How Celebrities Really Find Their Red Carpet Dresses
Straight from the stylists of Zendaya, Kristen Stewart, Cara Delevingne, and more.
If you thought deciding what to wear to the prom was impossible, now imagine trying to find a dress for the Oscars!
Red carpet pictures are seen (and commented on) across the globe in minutes, but finding a dream designer dress isn’t as simple as you might think. We spoke to a number of celebrity stylists to find out the weeks and sometimes months of preparation that goes into finding ‘the dress’ for a red carpet.
Read on to hear about how stars like Zendaya, Kristen Stewart, and Cara Delevingne get red carpet ready.
The planning starts months before an awards ceremony.
Kristen Stewart’s stylist Tara Swennen tells Teen Vogue, “I start pulling dresses and sending out requests as soon as they get the nomination and for one look it can take weeks and weeks. If designers email me two or three weeks before, my girls are already dressed. I like to do it before the wave hits so I know my girls are set.”
But she adds that she never prepares before the nominations are announced. “I have done that and jinxed myself because we had a dress ready for a girl and she didn’t get nominated," she says. "So I now always wait.”
But sometimes red carpet dressing can be nail-bitingly last minute.
Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach says they didn’t find out she was going to the Golden Globes until one week before, when everyone had already made their edits. He decided to keep it simple and only presented one option to her: Marchesa.
If a week sounds extreme, Manny, who has styled Jourdan Dunn and Cara Delevingne, tells Teen Vogue, “I remember receiving a call at 1 P.M. to dress Kendall Jenner for the British Fashion Awards on the day of the show. The red carpet was at 6 P.M., so I only had five hours to pull something together and it was my first time meeting her too.”
But it has been even more extreme than that, as he says, “For the Elle Style Awards I got a call when the event had started from Lily Donaldson to ask if I had anything she could wear, as she had decided at the last minute to attend. By then it was too late to request anything, but I had a selection of edits on me, as I was also dressing Cara and Jourdan.”
Stars can try on 75 dresses in just one fitting.
Tara says that her clients — including Kristen Stewart, Emily Ratajkowski and Odeya Rush — will try on typically anywhere from 50 to 75 dresses in an awards season fitting. “Whatever will fit on two racks,” she explains, while Law Roach says, “Usually for an awards show I’ll have a rail of at least 10 options to try on.”
There is a hierarchy to borrowing gowns for awards season.
There is a fierce hierarchy when it comes to loaning from designers. Not everyone can have first dibs on Chanel!
“With any awards show there is a pecking order. The girls that are nominated get the first options – if they aren’t doing anything custom — and then it’s the presenters," explains Law Roach, who styles Zendaya, Ariana Grande and Ruby Rose. "You’ll go, ‘Can I have that?’ and they’re like, ‘No we’re saving that for one of the girls who is nominated’. You get a lot of nos. It’s very competitive which is hard, especially when your heart is set on something and you know it’s the one and it’s a no. Then you have to see someone else wear it which breaks your heart every time.”
Manny adds, “It’s easy to presume that everyone has access to runway designers but that’s hardly ever the case. Generally speaking, actresses are the holy grail for designers, followed by musicians and models.”
The returns process gets very hectic.
“Everyone is struggling to manage where the dresses go in a short period of time,” Tara tells Teen Vogue. “You’re trying to work with the showrooms so that if I have a fitting at noon I’m then going to get the dress over to another stylist at 2 P.M. and straight on for a fitting with Angelina at 4 P.M.. It’s best to work all together in the process and shuffle the dresses along so as many people can see them as possible. I do all my clients’ fittings back to back so there are more options there because there are two or so people at once.”
They don't start talking about dress ideas with their client before the fitting.
Usually stylists won’t WhatsApp pictures back and forth with clients and will wait to show them their options at the fitting. Law Roach says, “I never show her pictures – I wait till I call things in and have a fitting. I am the only stylist she’s ever had. I can bring one dress and she’ll trust me at this point.”
They don't get to keep their dress for long.
You might think that the dress you accepted your Oscar in would be one of your most treasured possessions, but actresses rarely get to keep their gowns.
