Oscars live: Best and worst looks at 95th Academy Awards
The Oscars brought out lots of custom-made gowns with some stars featuring new designer trends. But who wore it best? Vote in our poll. Plus: See all the photos and video.
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Splashes of colour, custom gowns and sparkling diamond jewellery, Hollywood’s biggest names have turned it up for the Academy Awards.
Celebrities flocked to the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles for the ceremony.
For the 95th Academy Awards, the red carpet was turned champagne after Oscars organisers said they wanted it to be mellow, like a beach at sunset.
Already with two Academy Awards at home, Cate Blanchett was favourite to take home Best Lead Actress for Indy flick, Tar.
The celebrated Australian actor turned to a two-tone, Grecian-style gown by Louis Vuitton.
“My daughter is here, so we went for a swim and I had a bath,” said Blanchett when asked about her pre-Oscars ritual in 2023. “It’s pretty regular—you try and make it any other day.”
Janelle Monae and Lady Gaga were perhaps the biggest standouts of the champagne carpet.
Monae wore Vera Wang Haute while Gaga has chosen Versace for the event, looking every bit the superstar in a long-sleeved gown with a sheer bodice worn by Gigi Hadid at the label’s autumn/winter 23/24 runway just three days ago.
Rihanna made a fashionably late appearance in Alaïa, with her baby bump on full display.
The appearance comes shortly after her internet-breaking performance at the Super Bowl LVII, where she wore a red flight suit by Loewe paired with MM6 Maison Margiela and Salomon sneakers. In the maternity style landscape, the singer remains unmatched.
Winner of the Best Lead Actress Award for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Michelle Yeoh said she was in a “cloud of happiness” in her white feathered Dior couture gown.
“I am feeling really happy,” she told E! ”I am feeling at peace, we got here, who would have ever imagined that this little movie that had a big heart came all the way to the Oscars so I am happy.”
Ballet pink is how Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson described his pastel Dolce & Gabbana jacket as he was joined by Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt in an off shoulder white Valentino gown.
The Rock’s gender-neutral accessory a rosette, which we have spotted on Paul Mescal, has been one of the award season’s more unique sartorial fixtures.
“This is ballet pink with a little bit of a wool base,” he told E! ”The wool brings out the masculinity, just a little bit.”
Blunt meanwhile chose her dress just hours before taking to the carpet.
“I just loved it. I loved how simple and modern it was. It is Valentino,” she said. ”I fell in love, I put it on and it was a done deal.”
Budding filmmaker Lachlan Pendragon, 27, from Brisbane is nominated for Best Short Film for his work, An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It.
He walked the champagne carpet in a classic black tuxedo alongside his mother, Melinda.
“It is the kind of thing that you dream of that you didn‘t think you’d have to consider so soon after leaving film school,” he told The Australian of his Academy Award nomination. ”It is that amazing ’dream come true’ kind of thing.”
There have been a notable number of bridal-inspired looks on the red carpet this year.
Blunt was hot on her heels in bodycon Valentino, while Tems wore a sculptural gown by Lever Couture, see-through tulle manipulated into a hood from the bodice up. Halle Berry, Ariana DeBose, Mindy Kaling and Zoe Saldana have also worn white for the event—perhaps we’re saying ‘I do’ to white-tie in more ways than one?
Saldana played Neytiri Sully in Avatar: The Way of the Water and said she was “more relaxed” when the first Avatar film was nominated at the Oscars.
“I find myself having an out of body experience,” she said. ”I am grateful, I am happy, I am excited, this year has been a whirlwind just watching all of the movies, I‘ve been a fan of all of the other movies as well. I don’t know, I am just happy to be here.”
Nicole Kidman is another celebrity to jump on the rosette trend, wearing a black silver gown adorned with oversized florals at the shoulder and hip.
Dressed in a custom Armani Prive, the Aussie actor sent love back home to her mum Janelle, who celebrates her birthday today.
“We love her so much....she is the heartbeat of our family, so we love you mum,” Kidman told Channel 7, as she braced the red carpet with husband Keith Urban.
Ana de Armas was nominated for Best Actress for Blonde, in which she played the late Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe.
She described her Louis Vuitton dress that took 1000 hours to make as a “little mermaid”.
“This is like little drops of rain and flowers,” she said of the dress. “And petals.”
Jennifer Connelly also opted for Louis Vuitton. She starred alongside Tom Cruise in Oscar nominated, Top Gun: Maverick, who is not at the ceremony.
“It is wonderful to be here and celebrate all of this incredible work that has happened this year and so many friends here,” she said. “It is extraordinary to be here.”
Austin Butler played late icon Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann directed Elvis, which was up for eight awards.
Known for pushing fashion boundaries, he wore a more subdued traditional black tuxedo from Saint Laurent.
