What Fergie Wore

I have no concern for pop culture, do not watch award shows, and am utterly indifferent to the clothing styles of celebrities, with the possible exception of their occasional transient amusement value.  That said, I saw "Fergie's Risky Grammy Dress" in the side bar at Huff-Po while reading something else, and thought I'd check it out.  Who knows, risky might imply risque, and, like most guys, I'm a voyeur at heart.

Some observations:
Fergie (about whom I know nothing) is quite an attractive and very fit looking lady.
The dress, itself, is actually quite beautiful.
Though the cut of the dress is modest, you can see her underwear, because it is also, for all intents and purposes, transparent.
Hence,  the view of it is controversial.

Some thoughts:
 I guess being able to see underwear is the controversy, and with this dress is pretty much the point.
The underwear is actually modest, either as underwear goes, or by beach attire standards.
The dark color of the underwear accomplished a few things:
     - OMG - you can see her underwear!
     - Which makes it obvious that she is wearing underwear - not always a foregone conclusion
     - By contrasting so starkly with both the dress and Fergie's skin tone, the underwear becomes the focus.

So why focus on underwear?  My guess it's so that people will say, "OMG - you can see her underwear!"  This could have been avoided, to an extent, by color matching the underwear to the dress. I'm having a hard time visualizing that, and suspect the over-all effect would have been a downgrade, all things considered.  Another approach, probably more pleasing from a purely aesthetic PoV,  would have been to color-match the underwear to Fergie's skin tone.  That would have sent the controversy down a totally different track, though.

My evaluation: for style and aesthetics, on balance, a fail, but not an epic fail.   For getting people to sit up and take notice,  a rather spectacular success.