--- title: Oscar Dresses That Made History | TIME description: From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion canonical: https://time.com/video/oIlf7uNi/ og:title: Oscar Dresses That Made History og:description: From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion og:url: https://time.com/video/oIlf7uNi/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oIlf7uNi/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Oscar Dresses That Made History twitter:description: From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oIlf7uNi/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Oscar Dresses That Made History > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Oscar Dresses That Made History [Watch (HLS stream): Oscar Dresses That Made History](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oIlf7uNi.m3u8) (11:11)  _Published 2014-02-28. From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion_ --- Jul 27, 2023 4:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Why Nvidia made Vera Rubin](/video/DlcamJqo/) ### Why Nvidia made Vera Rubin [Kim Kardashian Revisits American History By Wearing Marilyn Monroe's Iconic Dress to the Met Gala](/video/T9AA71n1/) ### Kim Kardashian Revisits American History By Wearing Marilyn Monroe's Iconic Dress to the Met Gala [How Frog Legs Made the Oscar Statue](/video/mujLDS0e/) ### How Frog Legs Made the Oscar Statue --- ## Transcript >> In the last decade, fascination with Oscar dressing may have outstripped interest in the Oscars themselves. It's what we remembered the morning after. And possibly sometimes years after that because not all Oscar dresses are created the same. So, we're gonna look at the ones that we remember. Because they shocked, because they intrigued, because they were odd, nude or maybe just plain me. >> At the Pantages Theatre in [ unk ]. >> If there is one dress that's considered to be the classic, ultimate Oscar dress, the template for the Oscar dresses of all time it's, Edith Head's aquamarine strapless gown that she designed for Grace Kelly in 1955, when Grace won the Oscar for the Country Girl. It's very simple, very classic and has been knocked off so many times. It's been the inspiration for Ralph Lauren when he designed the pink satin dress for Gwyneth Paltrow when she won the Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love. Kim Basinger wear the-- wore a copy of the dress done by Scott in 1977 when she won her Oscar. The odd thing about the dress is the reason why we know the dress so well is not the photograph that was taken on Oscar night. Oddly enough, Grace wore the dress three times which would be unheard of in this day and age. She wore it to the opening of the country girl. She wore it to the Oscar night when she-- when she won the Oscar and she wore it in the studios of Philippe Halsman who photographed her in that now very famous photo for Life Magazine. If you look at the pink sequined tank dress that Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscar's in 1996, it looks familiar, wonderful, lovely but why the big deal? Because in 1996, people were dressing big for the Oscars, big dresses, lots of embroidery, lots of finery. Boom. Remember. Booming economy, booming dresses. Here comes this willowy, beautiful, blonde woman nobody really knows well. Basically is Brad Pitt's girlfriend and shows us in a dress of such simplicity, such ease, such sort of lanky sexuality. She suddenly made everybody look old. And-- and the tank dress suddenly became the kind of gown of cool girl [ unk ]. Everybody knows the name Prada, these days. It is a fashion global blockbuster. But in 1995, it was the company that made nylon knapsacks with the triangle label. How do you change that image? How do you make people realize you're also a fashion house? Oscar night, Uma Thurman 1995, like a lavender angel coming down the red carpet all in bizarre and chiffon willowy. The dress oddly enough wasn't really designed by Miuccia Prada. Nevertheless, that was the label in the dress. Uma was at her most statuesque, most beautiful, most exotic. She was on every cover the next day. And suddenly the House of Prada was a fashion. What are the Oscars missing these days? Cher. It's really that simple. We long for a woman who has that sense of flamboyance, the spectacular, the humor, the wit, the in your face drama that Cher just embodied when she walked down that red carpet. Never, never better than in 1986. In 1986 Cher had her breakthrough performance in the film, Mask. But she didn't get nominated for the Academy Award and she [ unk ]. And it was also the same year that Edith Head, the great costume designer had issued a sort of dress code that one should dress as befitting an Oscar nominee or presenter. Which, naturally prompted Cher to show up in a black huge Mohawk, a bare midrib a-- a cut bikini top and black shoes sequins going all the way down. Bob Mackie designed it for her and then when she put it on, she-- he said, " Oh no you're really not gonna wear that ," and she said, " Damn right, I am ." >> As you can see I did receive my academy booklet on how to dress like a serious actress. >> The myth is that the Oscars is the biggest fashion show in the world. Not true. When we go to a fashion show, what we're looking for is innovation, fresh ideas, new concepts. The red carpet is really about familiar glamour, the glamour that we used to, the glamour that we were brought up with from the movies. Do something odd. Do something different. Something tilted just a little bit. And viewers get shocked, they