And the winners are...
To get you in the mood for playing fashion police, we round up 10 of the most iconic red carpet looks to date. Can this year’s attendees top these?
Rendering Charlize Theron fabulous sounds like a cake-walk, but stylist Cindy Evans surpassed herself for the 2004 Oscars. To drop the pounds she gained to play Monster murderess Aileen Wuornos, the actress worked out for four hours a day with three trainers. This Gucci gown from Tom Ford’s final collection showed off the results. “You better love your body if you’re going to channel Charlize Theron’s Oscar look,” wrote Hal Rubenstein, fashion director at InStyle magazine. “The body carries that dress.” Charlize looks remarkably relaxed for a posing safety-deposit box: her Lana Marks “Cleopatra” clutch was 18-carat white gold set with 1,500 diamonds. She had 46 more on her Chopard drop-earrings.
Julie Christie is the only winner in the history of the Awards to arrive in an outfit she made earlier. The British rose wore a gold lamé trouser-suit she’d stitched together for the ceremony in 1966. According to Bronwyn Cosgrave’s Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards, Christie was so terrified of attending that she avoided selecting a dress, immersing herself in work on Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 until she had to fly to California. Her homemade “Swinging London” look is actually bang on-trend: metallic lamé, an Oriental-style collar and a heavy fringe with full head of princess curls made appearances on the Spring/Summer catwalks.
A single Oscar name-check can make a designer’s career. Elie Saab has been a red carpet favourite since Halle Berry wore this risqué burgundy number in 2002, when she became the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award. The Lebanese designer ran his own label for two decades prior to her appearance, without international recognition. A year later, Saab was invited to join the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture (the Parisian regulator that determines which fashion houses may trade as haute couture house).
As if Kim Basinger’s pin curls and shy smile weren’t adorable enough, she channelled her idol Grace Kelly with this mint-green Escada dress in 1998. The then-wife of Alec Baldwin won Best Supporting Actress for her role in LA Confidential. Her win gave Escada’s profile a much-needed boost. According to The Wall Street Journal, the German brand was so keen to dress her that designer Brian Rennie made seven versions of her final choice, altering it right up until she left for the ceremony.
With all eyes on Angelina Jolie’s right leg last year, Jessica Chastain’s exquisitely-detailed Alexander McQueen gown got less praise than it merits. Television cameras rarely do a work of art justice. “There was something about the embroidery of this dress,” the actress told The Hollywood Reporter. “It felt larger than life and this is a larger-than-life moment.”
Valentino has dressed the most Best Actress winners to date, with Cate Blanchett, Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Jessica Lange all hiking his skirts up to approach the stage. The lemon off-the-shoulder gown Cate chose in 2005 is one of his greatest hits. The rich chocolate belt is a surprising but flattering touch. This dress took 10 seamstresses nearly three weeks of eight-hour days to make from 11 yards of silk taffeta.
This one is a little crazy but kudos to Marion Cotillard for flying the flag for a truly French designer and rejecting some tame variation on the standard strapless gown. There’s too many fish in that sea. Jean Paul Gaultier said: “I showed her the sketches for this mermaid-inspired dress, and she loved it. We waited two weeks for the fabric, which was printed with fish scales and laboriously hand-embroidered.”
“Calvin Klein is my first true love,” Gwyneth Paltrow told InStyle in 1996. The designer helped make her the US poster girl for simple, unstructured chic and she’s rarely been seen in patterns or bold colours since. This silver sheath she wore to the 2011 Academy Awards was designed by Francisco Costa, Calvin’s successor at the label. She wears Louis Vuitton earrings and a matching brooch on her hip.
Grace Kelly, Hollywood’s princess before decided he wanted her for himself, chose friend and costume designer Edith Head to make this gown for the 27th Academy Awards. They’d become friendly while working on Rear Window and also collaborated on Country Girl, the musical that won Grace this Oscar. At $42,000, the fabric was thought wildly decadent, making her the most expensively-dressed Best Actress ever at that time. This dress reflects Alfred Hitchcock’s blonde ideal.“He said “make her look like a princess,” Head wrote in her memoirs. “Like a piece of Dresden china.”
No iconic Oscar fashion list would be complete without Hepburn. She created a new kind of movie-star glamour: minimalist chic. Famed couturier Hubert de Givenchy provided the clothes. The 1954 Oscars, at which she took Best Actress for Roman Holiday, were the first time he dressed her for an event. The look could today be dismissed as plain but, as Capote wrote of Holly Golightly, “there is a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes,that lack of lustre that makes her, herself, shine so”.
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