Listicle: 10 fits to rock on the red carpet at the Oscars

Busy Philipps, showed up with her bestie Michelle Williams at the 2017 awards in a stunning column dress by Elizabeth Kennedy. “I couldn’t wear anything underneath,” she has recounted in several interview. “There wasn’t any room so that night was a special night for me.” Bjork infamously wore a swan costume in 2001. It even laid an egg.

For over-the-top fashion, wait for the Met Gala in May. Those gowns are crazy for good reason: Most women celebs wear them just for the red-carpet entrance. They switch to more wearable evening-wear at the no-cameras dinner that follows. The Oscars, however, call for four hours of sitting and are televised. Plus, there’s a press conference for winners. Dresses must stay comfy and crease-free for at least that long.

For the 1968 edition, costume designer Edith Head sent out a note: “Actresses are requested to wear formal evening gowns either maxi or floor length, preferably pastel shades since the setting is very formal and done entirely in white and gold ... As you know, long dresses (no mini or day length) are more graceful on stage and on camera in this type of background.” The guidelines still hold. There’s cleavage, arms, back, but rarely a midriff, prints or high hemline.

Angelina Jolie’s 2012 dress was full length but one slit showed off her entire leg. It’s so famous it has its own Wikipedia entry and, for a while, a Twitter account. Sharon Stone wore a Vera Wang skirt with her husband’s white Gap shirt in 1998. Demi Moore wore biker shorts in 1989. Frances McDormand showed up in Valentino Birkenstocks in 2019. Thank heavens for rule breakers.

And there’s a pecking order. Artists who are presenting or nominated have more visibility and get first dibs on what to wear. The fight starts once nominations are announced. Stylists longlist outfits from the runway, from abroad, from vintage archives for their clients, set up close to 50 options. Designers woo the girl of the moment (It’s Lily Gladstone this year). It’s couture roulette – one woman’s rejects become another’s The One.

Few women wear red (Why match the carpet?) Only badasses dare to wear gold (Meryl Streep is that badass). Women of colour tend to show off a dramatic palette. Designers hold off on debuting a dress on the runway if they know a big movie star or brand ambassador will wear it to the Academy Awards. The dress itself will be custom-fit for the woman, not a sample size (though she rarely gets to keep it).

Actors get Botox on their underarms to prevent sweating on those silky frocks. They pop anti-anxiety pills to stay serene though the chaos. They go beyond the usual juice cleanse to slim down. Even young actors (including Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Garner and Isla Fisher) wear Spanx or similar scuba-style compression suits underneath. Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Oscar de la Renta, and Valentino have all made gowns with built-in corsets, bust and butt padding, breast lifts and power mesh slips that nip in the waist.

For the 2012 Oscars, Gwyneth Paltrow wore a white cape dress by Tom Ford. Stylist Eliabeth Saltzman told Vogue magazine that the actor travelled to the ceremony in an SUV “I had her lying way back so there would be no folds and then the cape was stretched out into the back, with two people holding it so it didn’t get crumpled. There are ways to sit or not sit to prevent creasing.”

If a woman is not skinny, designers don’t bother sending dresses. Leslie Jones spoke out that only Christian Siriano cared to dress her for her Ghostbusters premiere in 2016. Octavia Spencer has admitted to wearing two pairs of Spanx just to be able to fit into a figure-hugging dress. Melissa McCarthy has said she once took off her girdle in the ladies room right after the awards were done.

Celebrities jump through hoops to look good, but they’re much more than human clothes hangers. The #AskHerMore movement pushes journalists to go beyond “Who are you wearing?” . The ManiCam, in which stars walk their bejewelled fingers though a diorama for a closeup of their nails and jewellery had so much hate, it died a quick death.