OSCARS ARMS RACE

Winning an Oscar is the ultimate prize. But these sleeveless gowns reveal another kind of battleground, and only the toughest regime secures bragging rights in...

Tummies can be tucked — but there is no quick arm fix

THEY came, they strutted and they demonstrated their right to bare arms. It seems that every actress from 44-year-old Charlize Theron to 50-year-old Renee Zellweger and the unbelievably lithe 64-year-old Geena Davis decided to snub sleeves — or at least one sleeve — at this year’s Oscars in favour of showing off intensely exercised biceps and triceps.

Forget legs that stretch up to your decolletage: this year’s status symbol is a pair of sculpted, toned, Michelle Obama tribute arms.

Look-at-Me arms that signal ‘I have put the work in, ladies’, because, let’s be frank, the craze for the most beautiful arms on the red carpet is a look most definitely directed at other women watching.

A terrifying new trend that throws out the tried-and-tested rule book for middle-aged women everywhere on how much skin they could, and should, safely reveal above the wrist without giving their age away.

No trusty three-quarter-length sleeves here. Or chiffon drapes. This is full on ‘arm armour’ designed to repel the forces of time. And gravity. Because arms are the one area of the body you just cannot cheat.

While tummies can be invisibly tucked, lines can be frozen and jowls can be lifted, there is no quick arm fix.

For those tempted into achieving this seemingly unachievable party dress look, be prepared to give up most of your daylight hours. Joe Mitton, a Cambridge-based personal trainer specialising in helping those desperate for the upper torso of a goddess, says that in order to get such sculpted arms, you will need to train, train and train some more.

‘You can’t spot-reduce fat,’ he says. According to Joe, all the Oscar actresses showing off their upper limbs in the gorgeous photographs here will have been feeling the pain by working on the muscles deep in the upper arm. It is, in truth, the only way to achieve that elegant in-andout shape that naturally drops as women age.

So, if you are not an A-list actress, what can you do to get the look du

jour? If this is what the new party look holds for us all, is there anything to be done?

Moisturising is always a great leveller and there is no doubt the women on this page have coated themselves with a camera-ready sheen. But — let’s be realistic — no potion or lotion is going to tone your arms, whatever it says on the tin.

You could try drastic measures and resort to plastic surgery,

Operations do exist to ‘vacuum’ out the lumpy bits — but they will leave scars. And if you don’t want to be seen in a sleeveless dress with your arms as they are, would you really want to reveal some giveaway marks?

No, beautiful as these women are, this is one of the few occasions when, for the rest of us, less is definitely not more.