Awards shows aren’t the only venues where one can make a fashion statement. While conferences don’t feature red carpet entrances, the corporate event stage still represents a prime occasion for speakers to display their sense of style.

With more attention being paid to female executives’ wardrobes, our focus today is on their male counterparts. A recent New York Times article pointed to the rise in men’s fitted suits, but colorful accessories or footwear can also attract notice. Nowadays, almost anything to draw the audience’s gaze towards the stage instead of their mobile devices amounts to a good strategy.

We’ve compiled six examples based on New York-based events we’ve covered this year at which some element of the presenters’ attire was as buzzworthy as their performances.

Well Suited: Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (left) sported a gray suit during an Internet Week talk in June. We couldn’t help but think that since Brad Pitt portrayed him in the movie Moneyball, he’s always got to look his best in public (though the actor himself seems to have stopped trying).

Pumpkin Power: Nothing conveys leadership like a bright crewneck sweater, since hoodies now are cliché. That must have been Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s view when he wore an orange pullover to an October appearance at the 92Y. As his interviewer, Kara Swisher, remarked, “By the way, I’ve got to tell you that you rock in that pumpkin [colored] sweater!”

In Mufti: Former (and perhaps future) TV show host/sportscaster Keith Olbermann wore blue sneakers to an April evening event at the Paley Center for Media. Sneakers were a smart choice that day, since he filed a lawsuit against Current TV, his former employer, then attended a New York Mets game and appeared later at the Paley Center. When you’re so busy, you need comfortable footwear.

Read more

When we first saw the newest Chanel No. 5 ads featuring Brad Pitt, we wondered exactly how the stream of pretentious nonsense spouted by the iconic actor would inspire perfume sales — for us, it mostly inspired laughter. We’re not the only ones; SNL tackled the faux-philosophical spots this weekend, with Taran Killam taking the lead as an equally scruffy–and only slightly more affected–Pitt.

While SNL did several skits skewering the ads (including fake commercials hawking everything from Taco Bell to canine condoms), we think Killam’s first run, a direct hit at the Chanel spot, was his best. By the end of the video, Killam’s pontificating monologue has devolved into nonsensical drivel that’s just mildly more insufferable than the original.

At least everyone seems to agree that these spots shouldn’t be winning any awards this season (unless Ad Week does its own version of the Razzies):

We guess we should applaud Chanel for being bold enough to choose a male face for its iconic No. 5 perfume, though we will venture that Brad Pitt was hardly the riskiest choice. We always imagined his favorite scent to be some enticing combination of stale cigarettes and marijuana, but who are we to say?

On watching Mr. Jolie’s first spot for Chanel, we share a common response: What the hell is he talking about? And how will this string of cosmic nonsense inspire more people to buy Chanel?

Well, that was…pretentious. We can only assume that the “it” he mentions is life, the universe and everything. Double rainbow, man. Unfortunately, the second spot released today is no better: Read more

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brad Pitt has been out and about promoting his new film Moneyball, which was many years in the making and is already getting some positive response from the critics.

But if you really think about it, how often do you hear from Brad Pitt? You see his picture all the time, in red carpet events or paparazzi photos as he travels about with Angelina and the kids. Maybe he’ll talk about his charity work or, like now, a new film. So doesn’t it suck that when he finally does open his mouth, he spends the rest of his Moneyball promo tour explaining that he really didn’t mean anything bad with that comment about the 90s and his marriage to Jennifer Aniston?

Read more

The summer blockbuster season is officially upon us, kicking off this weekend with a lineup of typical popcorn-fueled crowd-pleasers: The Hangover Part II, Kung Fu Panda 2, and…  The Tree of Life.

Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life, the Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, doesn’t sound like the usual summer movie fodder — and it doesn’t look like it, either, even though it’s got dinosaurs. But the timing of its release is central to Tree‘s marketing strategy, part of distributor Fox Searchlight‘s effort to position it as “a different kind of summer event.”

Read more

In case you hadn’t heard, there was a major scandale (that’s “scandal” in French) last week at the Cannes Film Festival over statements made by director and provocateur Lars von Trier. To recap: during a press conference for his film Melancholia, von Trier went off on a twisted, tangled, painful tangent and said he was a Nazi. He later apologized for the statement, but the Cannes folks banned him from the event and declared him “persona non grata.”

Despite that craziness, Kirsten Dunst walked away with the best actress award for her role in the film this weekend. She thanked the Cannes jury for still considering the film and thanked von Trier for the part. But perhaps just as much, Dunst may be remembered for her reaction to von Trier’s comments during the now-famous press conference.

Read more