Vivien Leigh
Winner, best actress, 12th Academy Awards, 1940
For decades, Vivien Leigh’s Oscar dress brand had been misidentified as Walter Plunkett. He was the costume designer on Gone With the Wind, for which Leigh won her Oscar. However, Irene Gibbons, a gifted fashion designer, who was a favourite of Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Clark Gable’s wife, Carole Lombard, debuted this dress on her Los Angeles catwalk five months before the 12th Academy Awards. Leigh scouted it out during Gone With the Wind’s premiere period and, on Oscar night, adorned it with a Van Cleef & Arpels aquamarine pendant, which her soon-to-be second husband, Laurence Olivier, had given her.
Elizabeth Taylor
Winner, best actress, 33rd awards, 1961
While never one of Hollywood’s best-dressed women, Elizabeth Taylor reigned as its queen and always played her part impeccably at the Oscars. This lime-and-white gown, which she wore to collect the best actress Oscar for Butterfield 8, and imperiously accessorised with an ermine wrap and her signature diamond jewels, had debuted at the first Christian Dior show staged by Marc Bohan in 1961. Taylor’s fourth husband, Eddie Fisher, bought the dress, along with “almost the entire collection”, he remembered. While Dior shows were typically packed with celebrities and socialites, Taylor never made an appearance and instead selected her couture – including this dress - from sketches sent to her by Dior’s atelier.
Julie Andrews
Nominee, best actress, and presenter, best actor award, 38th awards, 1966
Hollywood’s studio costume designers often conceived Oscar-night garb for nominees and presenters. So when Julie Andrews received a best actress nod for The Sound of Music, she enlisted the film’s costumer, Dorothy Jeakins, to rustle up her finery. A Japanese art scholar, Jeakins updated the traditional kimono robe for Andrews, whom she adored, and created one with a plunging “discotheque back” and flirty shocking pink silk lining. Julie Christie trumped Andrews in the best actress race but The Sound of Music star won the fashion competition.
Mark Lester
Presenter, honorary award, 41st awards, 1969
Recently, Armie Hammer and David Oyelowo have sported red tuxedos to the Academy Awards. Mark Lester was ahead of the curve. The child star had earned plaudits, yet no nomination, for portraying the title character in Oliver!. As the big budget musical reaped a slew of Oscars at the 41st ceremony, including the all-important best picture prize, Lester, aged 11, lent dandified refinement to 60s Hollywood’s hippy deluxe mode.
Isaac Hayes
Winner, best original song, nominee, best original music score, 44th awards, 1972
From the late 60s, the Oscars red carpet was occasionally stepped on by men who subverted the tuxedo uniform by wearing something like a gold medallion, love beads or a turtleneck. But no man had cut as much of a dash through the sedate black-tie sea as Isaac Hayes did in a mink-edged tux worn to pick up the best original song Oscar for his Shaft theme. The composer’s flamboyant made-to-measure duds were the handiwork of his tailor, Harvey Louis Krantz. While Krantz is unknown today, in 70s Hollywood he was the designer of choice for music stars, from the Beach Boys to Bob Dylan, Ike Turner and Liberace. When Hayes arrived on the red carpet, his outrageous flair made the crowds go wild.
Cher
Co-presenter, best original music, 46th awards, 1974
Consider Cher’s appearance in a barely there, Bob Mackie two-piece as the dress rehearsal for her infamous appearance at the 58th Academy Awards in 1986 in a shimmery, black Mackie ensemble (complete with a flowing cloak and towering headdress). The inspiration for this get-up, including the handmade costume jewels, was the “jungle princess” look that Mackie’s former boss, Edith Head, had created for Dorothy Lamour’s slew of 1930s “sarong films”. The ensemble’s freewheeling style evoked Cher’s newly liberated identity; at the time, she was in the midst of divorcing her husband and performing partner, Sonny Bono.
Cate Blanchett
Nominee, best actress, 71st awards, 1999
Cate Blanchett has appeared at the Oscars in dresses by a long line of fashion greats, including Dries Van Noten, Giorgio Armani, Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino. Although her status as one of the Oscars’ best dressed women began with this sweater dress. It was created by John Galliano when he was at the peak of his success as Christian Dior’s creative director and Blanchett was a first-time best actress Oscar nominee for her star turn in Elizabeth. It featured a “Garden of Eden” scene rendered in delicate embroidery to beautify the frock’s upper back.
Michelle Yeoh
Co-presenter, best visual effects, 73rd awards, 2001
Michelle Yeoh put a high-fashion spin on the time-honoured Oscar tradition of tasking a costume designer to create a red-carpet look evoking the style of a nominated film. Yeoh did so by enlisting Hong Kong fashion designer Barney Cheng to conceive a look paying tribute to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Ang Lee’s 19th-century action masterpiece, which won four Oscars, Yeoh had portrayed martial arts master Yu Shu Lien. Her asking Chen to realise “100% glamour” resulted in this hand-beaded cheongsam incorporating 187,000 Swarovski crystals. “At the fitting, Michelle put it on and fell over because it was so heavy,” remembered Cheng. On the red carpet, she struck a pose and radiated glamour.
Lupita Nyong’o
Winner, best supporting actress, 86th awards, 2014
The minimalist beauty of Lupita Nyong’o’s Prada gown, as well as the superstar’s dignified manner at the ceremony where she won the best supporting actress Oscar for playing Patsey in 12 Years a Slave, proved a potent combination as well as a refreshing alternative to the horde of overdressed celebrities flaunting borrowed jewels. Nyong’o lent meaning to her dress by describing the vivid sky blue she chose for it as “Nairobi blue”, because it reminded her of her hometown.
• Bronwyn Cosgrave is the author of Made for Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards (Bloomsbury)
