SOMETHING GOLD, SOMETHING NEW.

Vintage may have faded into the background for a season or two

on the red carpet, but it didn't burn out in Hollywood for

the year's first major awards show. At least not for Renee Zellweger, the only A-list star who, in my opinion, is a true style original. Nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe for playing the brilliant children's-book author Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter, Zellweger went back to her favorite source-Lily et Cie in L.A. and proprietors Rita Watnick and Michael Soyla-for the first lap of full superglam fashion.

Zellweger, as you know from my last column, was the first, in 2001, to wear vintage Paris couture with authority and confidence. That year, she chose a yellow Jean Desses chiffon dress. This year, it was a strapless jewel-green duchesse-satin short dress designed by Yves Saint Laurent in his debut collection for Christian Dior in 1957. How did I get to see this dress before Zellweger, Dorothy-in-Oz-like, clicked her emerald-green Christian Louboutins (no ruby-red slippers here) and swept across the carpet? Creator of one of the last sources of great couture pieces in the country, Watnick has turned her store into an atelier, where she was working on her second luxury ready-to-wear collection on awards-show day. She took me into the back to show me the dress and the sexy, sequined d'Orsay pumps that the original owner had kept with it. Watnick and Zellweger have had a long-standing relationship, their exacting standards on couture well matched. "I worked with Renee for three-and-a-half weeks on the dress," said Watnick, my only real Los Angeles fashion friend. It wasn't the sole thing she provided for Zellweger. Watnick has no patience for stylists, whose egos often win out over an actress's taste, or what she calls "hack alterations." She says, "If someone wants a dress from me, that means three fittings, minimum." Zellweger's only misfortune was her top-heavy fifties twisted chignon. Doris Day hair-not a good call, Renee.

Reese Witherspoon debuted Nina Ricci's Olivier Theyskens' idea of full-blown short-a brilliant lemon-yellow taffeta dress. Taking the red carpet literally, she opted for cherry-colored shoes and vintage Van Cleef & Arpels jewels. (A throwback to youthful simplicity, she reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy picking up her Oscar for Roman Holiday in 1954.) Both stars looked great, expressing new-school style with elements in the refined couture tradition. They, along with Cate Blanchett in black Alexander McQueen, were the only Hollywooders who took the risk to go short, making it look easy, cool, and elegant as the Globes are meant to be.

They were the bright spots to an otherwise excruciatingly boring and painful Globes, which unraveled with actor after actor trying to impress each other in the room. The Old Boys' Club in Hollywood is tired, as were most of the greasy hairdos that night. It was as if everyone had come straight from working out at the gym, except for Sacha Baron Cohen (winner of Best Actor), who at least looked well groomed, and Blanchett, who radiated freshness with her breezy, relaxed style.

After-parties aren't my thing; been there, done that. When I went home to retire early, the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire was ready to upgrade me to a suite on another floor. Prince, who had won for Best Original Song for Happy Feet, was about to throw an all-night post-party on the same floor as my room. True class is when a hotel gives you an escape hatch from celebrants (Tom and Katie, Posh, and Lindsay later showed up) who need to party like it's 1999!