Eponymous talk show hostess and butch lesbian lover Ellen Degeneres is turning fifty. She's celebrating her birthday with a new policy of openness. As part of the new divulgey Ellen (though she's always been divulgey) she's shared with US Magazine some of her "own fashion blunders." They mostly involve vests which aren't very of-the-moment these days and strangely tailored jeans. Upon reflection, most of Ellen's sartorial faux pas are variations on the abuse of vests from 1989's tapestried vest to 1995's smocky vest. Fact: none of these outfits are actually that bad. (If you took a picture of me in 1989, I'd be wearing an oversized t-shirt that said, "GET A LIFE" in block letters, pink-and-green Umbros, and Pumps. Not pretty.) Ellen, a savvy 50 year old, has curated these images herself. We'd love to see what you can find. After the jump, our selections and the most amazing piece of Ellen artwork ever created.

You know, having searched for these images, it seems to be the only real sin Ellen committed in her "fashion blunders" is not being completely completely boring and inoffensive. There are like thousands of photos of her in a V-neck sweater or some blah suit with an dress shirt underneath. And no, she doesn't look horrible. She doesn't look great. She just barely even registers as anything. The outfits, like Ellen, are just so completely boring, so scared perhaps of being anything but a charming laughy lesbian that the hetero-normative hegemony can point at and laugh at and tolerate that even the slightest show of creativity or originality or edge or vest or jeans is just terrifying and absolutely verboten.