What the Hollywood awards season can mean for an Australian designer

For fashion designer Alex Perry, the annual Hollywood awards season is like the footy grand final, Wimbledon and the Olympics all rolled into one. Over five months, starting with the Governors and Gotham awards in November and culminating in the 98th Academy Awards on March 15 next year, a cavalcade of preening celebrities will pout and pose on nearly 50 red carpets. Perry, along with a handful of other Australian labels, including Adelaide couturier Paul Vasileff’s Paolo Sebastian, will be vying for attention with some of the world’s biggest labels. They’ve shipped gowns to stylists and enlisted fashion “fixers” – well-connected fashion marketing firms – to spruik their wares.

E! red-carpet host Giuliana Rancic at the Oscars in 2014.Credit: Getty Images

Vasileff’s team of 20 staff worked for 300 hours to create the gown that E! red-carpet host Giuliana Rancic wore to the Oscars in 2014. “We didn’t know she was going to wear it until the telecast,” says Vasileff. “She really put us on the map.”

And last month, Selena Gomez wore one of Perry’s crystal-embellished gowns in a video for her new song, In the Dark. “She has 417 million followers … our sales went through the roof,” he says. “In a single moment, these girls can have a massive impact on the business. Celebs have contracts with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior; when they choose to wear my little label … for free … it’s an incredible endorsement.”

New York-based data firm Launchmetrics’ Media Impact Value (MIV) algorithm analyses, ranks and values red-carpet appearances across social and mainstream media. At this year’s Oscars, Lupita Nyong’o, Margaret Qualley, Penélope Cruz, Lily-Rose Depp and I’m Still Here Best Actress nominee Fernanda Torres all wore Chanel. The collective MIV was estimated at $US17 million. Ariana Grande, dressed in custom Schiaparelli, single-handedly generated $US12 million in MIV.

In March, Perry hired the LA-based fashion marketing firm LaChambre. Among others, Hollywood stylist Erin Walsh, who dresses Gomez, and Jason Bolden, who styles Cynthia Erivo, have started working with his label. So hot-right-now actor Sydney Sweeney, who’s styled by Molly Dickson, is now a regular Perry wearer.

But, come awards season, Australian labels are still minnows swimming alongside behemoths, which, Perry notes, makes a starring role on Oscar night taste even sweeter: “It’s a marketing lightning rod.”

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