Helena Bonham Carter - Red Carpet Chic or Freak?

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to see 'The Kings Speech' at the cinema and I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Helena Bonham Carter as the young Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. 
I never really rated Helena Bonham Carter before seeing this film, sure enough she was funny as the Red Queen in an otherwise lacklustre version of Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton, coincidently, her husband. And I began to wonder whether she just got roles in films that he was invloved in making.
Needless to say her portrayal of the young Queen Elizabeth in the Kings Speech surprised me, she was a breath of fresh air within an otherwise male character driven piece, and she had great comic timing, often stealing the show in some cases.

Much has been documented about Bonham Carters fashion sense. Just recently she turned up at the Golden Globes with two different shoes on. Her explanation? 'Who says we need to wear the same shoes?' - Fair comment I hear you say.
She seems to have a rather thrown together look, like she just found the first thing in her wardrobe and thought 'I can work that' and put them on. As you can see from the image above, for everyday wear, her hap-hazard style isn't that risky. But at a preimere? That's a whole different ball game...

The two images above show Bonham Carter at two premieres for her more child friendly films; Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland. Maybe it is the nature of the films she is attending that enables her to tap into a slightly more child-like fashion sense, having a bag with each outfit that you would not see out of place in the Disney store. I don't think that these outfits are as hideous as some critics would suggest, far from it, if anything the only thing wrong with them is that they don't suit her body shape - the white dress in particular.

At the end of the day, her style is that she refuses to conform to the fashion and trend norm, many a-listers can say that they do that, but she actually does.
It's like she's saying to us women; 'Who says we need to wear what someone else tells us looks good' - why can't we women decide for ourselves? She seems to and it works.

We are always told that we should feel comfortable in our own skin. So why not do that with our clothes?

Whatever people think of Helena Bonham Carter, I have now seen her in a new light and whatever she wears, whatever films she stars in, she gets people talking about both her fashion and her acting.
Isn't that the whole point?