get weirded about-- out of that-- it. Never more so than when Tilda Swinton who doesn't look, sound, or move like anybody else showed up at the Oscars in an asymmetrical one- shoulder black velvet gown from Alber Elbaz from Lanvin. The asymmetric, the drape, the classic like quality of this dress was totally unlike anybody else. It wasn't body conscious that had ridiculous fluidity. She has that translucent skin, that short- cropped titian hair with this huge diamond cup on one hand and then nothing else. It just took everyone out balanced. And they loved it, they hated it. They didn't know what to do. There were people crying that Alber was gonna get fired from the House of Lanvin. Nothing's in fashion, nothing's more shocking than the new. It takes us a while to get use to the fact that somebody wore an extraordinary dress until this one. I'm never usually a fan of black dresses 'cause I think they're sort of fade away into the woodwork that's the safe place to go. But, Chloe Sevigny wore what I think maybe one of the most elegant, beautiful, classic Oscar dresses of all time. It's black but there are yards and yards and yards of black so jersey running behind her. When she moved, it was like she created her whole-- her whole like long train, her own parade. The-- the dress has so much modern elegance to it. It's extraordinary. The irony is that the-- the dress was designed by Alber Elbaz when he was at Yves Saint Laurent. And unfortunately, two months after this, Alber was fired. Nothing took off the new House of [ unk ] than the fact that Chloe seven years dress by Alber wound up in Best Dressed List everywhere, including InStyle which actually called the Dress of the Year at the end of that year. Much is made about the impact that a dress, the right dress on the Oscars will have on a design house. But sometimes we overlook the impact it might have on a little known actress wearing a fantastic gown. Keira Knightly, we all know now is a great beauty. But in 2006 she wasn't very well known. And then at the Oscars, she wore a burgundy taffeta gown. A ball gown, an extraordinary coronation worthy ball gown by Vera Wang with an Indian inspired diamond and turquoise and ruby choker necklace. The impact was incredible. It was almost the same as if she had released the blockbuster movie that Friday before the Oscars because the next morning, it was one of those cases of, who's that girl and we got to find her. And Keira Knightly's career just took a hugely unfold. She will tell you on the red carpet, she will tell you why she's talking to David Letterman, Ellen, anyone who will listen. Julia Roberts is not a girly girl. But in 2001, she was highly favored to win the Oscars for Erin Brockovich. And it was long as if she said, " You know something, okay. I'll give it one good shot ." And she did. It was a dress from Valentino's 1982 collection of blue velvet with white satin stripes. Julia suddenly looked elegant, regal, did her hair up with a series of top knot. You will never see a hairdo that complicated on her again. And looked picture perfect for that moment in posterity of her hold in the Oscar for all time. >> I'm very happy. >> There was one year when Valentino did five maybe six dresses. It all changed in 2005. Cate Blanchett was a favorite to win Best Supporting Actress for the Aviator. Few women in Hollywood, few women anywhere are-- is distinctive looking as Cate Blanchett. She moves like a queen. She just radiates intelligence. She went to Valentino and asked if he would create a gown for her. Haute couture gown, one of a kind gown. They did it in pale yellow just to match her hair. And guaranteeing the designer that she would wear it. The only caveat was, she would be the only person wearing Valentino for that night. And she was. All you need is the right woman and even better if she's a winner. And Cate was on both counts and the amount of press that Valentino got from that one yellow burgundy sash gown beat any five [ unk ] square [ unk ]. Nicole Kidman is on the cover of this year's March fashion issue of InStyle. But in 1997, she was basically known as Tom Cruise's wife. She'd had 12 movies none of which were blockbuster or breakout hit. She was that tall, beautiful, titian- haired woman who stood next to Tom. Until Oscar night of 1997, when she arrived on the red carpet in a dress, the likes of it which no one has ever seen before. Number one, it was haute couture by John Galliano from the House of Dior. Number two, it was all designed in sheer hosiery. Incredible embroidery that took two hundred hours beading on the back like a spider who'd got caught up in a crystal maze. But what that dress did, was they created a new image. They up the bar because they took a haute couture dress and put it in the red carpet. And today, today the ultimate gold ring for any star, is to be big enough to qualify to wear a one of a kind haute couture gown at a major award ceremony. At the unripe age of 23, we now know that Jennifer Lawrence was like high drama, low comedy. She can be the victim, she can be the superhero. There seems to be nothing she can't do. But in 2011, she only had one film that we had seen to her credit. And that was Winter's Bone where she played a gritty mountain girl [ unk ] and [ unk ] and anorex. And then she showed up for the Oscars in 2011 in a fire engine, body- hugging, red jersey Calvin Klein collection gown. We talked about her being as the woman on fire in Hunger Games but she was on fire that night, at Oscar night. 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