“Usually they want it back the next day. You might have the dress for a 48 hour window if you’re very lucky,” Tara explains. “Usually when I leave my client at the party ‘I'm like what time can I come in the morning and get my diamonds back? You get a lie in only until I come grab my dress.’ It's a very quick turn around, but every once in a while on the big red carpets they get to keep it or donate it to charity.”
They have to be honest.
It is a stylist’s job to make sure their client looks at their best – it’s better hearing it from them than on Fashion Police.
Tara says, “I have no bluff face so my clients know immediately if I hate it. Truly what we do is very psychological in nature - you're dealing with people with insecurities getting in front of the public eye and they are very aware their image can be targeted. I'm very honest in fittings. If they are taking a risk, like wearing feathers or a yellow dress, I might say: ‘You might get targeted for this and it might end up on Fashion Police. I applaud you for trying it if you want to do it, but don't be scared if they compare you to Big Bird.’"
They sometimes have to handle being turned into a meme.
It’s not just the worst dressed lists that you have to think about in 2016 — now dresses are turned into viral memes in minutes.
“Vogue actually reposted a meme of Zendaya at the Golden Globes looking like the flamenco emoji,” Law tells us. “I thought it was funny and even funnier that Vogue posted it. That might have been devastating for someone else that Vogue made their client into a meme. But I was like ‘haha she kind of did’ but she’s also on loads of best dressed lists, so you can’t take these things too seriously.”
He says of dealing with the thousands of live comments: “Minutes after the first picture is taken you have a lot of opinions and comments so that’s hard, because we’re human and we want people to like and appreciate what we do and you don’t want negativity that will hurt your client’s feelings. The stress is there from the beginning to the end.”
They don't always want to be in the spotlight.
“There are the stylists that like being on the red carpet and the stylists that like being behind the scenes,” Tara explains. “We’re like the secret, but now with television shows and books and endorsement deals we’re being thrust in front of the camera. Generally speaking it’s a slippery slope and we’re meant to be invisible. We want our clients to go out and look effortless, so most of us shy away from going on the red carpet because we want it to look like they just stepped out of the car.”
Fittings can be like mini-parties (especially when Cara, Kendall and Taylor are involved!).
“These women have very busy schedules and to throw this into it can be an added stress," Tara says. "Every time they walk out they are exposing themselves so they look to us with a very strong trust. So we try and make the fittings like a mini party.”
Manny says he has had fittings in hotel rooms, in a car, and once with Jourdan Dunn in a really small toilet. A fitting with Cara Delevingne can quickly turn into a party with her whole squad.
“It’s not uncommon to have fittings go on for over four hours, so it's important to have good energy. One of my most fun fittings was with Cara Delevingne for the Elle Style Awards and Brit Awards last year. We were in this massive suite in Claridge’s with Kendall Jenner, Taylor Swift, Jourdan Dunn and her son Riley who was serenading them with ‘Everything is Awesome’ from the Lego Movie. It ended up being a party with clothes everywhere!”
They deal with brand partnerships.
These days, many actresses have contracts with houses (hello, Jennifer Lawrence in Dior). Tara explains how this can work with fittings.
“You want to honor it and they always tend to be one of the first shout outs. Kristen is usually at the Chanel shows and I'm sat with her like ‘That one! That one! That one!’ and then we tell the Chanel team immediately after the show the ones we want to reserve," she says. "I'll always make sure I have Chanel at all of Kirsten’s fittings and then also include brands that have been supportive of her and new brands to keep her growing.”
They have to be careful of last minute mishaps.
In 2013, Anne Hathaway had to find a new Oscars dress just 24 hours before the red carpet because she discovered that Amanda Seyfried was wearing a very similar dress. Anne said at the time, "It came to my attention late Saturday night that there would be a dress worn to the Oscars that is remarkably similar to the Valentino I had intended to wear, and so I decided it was best for all involved to change my plans."
Do stylists speak to each other to prevent these mix-ups? Tara says, “I work with Julie Bowen who is the mother on Modern Family, and it’s a running joke that Julie and Sofia Vergara are constantly texting each other from fittings so we know what she is wearing before the rest of the world so they don't walk in in same color or designer.”
