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The Daily Dish Awards Season

Is This Fashion Choice The Key To Winning a Best Actress Oscar?

Unscientific fact: metallic may help the cause.

 

By Adele Chapin

Isabelle Huppert, Ruth Negga, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, and Meryl Streep have to be waking up with a smile this morning. The Oscar nominations just came out today, and these actresses are all nominated for the Best Actress category.

While we're waiting for the 89th Oscars broadcast on February 26, let's take a walk down red carpet memory lane and peep all the gowns worn by Best Actress winners over the past 10 years. Not a designer is repeated over the past decade: Gucci, Chanel, Armani, Dior, Lanvin, YSL, Marchesa and more are all represented.

But, the overwhelming trend for Best Actress dresses has to be the absence of color. Only Brie Larson and Natalie Portman wore a vibrant shade, and all the rest chose pale, gold, and silver tones. You've got to wonder: can a metallic dress be the secret weapon for winning an Oscar?

Last year, Brie Larson wore a fluttery, ruffled blue Gucci gown to nab an Oscar for her role in Room. This was the first Oscar dress designed by Gucci’s then-new designer, Alessandro Michele.

In 2015, Julianne Moore won for Still Alice while wearing an embellished Chanel column dress that took nearly 1,000 hours to make. (She followed it up with Chanel in 2016, too!)

Cate Blanchett picked up an Oscar in 2014 for her lead role in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. Her princess-y gold Armani Prive dress was covered with hundreds of gold Swarovski crystals.

Dior girl Jennifer Lawrence wore a gigantic Christian Dior Couture strapless ballgown to accept her 2013 Best Actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook. It’s the dress that led to her unforgettable fall on the way to picking up her Oscar.

Meryl Streep was a vision in gold for her 2012 Oscar win for The Iron Lady. The drapey gold lamé dress is Lanvin, and the eco-friendly fabric is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

In 2011, Rodarte designed a purple off-the-shoulder gown for an expecting and radiant Natalie Portman, who won Best Actress for Black Swan. Maybe history will repeat itself and the now pregnant Natalie will again pick Rodarte for good luck at this year’s Oscars?

Marchesa designed this sleek lace and satin gown for Sandra Bullock’s 2010 The Blind Side Oscar win.

Kate Winslet picked an asymmetrical, one-shouldered Atelier Yves Saint Laurent dress for her Best Actress win in 2009 for The Reader.

In 2008, Marion Cotillard looked like an elegant mermaid in Jean-Paul Gaultier gown, complete with fish-scale embroidery. She won Best Actress in 2008 for her role playing singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

Dame Helen Mirren stunned in a sparkly pale gold lace Christian Lacroix dress for her win in 2007 for The Queen. See, Oscar nominees? A metallic dress might be your lucky charm.

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