ShoeMinx Pre-Oscars Interlude: Hugh Jackman’s Naked Promise, Aniston-Brangelina Showdown, No Sparkle for Stuart Weitzman

This is it.  In just a few hours, fashion and Hollywood fantasy will collide at the Kodak Theatre for the 81st annual Academy Awards (the Oscars to the rest of us).  And somewhere in the celluloid city, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer are plotting their red carpet navigation with the skill and precision of a military strike team.  Or a team of stylists backstage at Fashion Week.

Between host Hugh Jackman’s tongue-in-cheek, yet mentally tantalizing tease of a “naked Oscars,” a possible Aniston-Brangelina red carpet rendezvous, rumors of Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto’s secret marriage (no way will Ryan Seacrest and Guilana Depandi-Rancic ignore that gossip-y elephant in the room–or red carpet, as it were), the combined hotness of Twilight star Robert Pattison and High School Musical’s flat-ironed hunk Zac Efron, who actually wins what awards is just the icing on a three-tiered cake of glorious-and-ridiculous excess, glamor and gossip goodness.

To whet your appetite until the spectacle begins, we present the ShoeMinx Pre-Oscars Interlude.

One-Million Dollar Shoe Discount. The effects of the plunging economy will rear its ugly head — or maybe we should say sole — on the red carpet along with all those plunging necklines.  Designer Stuart Weitzman has scrapped plans to send a pair of his $1 million dollar shoes down the crimson carpet, saying: “We very seriously took into account the current economic situation and what is considered appropriate in the world of fashion today, and we felt this was not a year to be extravagant.”

Last year, the fancy-footwear designer chose “Juno” screenwriter Diablo Cody to wear his specially designed diamond-encrusted shoes to the ceremony, but Cody served up a plate of STFU, calling the selection “a cheesy publicity stunt.” She opted to wear a pair of simple gold flats under her flowing Dior leopard print dress instead.

Weitzman hopes his “big fan” Angelina Jolie, the best-actress Oscar nominee for The Changeling, who previously donned nude Weitzman heels to the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes, will again wear a pair of his shoes to the ceremony.

Anne Hathaway Says “Yes” to the Dress. E! reveals that best-actress nominee Anne Hathaway is “in love” with her Oscar dress.  According to a partygoer at Perrier-Jouët champagne’s Women in Film cocktail soiree, “She said it’s a little out of her comfort level but hopes people love it as much as she does!”  Our fingers our crossed that the usually “Best Dressed” star avoids dipping her toes in the “WTF are you wearing?” goth pool that sank Gwyneth Paltrow at the 2002 ceremony.

Check the batteries in your remote and get the popcorn ready.  The Oscar fashion bash and awards anxiety is about to kick off.

By ShoeMinx Red Carpet Watcher Paige Muller