Hollywood is a high-stakes fashion game at the best of times, but in 2025—where the trend cycle is the formidable, fast-paced vortex that it is—it has become increasingly expected that stars keep reinventing the sartorial wheel.
Indeed, with awards season well and truly upon us, it is all the more necessary to nail the task of occasion-dressing without falling victim to the often-fraught space of the fashion retrospective (we’re looking at you, 2010’s). Some celebrities are beginning to turn to the archives of their favourite designers to pull off red-carpet glamour, but one Hollywood A-lister has been practising the art of archival dressing for years already.
Outfit repeating is Cate Blanchett’s modus operandi. The New Boy actress has long been a staunch advocate of rewearing what you have, appearing on red carpets in designs taken from her own archive, to prove that outfit-repeating doesn’t have to be the fashion faux pas we’ve been convinced it is. Most recently she appeared on the AACTA red carpet in a sleek black Armani jumpsuit with an asymmetric gold sleeve. If the look feels retro, that’s because it is. Blanchett wore this same outfit six years ago to the Venice Film Festival, but then it was an off-the-runway dress from the Armani Privé autumn/winter '18/'19 collection. By reworking the original design Blanchett and her stylist Elizabeth Stewart, whose motto when it comes to the actress is the ever-quotable ‘it’s chic to repeat’, have shown that red carpet glamour doesn’t always have to be new to be exciting. Sometimes the most exciting looks are the ones we see over and again, with fresh, new details each time. After all, our own wardrobes (or wallets) can hardly sustain an endless cycle of constant new-ness. Blanchett’s red carpet style is the ultimate lesson in consulting our own archives so that we might always be the most glamorous version of ourselves.
Here’s every time Cate Blanchett proved that outfit repeating is chic.
