Gown and Out: The Great Awards Season Dress Shortage

Zadrian Smith says he’s never seen anything like it in all the years he’s been working in fashion. “The showrooms have been wiped out — people are nervous about not having anything, that’s why it’s been happening,” says one half of the styling duo Zadrian + Sarah, whose clients include Wish star Ariana DeBose. “There have been times in which it’s felt like a fashion-show reality challenge.”

When the SAG-AFTRA strike was settled Nov. 9, studios and streamers hit the ground running with media tours, premieres and other events in an attempt to make up for lost promotional time this awards season. The sudden flood proved to be a headache for stylists, while the rush to return to business exerted extra pressure on the usual end-of-year red carpet logjam.

The glut of events in December contributed to a frenzy of pulling clothes, with the scarcity only accelerating as nervous stylists grabbed looks on the chance their clients might get nominated. Fold in the rescheduled Emmy Awards, now set to take place eight days after the Jan. 7 Golden Globes, and requests for red carpet looks have hit a pitched level.

“What’s tough is the amount of clothes you aren’t able to get,” says star stylist Jessica Paster, whose clients include Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt. “What we’re forced to do right now, and I don’t think it’s a negative thing, is that we need to edit ourselves. But this is when the stylists who have the experience are able to edit, because we do know our clients. And when it comes to my peers, if I need a dress and I know a certain stylist has it, I have no problem calling them, and vice versa.”

Ilaria Urbinati, whose clients include Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan and The Bear’s Jon Bernthal, agrees, “It hasn’t been easy. I’m finding that I can’t get that great head-to-toe look I think would be perfect, so instead I’m piecing together and using my editorial stylist eye to create something that’s unique in its own way with what I have on hand.”

Awards-season dressing traditionally consists of a cocktail of factors each stylist must navigate, from months-long planning and pulls of the multiple looks needed for pre-parties, red carpets and post-parties to the privilege of accessing archival pieces or the additional advance work required for fashion houses to craft custom gowns and tuxedos. Complicating the issue is that top stylists often clamor for the most coveted runway looks; examples from the Spring 2024 collections shown last fall include the rose-print gowns from Sarah Burton’s final collection for Alexander McQueen, Wes Gordon’s candy-hued A-line dresses for Carolina Herrera and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s skin-baring looks for Valentino, featuring his alto-rilievo (or “high-relief”) embroidery technique.

But make no mistake: The actor being dressed ultimately plays the paramount role in what’s made available or offered by a high-wattage label.

“It’s amazing to experience it — you mention the name of a star everyone wants to dress, and the floodgates of the fashion heavens open right up,” Smith says with a laugh. “All of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Let me show you the special-special room,’ where all the archived and haute couture pieces are kept. But I get it — if I was in charge of a brand, I’d feel the same way.”

This story first appeared in the Jan. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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