... and the winner was pale

The Oscars may be a big night for the movie industry, but for the fashion industry, they are absolutely pivotal. Dress a celebrity, and an image of your gown will be beamed all the way around the globe. Quite simply, the Oscars are the most powerful marketing tool there is.

No wonder competition is ever-fiercer every year as designers vie to dress their chosen ones. This year, for the 79th Academy Awards, Giorgio Armani even put on an extravagant fashion show in Beverly Hills the night before, in an attempt to woo celebrities to wear him.

And he didn't do too badly: Cate Blanchett, a woman who can always be relied upon to look stylish in a crisis, looked elegant (if safe) in a striking one-shoulder silver crystal mesh gown from Armani's Prive couture collection.

Her dress set the tone for the evening: a pale colour, with clean lines, that paid lip service to the metallic trend so prevalent on the catwalks this season.

Beyonce Knowles and Katie Holmes also chose Armani. This year, the Oscars were a salutory lesson in how catwalk trends translate onto the red carpet. Every celebrity is at pains to emphasise their fashion credentials these days: it is not enough to bowl up in a safe black dress with your hair scraped into a chignon.

The paradox is, of course, that it is precisely this sort of simple, unfussy style that works best. Much of the catwalk's biggest trends - bows, feathers, frills and needless embellishment - look overly fussy when taken off the runway and plonked onto the red carpet. And so it was at the Oscars.

From a fashion point of view, these Oscars were exciting, because not every celebrity played it safe. But from a style point of view, they were at times a disaster: anxious to play up their daring experimentalism, some stars picked gowns that paid lip service to all the right catwalk trends, but neglected the small fact that they were too fussy for the night itself.

Sometimes, fashion is just too fashion for the red carpet. Thus we had Anne Hathaway in a white Valentino gown with a too dominant black velvet bow, and Nicole Kidman in a striking pillarbox red halter dress with bow so large she looked tied up and ready for Christmas.

Or Jennifer Lopez doing Grecian, caged in several chains of metallic rhinestones on top of her ruched empire-waist Marchesa gown.

Ruching, such a big catwalk trend for spring, rarely works off a 16 year old Ukranian model, and neither does fussy draping and panelling: witness Kate Winslet's bandaged-looking bustline in pale green Valentino, or Gwyneth Paltrow's overly tricksy brown Zac Posen dress.

Another catwalk trend, the picked-out bust panel, was bravely attempted by Maggie Gyllenhaal, in a black and blue Proenza Schouler gown tipped in hundreds of black feathers at the hem.

Do feathers work? Kirsten Dunst, in a light blue tulle embroidered dress by Chanel couture, looked elegant, although the feathers did look a little too 1920's.

The dress of the night goes to Reese Witherspoon, in a deep plum strapless plisse gown by French designer Olivier Theyskens (formerly at Rochas but now at Nina Ricci).

One of the few stars who didn't over-egg the pudding by attaching needlessly fussy jewellery (note to celebrities: just because you're offered millions of dollars worth of free bling doesn't mean you'll look fabulous in it), her simple gown with its lightly padded hips created an exaggerated silhouette that made a nod to current catwalk trends without looking victim-ish.

Colour-wise, the biggest trend of the night was pale, neutral tones offset with metallics, as worn by Eva Green (pale beige by Givenchy), Penelope Cruz (blush pink by Versace) and Helen Mirren (pale gold filigree lace by Lacroix).

Is pale the new black? It's certainly kinder on the skin - and with high definition TV now very much a reality, it will take more than a good anti-wrinkle cream to head off the world's cruel scrutiny.

Say what you like about pale gold, but it doesn't half reflect well on the face.