fussy
Her clothes have to be very carefully chosen because anything fussily frilled, checked or highly patterned tends to look too busy on the small screen.
She is fussily over-dressed, laced and beribboned.
The car has a fussily styled and poorly fitted glovebox.
The 1950s era had fussily constructed garments, cumbersome skirts, cinched waists, and rigid hairstyles.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Not attractive to look at
back end
be no oil paintingidiom
be not much to look atidiom
bleakly
bleakness
gracelessly
have a face like the back end of a busidiom
hideous
hideousness
homeliness
putridly
reptilian
scrappily
scrappy
stolid
unpretty
unshapely
unsightly
vulgarity
vulgarly

Examples of fussily

fussily
Then with a great to-do the little man would squirrel fussily among the many packages, hunting the required one.
From Project Gutenberg
We prate a good deal of "companionship with nature," and go out fussily to seek it, with camera, bird-book, field-glasses, and expensive camping gear.
From Project Gutenberg
She sat down at her tea-table, and tried, fussily, to light the lamp under the kettle.
From Project Gutenberg
Actresses glided fussily to their seats, smiling acknowledgment to the applause of the groundlings.
From Project Gutenberg
The master came in, fussily squatted down beside her, and touched her face with his finger.
From Project Gutenberg
A uniformed spaceman watched us, fussily regarding a chronometer.
From Project Gutenberg
When the vessel began to toss so furiously, the elder man rose and paced fussily to and fro, rubbing his fingers through his iron-gray hair.
From Project Gutenberg
I see them fussily crawling on the surface of the combs, curving their necks from side to side and taking stock of the cells.
From Project Gutenberg
Its work done, the tug steamed fussily back to the dock.
From Project Gutenberg
The little girls settled themselves fussily, getting up frequently to crush their stiff starchy skirts into place.
From Project Gutenberg
All day the troops of the governor were fussily busy, but none of the real leaders of the insurgents was taken.
From Project Gutenberg
The whistle shrieked--the steamer lumbered fussily down-stream.
From Project Gutenberg
The hens cackled fussily at the prospect of their deferred evening meal.
From Project Gutenberg
The other two, wings spread, clucked fussily and avoided the rest.
From Project Gutenberg
About her feet were a cluster of fluffy baby chicks, and the hen moved fussily around them.
From Project Gutenberg
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.