to Vogue, and I totally need the Internet to tell me when Project Runway contestants like, TOTALLY rip off Balenciaga’s 2006 Spring line. And also how to spell “Balenciaga.” But still, you people are adorable with the “who designed it?” questions. LIKE I HAVE A CLUE. ADORABLE, I TELL YOU.
Most of the time, my Googling is just as fruitless as yours. (Apologies to Beth, who asked about Katherine Heigl’s little black dress from 27 Dresses. Usually movie wardrobe pieces can be identified via fashion forums or at www.isawitin.com . I did find info on other clothes from that movie, but came up dry on that particular dress.) Sometimes I get lucky if the photo agency (like Getty Images) includes that info in the photo’s caption,
or if the photo gets picked up for a fashion magazine’s website. Which — ta daaa! — is what happened this time.
Behold: InStyle’s Look of the Day for December 15th. Elizabeth Banks in Peter Som. (She’s the small picture you can click to enlarge but cannot actually link directly to, annoyingly enough.)
Now here’s where it gets sticky. The dress does not appear to be from any of his current collections, and isn’t available at any of the online retailers his website cites as carrying his clothes (eLuxury, Neiman Marcus, Saks, etc.) Is it from a previous years’ collection? A custom design for Banks? I have no idea. I CAN tell you that I also think it’s a drop dead fabulous dress…and that judging from the other Peter Som dresses that ARE available online, it would cost you a couple thousand dollars, and the largest size available would most likely be a 12.
A few possible alternatives in a slightly similar silhouette, perhaps? With price tags that do NOT contain commas, maybe?
Here’s a belted trench dress by Kay Unger. Or this folded collar belted dress by David Meister. (No size 16 online for that one, but I do believe David Meister designs do go up to a 16, so you might be able to find it elsewhere.) Here’s a dress by Diane von Furstenberg in a similar shade of pink. And a simple belted crepe dress by Maggy London. Heck, even good old Banana Republic has something in the same ballpark.
I could probably list a few dozen more, but you get the idea. Oftentimes, knowing the specific actual dress and designer is almost irrelevant for those of us living out here in the real world, with real bodies and budgets. What’s really important is knowing what you like, and finding something similar. And if the Internet and Project Runway have taught me anything: it’s that in fashion, there’s ALWAYS something that looks AWFULLY similar to everything else.