Lithuania may not have qualified for the grand final of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, but the Baltic nation has picked up one prize this year: the Barbara Dex Award for the worst dressed artist in the contest.

Dating back to 1997 and the early days of the online ESC fan community, the annual Barbara Dex Award is decided by the visitors to fan website Eurovisionhouse.nl. It is named in honour of Belgium’s 1993 entrant, who made a particularly striking visual statement with her own self-designed dress.

This year’s competition was, in fact, no competition at all: the futuristic leather outfits sported by Vilija Matačiūnaitė and her backing dancer were the clear “winners”, accounting for 311 of the 1,101 votes submitted. They were followed at some distance by the pseudo-Roman stylings of Emma Marrone from Italy and the removable hair of Cristina Scarlat from Moldova (each of which received 90 votes), while the parachute that was memorably brought on stage by Georgian band The Shin helped them to 4th place (76 votes).

The voting criteria of the Barbara Dex Award mean that the winners have not always been easily comprehensible. While Moje 3 from Serbia (2013) or Lydia from Spain (1999) clearly had outfits that distracted massively from their performances, it remains a mystery as to how t.A.T.u. (Russia 2003) or Verka Serduchka (Ukraine 2007) managed to walk away with the prize, considering that their costumes were entirely consistent with their overall image. Nevertheless, the clear “victory” in this year’s poll cannot be denied – and so we say congratulations to Vilija and Lithuania on this prestigious award, and thank you for the memorable addition to what was undoubtedly a colourful ESC year!

Photo © Andres Putting (EBU)