“What story am I telling?” he responded to Laverne Cox on E! ”This is Saint Laurent and I don‘t know what story I am telling you, I just thought it was a beautiful tuxedo.”
Baz Luhrmann meanwhile accessorised with a $263,000 necklace from David Webb made out of carved jade and surrounded by diamonds and black enamel.
He walked the champagne carpet with wife Catherine Martin, who already has four Academy Awards and is up for three more tonight for their film Elvis.
Both were in Prada while daughter, Lily, 19, was with the couple, wearing sparkling Jenny Packham.
Angela Bassett stood out in a Jeremy Scott purple gown.
“It is light, it is royal purple, our colour of royalty so just bringing that to the carpet,” she said, nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing Queen Ramanda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. “And it is spring.”
Michelle Williams wore Chanel couture (18,000 embroidered elements) and it took 900 hours of work to make.
Eva Longoria joked that she looked like a “disco ball” in her Zuhair Murad dress.
“You can dance around me, I am like that sparkly,” she told E! ahead of presenting an award at the ceremony.
“Down to my nails. I am excited to see Rihanna perform and I am rooting for Baz Luhrmann, I loved Elvis, I love him, I loved the costumes, I loved everything about that movie. I am just happy to be here.”
Musician Lenny Kravitz said he was honoured to be asked to perform the ‘In Memoriam’ segment of the ceremony, remembering those in the industry that have died over the past year.
“It is an honour to pay tribute and I am certainly glad that they called me,” the father of actor Zoe Kravitz said. ”I am very happy to be here. Life is good.”
Cameras up, folks: Miss Flo has arrived at the Dolby Theatre. Florence Pugh, inarguably one of the award season’s—and fashion month’s—style stars, walks the red carpet in a Valentino two-piece from Pierpaolo Piccioli’s autumn/winter ’23/’24 haute couture collection.
She wore black shorts underneath her gown and paired the look with a stunning Tiffany diamond necklace.
“A bit romantic, a bit of punk—I’m wearing some shorts,” says Pugh to a reporter, before joking, “They’re very short.”
Jamie Lee Curtis wore a long-sleeve, sequinned Dolce & Gabbana gown as she made her way up the carpet.
Elizabeth Olsen, wearing shimmering black Givenchy, presented an award.
Surprisingly, given her career of many decades, the celebrated actor is up for her first Academy Award ever. She was up for Best Supporting Actress for critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Asked by Laverne Cox on E! what she did on Oscars morning, Curtis said husband Christopher Guest “made me a little breakfast”.
“Relax, I would tell everybody, just relax,” she said when asked what advice she‘d give to her younger self knowing she would be nominated for an Academy Award one day.
“I think we all walk around so clenched, so filled with tension, the world is so crazy, so difficult, and my goal in life now as an old lady is just to say, ‘relax, you are enough, this is a perfect moment right now, call off the search, just relax’.”
The film was up for four awards, including Best Picture.
“I am furry,” Weaver, 73, said of her gold Givenchy gown, adding of the accolades: ”I am very proud of the movie and I am very proud that we are nominated.”
Avatar: The Way of the Water is up against the likes of The Fabelmans, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis and All Quiet on the Western Front.
Supermodel Winnie Harlow backed Everything Everywhere All At Once for the win.
“I am dealing old school Hollywood circa early 2000s,” she told E! of her archive Armani 2005 yellow gown. ”I wanted to keep it really chic and classy.”
Brendan Fraser, winner for Best Lead Actor for The Whale, walked the carpet with wife Afton and two of their three children, Holden and Leland.
“We are unbelievably proud, over the moon,” Holden Fraser said of his father.
The Academy Awards added last minute star-power with Lady Gaga performing her nominated song “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick.
The news comes after Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glenn Weiss previously said in a press conference earlier this month that Gaga, 36, would not be performing during the awards ceremony.
The move to turn the red carpet champange is the latest trend in colourful rugs sweeping premieres and awards shows across the US.
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel even joked at the unveiling last Thursday that the colour change for the ceremony — the first in over 60 years — was prompted by Will Smith slapping Chris Rock onstage in 2022.
“I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows just how confident we are that no blood will be shed,” he said.
The Academy Awards have added last minute star-power as Lady Gaga will perform her nominated song “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick.
The news comes after Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glenn Weiss previously said in a press conference earlier this month that Gaga, 36, would not be performing during the awards ceremony.
BREAKING: Lady Gaga is at the Dolby Theatre and will be performing on the #Oscars stage tonight. Gaga's 'Hold My Hand' is up for Best Original Song. pic.twitter.com/8Y7IQI0leD
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) March 12, 2023
Originally published as Oscars live: Best and worst looks at 95th Academy Awards
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