A dress of Valentino or Giorgio Armani as a passport to the Oscar: according to an analysis published one week after the ‘night of the stars’, the two Italian brands are the ‘luckiest’ for the actresses who have chosen them in view of the 2023 edition of the Academy Awards.
For stars and divas these are hectic days between appointments with stylists to fine-tune the red carpet look. The stakes are particularly high for the candidates for the most coveted awards in Hollywood, and so here is the study by fabric experts Dalston Mill Fabrics who analyzed each ‘outfit’ worn by the winners of the acting awards to establish coincidences between the color and the chosen designer and the chances of conquering the coveted statuette.
Research has revealed that black is the luckiest color with an increase of as much as 32 percent in the chances of winning in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories: two iconic examples, Cher in 1988 and Frances McDormand in 2021, respectively in designer dresses by Bob Mackie and Valentino.
Valentino, as well as Armani, emerged as the ‘luckiest’ fashion houses on the Oscar red carpet with 7% of the winners dressed by the two houses to take the Academy Awards stage to accept the award, against three for one hundred each from Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Christian Dior and Gucci.
For Armani, 2020 was the year of en plein: the Milanese designer had dressed both Renée Zellweger, best actress for Judy, and Laura Dern, best supporting actor for Marriage Story.
In turn, the Piazza Mignanelli maison has two McDormand statuettes to its credit and Cate Blanchett’s first Oscar, this year’s candidate for Tar, who chose a golden yellow one-shoulder Valentino in 2005 when she accepted the statuette for Aviator. The latest example is last year with Ariana DeBose, Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story: she had accepted the award in red Valentino.
Returning to the colors, after black gold would be the luckiest hue, according to the study that cites Emma Stone in Givenchy in 2017 for La La Land, with 13 percent of the winners wearing it on the night of the awards. White (12 per cent including Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy white in 1954 adapted from the one worn in Roman Holiday which the actress considered her ‘lucky dress’) follows as auspicious colours, blue (eleven per cent) and green (nine per cent).
