Why Jessie Buckley should have also received an Oscar for her dress
Jessie Buckley won the Oscar for Best Actress last night for her role in Hamnet. Completely deserved. But to be fair: while she was collecting the statuette for her acting, half of Hollywood was probably thinking the same. This woman could have effortlessly received a second Oscar. For her dress.
Because what Buckley wore on the red carpet was not just a beautiful dress. It was such a rare combination of fashion, film history, and timing that brings everything together. The kind of look that makes you think immediately: this is going into the Oscar books.
The Chanel dress that made history
For her big night, Buckley appeared in custom Chanel which was described as “a light pink bustier chiffon dress with a red satin stole.”
The color combination was surprising and almost royal. The skirt fell full and soft, the top provided structure, and the bare shoulders and her free décolletage beautifully made way for the jewels.
It was a dress that stood out while remaining understated. And that might be the hardest thing a red carpet dress can do.
The Grace Kelly reference that everyone saw
Fashion journalists figured it out within minutes: Buckley’s dress looked strikingly similar to a silhouette that Grace Kelly wore at the Oscars in the fifties.
Kelly appeared at the time in a ball gown with an almost identical shape. At that time, movie stars often wore dresses made by the studios, making it unclear whether the original dress came from costume legend Edith Head or Helen Rose. But it is clear that the inspiration comes from the golden Hollywood era.
And that makes Buckley’s look so good. While the red carpet today is filled with dresses that have a very high look-at-me factor, she opted for retro, timeless, and classy.
Old Hollywood, but reinterpreted for now by Chanel, which thanks to Matthieu Blazy is back on top of the rock where all the fashion gods reside.
The stylist behind the magic
Behind the look is Danielle Goldberg, one of the most interesting stylists of the moment. She dresses among others Ayo Edebiri (the comedienne you also know from Big Mouth and The Bear), Greta Lee (Stella Bak from The Morning Show, also one of my favorites), and Eva Victor. Women with a filled brain, in short, whom Danielle Goldberg likes to dress in something that refers to something that has happened before.
Throughout the entire awards season, Goldberg had already dressed Buckley in brands like Balenciaga and Dior, but for the Oscars, she clearly chose something with more history. Chanel gave Buckley exactly what the evening called for: glamour and subtlety.
And then of course: Agnes from Hamnet
The presence of Jessie Buckley was a stark contrast to the role with which she won the Oscar. In Hamnet she plays Agnes Shakespeare (who in reality was named Anne Hathaway, how funny, sidenote), the wife of William Shakespeare. And in that woman is incredibly earthy, walking barefoot through the woods to chop herbs into medicine and talking to the birds and making friends with a falcon.
Agnes is a woman who is close to nature, mixes herbs, lives intuitively, and ultimately loses her son. Buckley plays her as a primal force, someone who seems to exist almost outside of time.
That is precisely why the contrast was so remarkable. The woman who walks through mud and forests in the film like a kind of nature being suddenly stood on the red carpet as a classic Hollywood diva.
Classy and fabulous
One of the many delightful quotes from Coco Chanel is: “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”
And that perfectly summarizes Jessie Buckley on this evening.
