Awards Show Style: Black-and-white Marchesa

SPOTTED: Black, white and black-and-white Marchesa gowns on Hollywood minxes at a smattering of awards shows. This color scheme has barreled right into the new year, and seems to be plowing full steam ahead. (Go black! Go white!) Marchesa, meanwhile, is a label that's drawn celebs in droves since its 2004 launch, including Cate Blanchett, Renee Zellweger, Mischa Barton, Felicity Huffman and Sienna Miller. The Notte by Marchesa line is inspired by 19th-century bad girl Marchesa Luisa Casati, a style icon who liked to dress up, inspire artists and throw parties with gold-leaf-gilded servants.

WHAT CAUGHT OUR EYE: The classic Greece-meets-Rome-meets-Hollywood architectural lines. (And you can almost hear these dresses sing "I am woman, hear me roar...")

GET IT: Nieman Marcus promises this dress will make you appear a whole size smaller. Is that worth $1,190? You decide. Or for 10 times less, try this $190 dress from edressme.com, an affordable-by-mere-mortals version of the Marchesa that Penelope Cruz wore to the British Academy Awards recently. (Thanks, InStyle, for the heads up). In this one, you'll probably appear as your own gorgeous self, your own perfectly glamorous size.