When Cate Blanchett walks the Oscars red carpet Sunday, you can expect the star — nominated for Best Actress for “Carol” — to deliver the glitz and glamour that movie fans expect from the Academy Awards. And if Blanchett’s past is any indication, she might just wear Giorgio Armani.
“Wearing Armani on the red carpet means you’ve made it,” says stylist Ali Levine. “It’s classic, timeless. No one is going to look bad in Armani.”
And they shouldn’t, because Armani is the creator of red-carpet fashion as we know it today.
“Before Armani, the red carpet was like the Wild West,” says Clare Sauro, a fashion historian and curator at Drexel University. “You had Demi Moore in her biker shorts, Cher in her headdress. Armani was the first designer to say, ‘Let me dress you.’ ”
The first Academy Awards, in 1929, was an intimate dinner — and the first Best Actress, Janet Gaynor, wore a sensible dress with a Peter Pan collar. But as Hollywood grew, studios recognized awards shows as vehicles to promote their stars.
“Before Armani, the red carpet was like the Wild West.”
“If you look at what Oscar winners are wearing through the late ’30s . . . into the ’50s, it’s often from the wardrobe department,” says Sauro. Movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor (who favored studio costumer Edith Head) and Audrey Hepburn (who was loyal to her “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” designer Hubert de Givenchy) generated enough press interest in their outfits to lead to the ceremony’s first red carpet in 1961. But by the late 1960s, the studio system was collapsing, and stars no longer had designers and stylists at their disposal.
“All these actresses who were used to being told what to wear by a costume department were totally lost,” says branding expert Mark Tungate, citing the infamous nightmare-prom gown that Jodie Foster wore to pick up her 1989 statuette. “Armani saw this incredible opportunity — and he took it.”
His designs telegraph sophistication, refinement — and the declaration, “I have arrived.”
After outfitting the 1980 film “American Gigolo,” Armani opened his first shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., hired in-house stylist Wanda McDaniel, and began asking actors and actresses if they wanted to borrow clothes for major events. He targeted the period’s hottest stars, particularly Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer — who was at first offended by the proposal. Her initial response: “I can dress myself, and who is Giorgio Armani?” But Pfeiffer soon relented.
She started regularly wearing Armani jackets to events, while Diane Keaton and Julia Roberts attended premieres in his trendy slouchy suits. The 1990 Oscars ceremony proved to be Armani’s coming-out ceremony. He dressed a whopping five actresses, the biggest stars of the day: Foster (in a sleek pantsuit), Pfeiffer (in navy velvet), Jessica Lange (in a gold bodice gown), Jessica Tandy (in an embellished jacket) and — most controversially — Roberts, in a slinky dress worn sans bra, her unsupported breasts on full display.
“These women looked powerful,” says Sauro. “They stood in contrast to the big poufy skirts of the time. They had an understated glamour. It was the transition from ’80s opulence to ’90s minimalism.” The next day, Women’s Wear Daily dubbed the event the “Armani Awards,” running a photo of Pfeiffer’s look alongside Kim Basinger’s puff-sleeved “Bride of Frankenstein” monstrosity.
Seeing that success, Valentino and Versace were courting red carpet-bound stars by 1992.
“I think things really reached a turning point with Joan Rivers and her red carpet coverage [which started in 1994] on E!” says Aliza Licht, author of “Leave Your Mark,” who previously worked with Donna Karan. “[Her reporting] was a wake-up call to designers. They thought, ‘Wow, this is a new form of free advertising!’ ”
Though it’s hardly free — a gown costs thousands of dollars and oodles of manpower to make — getting the right celeb in your brand can reap big rewards. A J. Mendel gown worn by Faith Hill at last year’s ceremony led to a 419 percent spike in traffic on the label’s website, according to digital marketing analysts at SimilarWeb.
The ways in which a designer and a star can be paired are myriad. Sometimes a designer employs an actress as an ambassador who appears in ad campaigns and is contracted to wear the brand to high-profile events — think Jennifer Lawrence in Dior or Alicia Vikander in Louis Vuitton. Sometimes a celeb’s stylist will reach out to brands that deliver a certain perceived image — this is particularly true of ingenues still figuring out their style, like this year’s Best Actress front-runner Brie Larson, who has worn various labels of late.
Armani has remained selective about whom he dresses. “There was a point when Armani was annoyed,” says Tungate. “He hated when stars would try gowns from various designers [before choosing one]. He said, ‘I don’t audition.’ ”
Indeed, wearing Armani signals that you belong to an exclusive club. That you’re a loyal friend, like Jodie Foster — who has worn Armani to all but one Oscars ceremony since 1990. Or that you’re special, like Salma Hayek, who pulled a power move in 1997 when she arrived at her first Oscars in form-fitting Armani. Or that you’re ready to claim your place atop the A-list, as Blanchett did when she donned a silver Armani column in 2007, leaving behind her more demure red-carpet history of lemon chiffon confections and slip dresses.
“There is an elegance in the people Armani chooses to dress,” says Licht. “And when I see someone in an Armani dress, I think, ‘That person has a personal relationship with him. That’s powerful.’ ”