The Tamesis
Just when Saoirse Ronan was enjoying the fairy godmother treatment from Danielle Goldberg, Carey Mulligan decided she, too, was ready for a turn under the stylist’s wand.
“I know Saoirse and I was like, ‘That’s her!'” the actor said while hanging out at the gym in a friend’s size 13 sneakers, while her own sneakers remained in London. (The sum total of her Met Gala preparations, the bar “trying to drink on the plane.”) “Danielle has an incredible eye,” she adds, “and she’s just interested in working with people, bringing out their personality, and ultimately making them feel comfortable.” For Mulligan, that meant a blood-orange and tangerine skirt suit by Colleen Allen beef Premiere, and The Row tailoring with cocoon sleeves designed for the CBE. Sure, she’s always looked gorgeous, but now she’s focusing on a unique, quirky chic that feels entirely her own.
For the Met Monday, the pair chose a Prada Rajmeer silk shift dress printed with an abstract sunburst rectangle pattern that first appeared in the brand’s spring 1998 collection. “Danielle was poring over the archives, and when she showed me that print, I was like, this is so cool and so interesting,” Mulligan said. “Prada is very good at making clothes that feel a little ‘out of place’ – period.”
Under Miuccia Prada, and now under Raf Simons, that instinct to tip the balance, to deconstruct and recontextualize the familiar, or, as the late Ingrid Sischy once said, “challenge established ways of thinking,” has long given rise to the kind of chin-stroking discourse befitting a “fashion-as-art” dress code. Still, Mulligan is quick to point out that none of this comes at the expense of ease. “I don’t want to be a sculpture,” she said. “I’m ready to tighten my waist and wear heels, but I want to feel like myself. If I get beyond that, I’m going to be in trouble.”
So, in a sense, designing clothes by a stylist is not that different from working with a costume designer: both are ultimately about truth. (If she gets an Oscar nomination promising young woman Sparking a brief flirtation with bright pink — a palette she quickly retired but revisited tonight — she plays Lindsay in The Movie beef The impact proved to be less. “The prairie dress suited her perfectly, but after that I found myself back in a black jumper and black trousers.”) The two also play an intimate role in defending the private/professional threshold—a threshold that can feel dangerously thin when you’re faced with a wall of camera flashes and a gaggle of microphone-toting reporters demanding to know what “in and out” means. “It’s about making the press feel more relaxed,” she said. “I’ve been on a long journey — from being scared as a young person and crying on every red carpet — to thinking, ‘Okay, this is my job, and I’m talking about really interesting projects with people I love.'” I find this look funny, no, not too serious? “
Even for the former co-host of the 2012 “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” gala, which she still loves most because it coincided with her honeymoon, the red carpet was just as intimidating as when Mulligan first showed up in 2010 in a lilac Prada miniskirt, black tights and open-toe booties. Am I okay? ! Then you get to the queue and then… shit“. Apparently, the atmosphere changes when the last photographer calls your name. “Suddenly everything becomes different,” she said. “If you’re alive like me, you end up meeting friends you haven’t seen in years and you’re surrounded by the most famous people in the world. This is crazy! ” And then there’s the music—she’s “lost.” [her] “When Cher performs in 2019, exhibitions are inevitably on the mind. Even if the theme isn’t ‘The Art of Costume,’ the Met Gala is always a remarkable showcase of art, both in the evening’s attire and in the museum itself.”
