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Lupita Nyong’o.
Photograph by Kevin Mazur / WireImage / Getty
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Rita Moreno.
Photograph by Steve Granitz / WireImage / Getty
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Jane Fonda.
Photograph by Rick Rowell / Getty
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Nicole Kidman.
Photograph by Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic / Getty
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Agnès Varda.
Photograph by Frazer Harrison / GettyFull-screen1 of 1010
Lupita Nyong’o.
Photograph by Kevin Mazur / WireImage / Getty
The 2018 Golden Globes, in January, were a sombre sartorial affair. To show solidarity for the #TimesUp initiative, against sexual harassment in the industry, stars were encouraged to wear all black; the point was not to stand out but to band together. At the Oscars, by contrast, it was time—for women, especially—to shake loose. It was a night for the kind of discordant, casual glamour that comes from eccentricity and individuality. At one point, during the ABC pre-show broadcast, Nicole Kidman, in a structured sapphire skyscraper of a gown from Armani Privé, sneaked up on Sandra Bullock (in slinky, gold-dipped Vuitton) mid-interview, and the two giggled about doing tequila shots. Tiffany Haddish, looking regal in a traditional Eritrean gown, called a zuria, complete with an intricately embroidered black capelet (the ensemble was an homage to her late father), let out a gleeful sigh as she spoke to Michael Strahan. “It is heaven to me,” she said, beaming across the crowd. Then she gingerly hoisted up her hem and leaped over a velvet rope to do a goofy curtsy in front of a Dior-clad Meryl Streep.
Further Reading
New Yorker writers on the 2018 Academy Awards.
Some of the best fashion moments of the night came from celebrities who were not even nominated for awards this year. The musician Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) looked like a couture Roxie Hart, in a super-short black Saint Laurent with a giant sculptural puff at the shoulder. The “Mudbound” director Dee Rees walked the carpet in six-inch platform brogues and an asymmetrical ivory tuxedo jacket with foppish tails. The figure skater Adam Rippon sported a glossy black-leather harness across his chest, its chunky straps crisscrossing underneath the lapels of his crisp tuxedo. (Perhaps a subtle nod to Cher’s iconic Bob Mackie showgirl fantasia, from the 1986 Oscars?) A trio of cast-mates from “Black Panther”—Lupita Nyong’o, in serpentine Versace gold micromesh (later paired, onstage during the ceremony, with chunky black glasses, one of several standout spectacles over the course of the evening); Danai Gurira, in a champagne-satin Gabriela Hearst cupcake; and Winston Duke, in a sleek Etro suit with a jaunty tasselled scarf—walked the carpet arm in arm, inviting visions of all of the dynamic looks we are going to be treated to next year, when “Black Panther” is up for awards.
The Oscars are always a place to honor Hollywood’s elders, but this year an older generation of stars shone especially bright. Some of the Oscars’ grandes dames, such as Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda, chose sleek, solid colors (Wedgwood-blue Reem Acra and stark-white Balmain, respectively) with razor-sharp shoulders. Rita Moreno looked gilded and timeless in the very same dress she wore when she won an Oscar, for “West Side Story,” fifty-six years ago; later, during the ceremony, she shimmied her way up to the mike as if hardly a year had passed. Agnès Varda, the eighty-nine-year-old French film legend (and nominee for her documentary “Faces Places”), arrived wearing a three-piece Gucci suit covered in roses, paired with sensible white tennis shoes, an effervescent, maximalist explosion over which the Internet promptly lost its mind. The screenwriter James Ivory, who is also eighty-nine, and who won an award for “Call Me by Your Name,” appeared wearing a custom dress shirt printed with the youthful visage of the movie’s star Timothée Chalamet.
In real life, Chalamet, like Jordan Peele, wore an all-white suit that made him look as if he were going to a Jazz Age lawn party. Several other men opted for velveteen jackets, my favorites being Daniel Kaluuya’s, a pumpkin-spice-colored Brunello Cucinelli, and Armie Hammer’s crimson Armani. A few of the younger female stars opted for retro-classic silhouettes: Saoirse Ronan wore a sleek Calvin Klein column in Glossier pink, while Greta Gerwig wore a sunny, beaded Rodarte the color of egg yolks. But it was difficult to lump the suiting or the dresses into any neat categories, which, in the end, may be the larger message of the evening. There were echoes of the #MeToo movement on the red carpet, from Time’s Up lapel pins to the moment when Taraji P. Henson may have put a subtle curse on Ryan Seacrest. But the theme of the night was bold, joyful personal style, a fashion of dreaming ahead. At the end of the evening, a bare-faced Frances McDormand, accepting her Oscar for Best Actress in a long-sleeved sequin dress with a snakeskin print, asked the women nominees in the room to stand up, their vivid gowns popping against a backdrop of black tuxes. McDormand encouraged the suits in the room to take note of these women and their many achievements, and to invite them to their offices on Monday morning for business meetings. “We all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,” she said. The fashion show was over, and it was time to get to work.
Sourse: newyorker.com
