Getting the Dress
Kate Winslet was one of last year’s nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Marion Hume helped her find the perfect dress-and lived to tell the tale.
US Vogue | March 1997
Deciding on what to wear before an Oscar audience of a billion people isn’t easy. This year’s likely candidates- Kristin Scott Thomas and Courtney Love among them-are just figuring that out. A year ago, it was first time nominee Kate Winslet’s turn to fret. I should know: As her unofficial wardrobe adviser for the 1996 Academy Awards, I fretted right along with her.
“Fantastic!” I scream on the phone to Kate. It’s February 1996 and she has just received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Sense and Sensibility. I’m sure there must be someone in Hollywood who sorts out gowns, but casually, I offer my assistance. She accepts.
A week later, Kate’s on her cellular phone from the set of Kenneth Brannah’s Hamlet, in which she plays Ophelia. Between going mad and drowning she’s not really in a mood for frocks. “Just leave it to me,” I say calmly.
Vital statistic arrive by fax. Next, I look at press clippings of Oscar-night hits and misses and am shocked at how mean the press are, especially me. I wish I hadn’t described Emma Thompson in the green trouser suit she wore when she was in 1992 as a “sea slug.”
I run through designer names in my head. For Kate, Armani is too Hollywood-safe; Versace, too Hollywood-loud. I guess that Sharon Stone will wear Valentino (wrong), Elisabeth Shue will wear Calvin Klein (wrong), and Susan Saradon will wear Richard Tyler (wrong). I reject all three. Avant-garde is out (in the past, Juliette Lewis’s rig only puzzled Tinseltown); and adventurous, too (Kim Basinger’s puzzled the rest of the world).
A week later, Kate slithers in and out of a range of slip dresses that don’t work. I hold up something white and asymmetrical. “I’ll look like i’ve wrapped myself in bog [toilet] paper,” she sniffs. My hunch is for Galliano, but all the ball gowns from his first Givenchy Haute Couture collection have too much drag-along behind them. A dark sheath appliqued with plum-colored blooms seems as though it might work. “You look like you’ve got one tit bigger than the other,” says my husband annoyingly. Alas, he’s right. From a packed clothing rack, the only thing Kate likes is a candy-striped corset by Vivienne Westwood that I’ve banned as too Bavarian barmaid. I demand that she take it off immediately.
With two weeks to go, Kate goes on location and I head to Paris for the collections-both asa reporter and with my urgent Oscar-gown agenda. I eliminate evening dresses one by one: too fussy, too nude, too cute, too girly, too old. I’m counting on Galliano, until he shows Wallis Simpson-meets Dances With Wolves. It would be historically unseemly for Kate to appear looking like Pocahontas. The Oscars are ten days away, and I’m scared.
Terror lurks within the most recent American Vogue, which has an article on the Hollywood costume designer Barbara Tfank. Working with Prada on Uma Thurman’s Oscar gown, Tfank shone lights through the dress to check for transparency, reserched wrinkle-resistant fabric, and analyzed the way color changed on television. I can’t sleep. It is afternoon in Hollywood. I track her down. Tfank is calm, kind, and admits to moments of fear over “the Uma Dress.” “Listen,” she says, “drip Kate in pink. Her skin’s fabulous.”
“Think Pink” has been a Vivienne Westwood mantra over the years, so despite the Bavarian-barmaid rig and this season’s dark Cruella de Vil collection, a colleague and I go on a showroom appointment. No, no,no,no, and then, eureka! A long, russet skirt that is cleverly constructed to slip back into a short train. There’s a boned, back, no-frills corset that really shows Westwood’s skills at their best. Together, they look great: turn-of-the-century with a modern edge.
In the eleventh hour, designers finally catch up with the still little-known actress. From Kate’s publicists in L.A. comes a constant chant of “Armani, Armani, Armani.” Dolce & Gabbana gets in touch. Issac Mizrahi FedExes clothes. Ralph Lauren’s people sweetly respond to our request for a dress, aware that it is likely to be a second choice. Prada sends a sketch of an ankle-length chiffon dress to be worn over brightly colored tights. Kate is in stitches.
At 9:30 p.m., six days before the Academy Awards, Kate comes straight from the set to Westwood’s London studio. WIthin minutes, she’s writing around on the floor, mimicking Kenneth Branagh gasping handfuls of her hair extensions during a love scene. The hysteria gives everyone a burst of energy for the job at hand.
In the sample skirt and corset Kate Instantly loses ten pounds, grows five inches, and gains some coluptuous cleavage. The Bavarian barmaid’s corset that led us here initially turns out to contain a ribbon of exactly the colour we need: a rosy, chalky pink. Faxes fly to fabric suppliers in Switxerland. Westwood’s corsetiere tweaks a strap here, adjusts the tension there, and Kate’s bosom bobs up another inch. The overall effect? Funky fin de siecle.
The following morning, as the fabric is flown across Europe, I’m in London’s East End ordering hot-pink handmade shoes from Jimmy Choo, who will work on them through the night. My colleague Tony has been dispatched to London’s West End for silk to make Kate’s shawl. We buy hosiery and, in case Kate sobs during the ceremony, an exquisite Irish lace hankie. (As it turns out, she grins.) By the next day, the dress is being cut, basted, and sewn. The day after that, both the gown and the shoes arrive- hours ahead of Kate’s final fitting. True, there’s a slight panic over panties. I’ve forgotten that she’ll need a G-string, but a friend who works at an underwear manufacturer bikes over with a pair.
We have bigger problems. It is now fourteen hours until the plane leaves, and Kate arrives emotional and exhausted from being grabbed by Bramagh’s Hamlet and smashed into a mirror during the shooting of Ophelia’s mad scenes. Her arms are covered in livid purple bruises of a junkie. “Buy body makeup!” I scream over the phone to Jodi Leesley, the Beverly Hills-based stylist who has already sorted out manicure and massage appointments, as well as makeup and hair rehearsals. Speaking of which, Kate’s hair is another disaster. The removal of Ophelia’s waist-length extensions has left a crush of glue on her scalp. She promises not to scratch even if she has to sit on her hands.
But minutes later, she puts on the rosy pink skirt and the hot pink shoes and is zipped into her corset. She looks ravishingly pretty, and she knows it. Kate doesn’t win an Oscar on her first trip to the Academy Awards, but she looks as fresh and dewy as an English rose.