There are two ways to win at the Oscars: go home with a statuette, or be crowned on the red carpet. Jessie Buckley did the double.
Buckley’s best actress award seemed pretty much in the bag by the time the night rolled around, and she pulled off a red carpet triumph to put the cherry on top of a stellar award season. In her acceptance speech, she said her role as a grieving mother “cracked a kind of tenderness” in her. Buckley’s Chanel gown, blood red satin-backed leather and rose pink chiffon, chimed with that message. The colours brought an emotional warmth and a singularity that stood out among the familiar choices of flattering black, or glamorous gold. The silhouette put the focus on her face rather than her body, the wide crimson neckline was a visual echo of her broad lipsticked smile. There was a smart nod to Oscar history, too: the juxtaposition of a shawl-wrapped top with a waisted, full gown was in part inspired by an Edith Head gown worn by Grace Kelly to the 1956 ceremony. The reach of the Oscars is an opportunity for actors to embed themselves in the culture, telling a huge audience who they are and what they are about, and Buckley did just that.
Teyana Taylor missed out in the best supporting actress category, but still triumphed. As part of the board-sweeping One Battle cast she was on the winning team. Her look, also by Chanel, was leotard-tight at the torso, sheer and crystal-bedecked, exploding dramatically into black and white feathers from waist to hip. It was audacious, head-turning, unapologetic, a thoroughly modern dress of plot twists and turns - ensuring that, even though she didn’t win in her category, she was at the centre of the night as the clearest visual embodiment of the spirit of One Battle After Another, a film that holds up a mirror to the chaotic drama of contemporary America. Stylists have become important power brokers in Hollywood’s jostling for power, but Taylor is notable as an actor who often styles herself for the red carpet, and this confidence in trusting her own instincts in a game where many are terrified of making mistakes speaks volumes.
Paul Mescal didn’t get a nomination for his role in Hamnet, but has spent the award season method-dressing to support the profile of the film anyway, which feels like a gracious way to navigate not being the centre of attention. For the biggest night of them all, he wore a Celine black cashmere cardigan instead of a tuxedo and a soft knotted neck ribbon instead of a tie: a mellow, poetic, Bard-adjacent version of black tie that seemed to say, I’m here as a proud Hamnet actor, not as Mescal the movie star.
It was inevitable that Timothée Chalamet’s night would be viewed in the context of the public relations disaster of his comments about opera and ballet. Perhaps he would have addressed it had he been called to the podium, but his look for the night seemed in its own way a punchy riposte. His off-white double-breasted Givenchy suit, worn with baggy trousers, matching boots and dark glasses, was giving bumptious 2000s boyband energy. This is not an outfit that everyone will love, and that is the point. It is the choice of a man who is happy to be cultural Marmite.
Renate Reinsve, nominated for Sentimental Value, has been this award season’s poster girl for the power of red carpet fashion to accelerate an actor’s visibility. Her architectural Louis Vuitton dress, with a thigh-high split to one side and an off-centre train on the other, consolidated her position as fashion’s new Hollywood darling. It was a good night for red on the red carpet: Kylie Jenner, unofficially but unilaterally awarded the gong for best award-season hype woman for her appearances next to Chalamet, wore lusciously sparkling crimson Schiaparelli, with a keyhole shaped cut out.
Five thousand miles away in Paris, Chanel will this morning be basking in the afterglow of a triumphant night. The house have a new designer in Matthieu Blazy, and a new commercial focus on the US market that recently saw a catwalk show staged in a New York subway station. Scoring the best actress is always the most high-profile fashion flex of the night, and dressing Taylor as well as Buckley, and in two gowns with such distinct personalities, cements Chanel’s current status as the leading light on the red carpet scene.
