All The Oscars Fashion Moments Worth Discussing
A great archival Vivienne Westwood reference and John Waters's fuzzy pink Rick Owens boots.
On Sunday night, while watching the Oscars, I blacked out for a brief second. It was when those frenchies from Emilia Perez got up on stage after winning for best original song and started singing into the mic. What transpired lasted for 18 harrowing seconds, which is exactly how long Adrien Brody’s speech should have been.
The moment sent shivers down my spine. It reminded me so vividly and instantly of something and yet I couldn’t put my finger on it until my friend Ben pointed out that it felt like a recent episode of Traitors, where Tom Sandoval claims he is the most musically inclined member on the reality show. In a challenge, Sandoval has to listen to haunted-looking dolls crooning backwards nursery rhymes. He then has to sing them back to his castmates in the castle for them to identify correctly, in exchange for prize money. It is the exact kind of energy Camille Audiard was exuding and honestly Sandoval’s inverted nursery rhyme performance was exactly what the songs in Emilia Perez sounded like to me from the clips I have seen…and I speak fluent Spanish.
Anyway, every Oscar ceremony has those kinds of moments that make you want to die. It’s as much part of the program as someone wearing something so good on the red carpet you find the will to live another day, which is actually what I really wanted to talk about.
First, Ariana Grande. Obsessed with the Schiaparelli look she wore on the carpet from the Spring 2025 collection. I love that it’s just the tiniest bit pink and not too on the nose for Glinda. It reminds me of a gorgeous jellyfish with tentacles of tulle.
All of the press releases on this dress will tell you the skirt has over 190,000 crystals but I always find those details so boring. Counting the exact amount of crystals on a garment or the hours it took to make it is such an easy factoid that always get throw around for these kinds of moments. So much so that it becomes meaningless. And it’s not like any of us are that surprised to hear these things. It’s couture! That’s the pinnacle of high fashion! It’s made-to-measure! I would hope it took thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of crystals for the many thousands of dollars it is worth.
What’s more exciting to me is that she was fully able to use the fitted bodice with that rippled peplum to rest her phone on when she wanted to stand up to applaud. Most dresses don’t come with a fold-out table equivalent. That’s worth noting.
What’s also important to note is that her phone case is a very cute bear dressed up as a very cute kitten. It felt like a reminder that deep beneath her Glinda/Audrey Hepburn facade the real Ari is there, somewhere. Yuh. It’s also $10 and I really want it (I ordered it).
When she got on stage to perform Defying Gravity, she also wore a custom Schiap bustier gown, with layers of tulle cascading down from her hips. This dress paid a clear homage to the original Wizard of Oz. She looked like Dorothy’s red ruby slippers come to life. Actually, the dress itself had a red pump embedded in the back, as though Grande was truly the human incarnation of one of Dorothy’s slippers in the middle of a bodily transformation.
Erivo also looked like she had polymorphed, except from a wedding cake. I say that with love because this look was everything to me. It’s custom Vivienne Westwood, based on an archival Spring 1997 bridal look. The original was called the “Love Is Blind” dress. The model walked down the runway with her hands tied behind her back with tulle and her eyes covered by a satin blindfold.
Defying Gravtiy is all about Elphaba giving up the desire to be loved and accepted in favor of doing what’s right. She’s setting herself free by no longer deciding to live up to society’s expectations. This dress choice felt intentional, styled with no tulle handcuffs or satin blindfold for obvious reasons, but also to symbolize how Elphaba was no longer blind to what she had to do. Nothing is more thrilling to me than using a good archival fashion reference for storytelling like that. And I’m grateful we didn’t have to sit through any live Emilia Perez performances, where I’m sure the styling would find a way to do the absolute opposite.
Speaking of favorite looks, I was quite into Lily Rose Depp’s custom Chanel covered in black lace, ruffles, and peplum. It was based on a Spring 1995 couture look, although hers had a halter top while the original was strapless. I would wear either (which is also something I’m sure Kylie Jenner said on Sunday).
Isabella Rossellini wore a blue velvet dress in honor of David Lynch and her mother’s earrings from when she accepted her best supporting actress Oscar for Murder on The Orient Express (1974); it felt like a love letter to those who’ve made her who she is. Doja Cat wore a custom leopard print Balmain dress—based on a Fall 1953 couture dress—so good that I will forgive whatever was happening with her performance for that bizarre James Bond tribute (which really should have been a David Lynch tribute…). Earlier this award season, Elle Fanning also wore a Balmain dress inspired by that same 1953 collection, with leopard print embroidery on the bust, which I also adored. To me, animal print is opulence and I’d like to see more of it done right like this on the red carpet.
John Waters wore a pair of Rick Owens pink ponyhair Beatle Bozo Tractor Boots and attended with Debbie Harry because he is perfect. “I know in Hollywood they like to ruin the classic look of men’s tuxedos,” he said to ET. “So I got in the spirit of it and wore shoes that look like the easter rabbit.” I want to know what he would say about Timothée’s butter yellow Givenchy leather suit, which also felt very Easter Sunday.
All of the Dilara Findikoglu at the Vanity Fair afterparty thrilled me. Rosalía wore a look from the Fall 2025 Amnesia collection that just walked at London Fashion Week in February. On Instagram, the brand described the dress as made “of an underlayer of silk chiffon and victorian lace Boticelli gown trapped inside a feather gray modern mesh dress.” I love the use of the word “trapped” here. It is a dress not made for the male gaze. It is sexy in the weirdest way. You look at it and see a dress underneath the gauze fighting to get out. And you do a double take because you’re intrigued by that and less about what’s underneath.
Julia Fox also wore Dilara to the same party. Her dress was entirely sheer except for some curled hair extensions placed in the most opportune places. She looked like a modern day take on Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. What I enjoyed even more was her second Dilara look, which appeared frozen in that split-second after a strong gust of wind blows up your skirt and threatens to expose your underwear. When commenters on her Instagram begged her hairstylist, John Novotny, to disclose how he was able to quite literally give her windswept hair, he replied: “got2b and a dream.”
I was delighted to see Paul Tazewell, the costume designer of Wicked, win because he seems absolutely fabulous. He wore vintage jewelry from Fred Leighton pinned to the collar of his shirt in place of a tie. On Instagram, he said he drew inspiration for his look from the Black dandies of yesteryear. Someone invite him to the Met Gala (we will need him)! While I didn’t enjoy Nosferatu, I thought the costumes in that film were incredible because I guess I love to dress like a victorian woman lusting after a 300 year-old decrepit vampire.
And I’m now realizing maybe that fact came across in my Oscars viewing outfit: a vintage Bebe top that always makes me feel like a countess with a pair of Alo sweatpants. I never intended to wear these two things together—and I did promptly change out of the top into the matching Alo hoodie 10 minutes into the ceremony—but it’s the kind of look that happens when you half-change after coming back home from running errands.
This look also reminds me of my other favorite Oscars moment, which is learning that Club Chalamet had a similar inharmonious styling approach.
See you later this week for another White Lotus fashion dispatch I am very excited about!
paul tazewell is totally fabulous and a theatre legend!! would love to see him at the met gala <3
Im swearing off French fries for a month after that acceptance speech