The Tamesis
The most important thing about this year’s Oscars – at least for the fashion world – is the timing. Sunday night’s awards show comes nearly two weeks later than usual, meaning the Paris and Milan Fashion Week shows are all over and luxury brands can focus on the awards show.
Keith Baptista, co-founder of creative agency Prodject, said designers have been flocking to Los Angeles after the fashion shows to attend events in person this weekend and work more closely with their costume designers. For many of these designers, this is their first Oscar at the helm of their current brands. That’s because it’s the first Oscars show since a series of appearances by creative directors in September sparked a realignment across the industry. Many of the biggest names on the Oscars carpet — Chanel, Dior, Valentino, Gucci — all have different creative directors than last year. (Matthieu Blazy, Jonathan Anderson, Pierpaolo Piccioli and Demna, respectively.) For example, Demna will attend the Sunday after-party hosted by Gucci and Guy Oseary.
“For many emerging creative directors, this is the moment where they really show their new direction to the world and make a statement, not just the people in the fashion world and on the catwalks,” said luxury consultant Robert Burke. This will be a litmus test of sorts. “This is an important turning point that will test the audience’s receptiveness to the creative director’s new narrative around the brand name,” said Thomaï Serdari, professor of marketing and director of the MBA in Luxury and Retail at New York University.
The shift in schedules and the slowdown in the designer shuffle has brought relief to agents and stylists. Over the past few years, archive pulling has dominated the red carpet. UTA agent Taylor Rahmani said the move was hailed as a flexibility by those eyeing a deep cut, in part due to a lack of clothes. Last awards season, the newly appointed designers took the opportunity to reveal their vision for the new house. Sarah Burton launched a gentle launch of her Givenchy brand with a menswear teaser in Timothée Chalamet and an archival remake in Elle Fanning. But beyond a select few teasers, a custom look is harder to argue with in 2025, as brands prepare for creative director debuts later this year. The biggest difference between this year and last, Rahmani said, is that the clothes are already ready — and they’re not dependent on the past. “Having the ability to do customs, and there was a lot of uncertainty last year, studios really couldn’t do what they wanted to do.”
For the fashion world, the stakes at awards shows have changed dramatically. From the Academy Awards and throughout awards season, opportunities for red carpet moments proliferate. Brand deals are worth millions of dollars and Media Influence Value (MIV) is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For luxury fashion’s new guard, the stakes are high this weekend and brand control is low. “There were no major disruptions at the fashion shows. There were a lot of disruptions at the Oscars,” Sedari said. “That’s the real test because it happens live — not six months later, and after the middlemen have worked their magic to reinforce the brand’s message while it’s on shelves.” (MIV measures the impact of a brand’s mentions in voice and channels, assigning a monetary value to media exposure.)
