The Serpentine Summer Party 2018 Red Carpet Rundown

Kittens, a bunch of notable Brits and Brit-adjacents or wannabes came out for the Serpentine Gallery Summer Party, an annual event that tends to attract stylish (and not-so) Brit-lebrities and hangers-on like moths to a glittering flame. Let’s go critique their wings, shall we?

Anya Taylor-Joy in Chanel

It’s one of those weird Chanel summer tweeds that make no kind of sense to us, but we can’t deny the dress is fairly cute, if a little stiff. We go back and forth on the doll styling. Given her looks and the types of movies she’s known for (horror/fantasy, mostly), we can understand why she’d lean into the whole “big eyes/curled hair/cupid’s bow mouth” thing so hard. It’s not a look we’d recommend for almost any woman over the age of 16 or so, but she’s selling a very specific image to a very specific audience and she’s doing it while she still can. We would urge her rather strongly to drop this look in 18 months or so, but for now, we get it.

Ciara in Christopher Kane

The only thing worse than a dress made entirely out of black lace is a dress made entirely out of cheap black lace.  Girl…

Jenna Coleman in Chanel

Pretty, but disappointingly colorless. And the half-sheer skirt is annoying.

Natalie Dormer in Chanel

This is perhaps understyled and too casual, but she’s literally the only person here who looks like she’s at a summer party. Get this lady a drink. Everyone else can go primp in front of a mirror.
 

Olga Kurylenko

It’s got a couple details to set it apart and keep it from being generic. We don’t hate it, but we can’t say we love it either. The accessories are doing a lot of work to keep it interesting and semi-stylish.

Princess Beatrice in Mary Katrantzou

With the full admission that their roles and expectations are very, very different, we can’t help but point to this as a rebuttal to the argument that Duchess Meghan or Cathy Cambridge absolutely must wear featureless neutrals or risk public outcry of epic proportions. If P. Bea can show up to a London society party in a neon peacock dress and a moto, the Duchesses are surely free to rock a bit more color and print than they tend to prefer.

In other news, we love this look. We could take or leave the sandals, and we admit that a moto-over-cocktail-dress look can be a bit of a cliche, but this really comes together fabulously. The colors look amazing on her.

Princess Eugenie (in Roland Mouret) and Jack Brooksbank

Ditto. While this isn’t nearly as eye-catching as Bea’s look, it’s still far brighter, trendier and bolder than one tends to expect from a Windsor family member. We think it looks pretty great on her, but the shape of the half skirt isn’t setting off the pants as well as it could. They make a cute couple, by the way. Say what you will about that fam, they’re all pretty good about picking good gene donors to the family line.
[Photo Credit: INSTARImages]

• Anya Taylor-Joy
• Chanel
• Christopher Kane
• Ciara
• Jenna Coleman
• Mary Katrantzou
• Natalie Dormer
• Olga Kurylenko
• Princess Beatrice of York
• Princess Eugenie of York
• Red Carpet
• Red Carpet Rundown
• Roland Mouret