Hot and Not: D.C. Fashion at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner

ABC News’ Courtney Cohen, aka "Green Room girl" from "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," reports:

When I volunteered to write a fashion critique of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner I was pleasantly surprised that Rick Klein, author of "The Note," liked the idea and told me to go for it. Watching the coverage on C-SPAN was much easier than attending in person, especially since I wasn’t invited. Lucky for me, tons of celebrities turned out for Barack and Michelle Obama’s first Correspondents’ Dinner as president and first lady.

Beforehand, I jotted down some trends I’d like to see.

On the women, I was hoping for color — pinks, reds, yellows, blues and purples. After a week of pretty much solid rain, Saturday in Washington was a perfect day, sunny and warm with a nice breeze. What better way to enjoy the spring weather than with lots of color?

Second, I wanted to see some leg. Really, I was hoping to see some short dresses. No need for a ball gown this year. In just over 100 days as president and first lady, the Obamas are decidedly less formal and more fun than the previous White House occupants. There’s even evidence that President Obama can, and does, stay up past 9 p.m.!

Third, as a jewelry lover I was looking for the newest trend in accessorizing for evening: statement pieces. With Madeline Albright in attendance, I knew that at least she would not disappoint with a fun broach.

For the men, I set the bar relatively low. All I was looking for was the classic tuxedo. With a return to cool in Washington, if there was ever an occasion to dress up like a member of the Rat Pack this was it.

With my criteria set, I turned on C-SPAN, grabbed some paper and a pen, and got to work.

First, the best of the women: I loved Tyra Banks’ dress. Yes, she wore basic black, but her dress had a geometric feel that was fresh and modern. Then, she added a flash of color with a cool fuscia clutch. Perfection.

Demi Moore was in a Grecian style one-shouldered floor-length gown. Even though the dress was grey and floor-length, it was a great look for her. With soft, blown dry hair and simple jewelry, Mrs. Kutcher’s entire look exemplified spring formal style.

As for the grand dames of D.C., Helen Thomas and Madeline Albright completely get it. Both opted for comfort with dark evening suits and fabulous statement pieces in jewels that I was waiting for. Thomas, with a large double strand pearls, and Albright, in one of her signature broaches, set the right tone for how to the older set should look.

Finally, my favorite women’s outfit of the evening was worn by our first lady, Michelle Obama. She is absolutely the first lady of fashion, and she completely nailed two of my major criteria.

According to the pool report, Mrs. Obama wore a "pinkish reddish" dress. For those of us who ever owned any crayola crayons, that color on Michelle can be identified more definitively as hot pink. Finally, some color! Paired with a large diamond and pink stoned necklace, Michelle knows good statement jewelry.

For those keeping track, the best dressed women were Tyra Banks, Demi Moore, Helen Thomas, Madeline Albright and Michelle Obama.

My criteria for the men was as simple as could be: the classic tuxedo. And for the most part, I was completely disappointed. Why on earth is the bow tie slowly being replaced by the black tie? I’ve asked some men this very question and no one really has a good answer. Like the Da Vinci code, it remains a mystery.

Moving on, the famous men that wore simple tuxedos WITH bow ties were automatically placed on my best-dressed list. However, because Mike Bloomberg and Ashton Kutcher’s bow ties looked too wide, their best dressed accolades do come with that asterisk. So, with that caveat, the best dressed men were John McLaughlin, Owen Wilson, Jon Bon Jovi, and my boss, George Stephanopoulos. Each wore nice tuxedos with bow ties that didn’t look like they would swallow them.

Now, on to the worst dressed men. This group is much larger mainly because there were so many men who went with the black tie instead of my preferred choice, the bow tie.

First, the worst of the worst.

Al Roker probably wins the prize for most schizophrenic outfit. I enjoy the white jacket tuxedo as much as anyone else and especially like it during spring and summer. But then he completely ruined it with a black tie. Thus, the whole thing just looked busy. Busy is bad for men’s formal wear. It’s right up there with patterned vests and velvet lapels.

Other "busy" offenders included Sting (I get it, you’re a musician, but a scarf with a tuxedo? Fail!) and Matthew Modine, whose tie appeared to be blue. A blue tie at a formal affair? So not cool.

I didn’t despise Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villagrosia’s tuxedo, and certainly didn’t hate the silver tie, but my question still remains, why go with the tie?

Other tie-wearing offenders included Christian Slater, Tim Daly, Rick Schroeder and, unfortunately, President Obama. Is it unpatriotic to put the president on my worst-dressed list? Sorry, but it had to be done.

Richard Belzer would have been my choice for worst-dressed man but, because I’m a big fan of his, I gave him a pass.

I felt that my criteria for women was fairly simple: color, jewelry, and maybe show a little leg. Okay, so I didn’t see a lot of short dresses (think Gisele’s shimmering blue frock at last week’s Costume Institute gala at the Met in New York), but I understand that there wasn’t a lot of time to hit the spray tan, and there’s definitely nothing worse than pasty legs with short dresses.

With my standards set relatively low, it was not that easy to get on my worst-dressed list. But then I saw Greta Van Sustren and shuddered. For a second, I thought Greta was trying to channel Richard Nixon in her poorly tailored man’s-style tuxedo suit and wing tip shoes.

Then there was "Law and Order SVU’s" Mariska Hargitay in a black-and-white dress. When she first appeared on my TV, I asked my watching companion, "This Week" and Stanford University’s Jonathan Greenberger, if the material of her dress was origami paper. Now, don’t get me wrong, texture in clothes is interesting and modern. But textured material in spring formal wear is just confusing.

So, I hope you enjoyed my fashion roundup of this years Correspondents’ dinner. I’m sure I would have enjoyed watching the president and Wanda Sykes, but with my 4:30 a.m. wake-up time for my "This Week" duties looming, once the red carpet ended I turned off the C-SPAN and went to bed.