Attack of the Nude Back Panel: Vanessa Hudgens

At her Journey 2: The Mysterious Island movie premiere, Vanessa Hudgens wore a canary yellow “Helga” gown by Maria Lucia Hohan. It was a strapless, beautifully draped, wispy affair with a lovely sweeping train. The gorgeously saturated buttery yellow hue gave her skin a glowing boost.

When I first saw the gown, I thought it was suitably feminine and chic. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get over the fact that the illusion of a backless dress was really a nude sheer panel. The back looked too much like control top hosiery. From the side view of the dress, it looked like the High School Musical star was holding up one dress (like you do in front of a mirror when you want to get an idea of how something looks without actually trying it on) while the sheer fabric held it in place. This kind of nude sheer fabric is supposed to give you impression that it’s not really there. However, it inevitably wrinkles and bunches – which either gives it away or makes it look like your skin has weird creases.

The dress is charming, as long as you limit your view to strictly head on or from a distance – where it’s harder to discern the ice skater fabric that makes up the back support. When I first saw Vanessa in her gown, my thought process was – “Oh, that’s pretty and flowy. Hmm…wait a sec…why is…is that…oh, no…why?!”

On the plus side, I love her true happiness to be there – it makes her look radiant. You can tell she loves the dress by being unable to resist having some fun playing with the beautiful ethereal fabric.

Earlier this month, Katherine Heigl wore a taupe version of this backless dress with shoulder straps. The fabric looked beautifully wrapped on her torso. The straps helped cover up the beige back panel, but I think her cleavage looks a little suffocated. I think Vanessa wore the dress better because of the delicious color and also her décolletage doesn’t look uncomfortably bound up.

What do you think? Can you overlook the back panel and just enjoy the look based on the beautifully rich honey color and her joyful smile? Or does the L’eggs nude hosiery panel give you the heebie-jeebies?