Mr. Blackwell, that self- proclaimed arbiter of all that is good and tasteful, has proclaimed the Spice Girls the gaudiest of the gaudy in his 38th Annual Worst Dressed Women List. The always catty, but rarely clever, Blackwell called the British supergroup "five candy- colored beauties trapped in fashion waste . . . the only spices on the planet that have no taste!" Hey, who knew he could rhyme? At number two was Ellen DeGeneres, who, Blackwell advises, should "throw those baggy fashion bombs back into the closet." Madonna was selected for a fashion sense that "runs the gamut from Style Snore to Bumpy Bore" ("Let's be blunt, yesterday's Evita is today's Velveeta"), while Pamela Anderson Lee was described as looking "like a Martian Venus . . . in search of a shell." Rounding out the top ten were Jennifer Tilly, Sigourney Weaver, Emma Thompson, Alicia Silverstone, Frances Fisher, and freak- of- nature rocker Marilyn Manson ("He looks like Alice Cooper doing Rosemary's Baby"), who's not technically female, but we're not gonna be the ones to check.

Mr. Blackwell always likes to accentuate the positive, and this year he singled out ten "fabulous fashion independents." Those lucky ladies are Courtney Love, Jada Pinkett, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Salma Hayek, Ellen's significant other, Anne Heche, Touched by an Angel's Roma Downey, Toni Braxton, Good Morning America anchor Lisa McCree, and wild card Viscountess Serena Linley.

Still, Blackwell had to get the last bitchy word in: "Despite the encouraging fact that old- fashioned glamour made a comeback in 1997, the final results of this year's list amply reflect the fact that boring bombs, dowdy duds, and frumpy flops continue to litter our landscape with wretched regularity. To be honest, narrowing the couture- clad fashion culprits down to a manageable group of ten was almost as difficult as sitting through The Postman." That's gotta smart. 

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