Designers, Stars: Uneasy Riders

Diane Keaton, a best actress nominee for “Marvin’s Room,” said she realized just how much of a longshot her nomination was when she heard that Brenda Blethyn, nominated for “Secrets and Lies,” had been besieged by designers offering to make her Oscar night dress.

“Nobody’s called me,” Keaton laughed. “Now we know for sure they didn’t expect me.”

Keaton’s comment perpetuates the popular myth that predatory fashion designers, starved for exposure, hound defenseless actresses, begging them to wear their clothes. In truth, designers aren’t the only ones doing the begging.

Ever since the Academy Awards telecast and other major awards shows became as much a fashion derby as a celebration of work well done, stars and designers have become bedfellows. In a perfect world, they would still respect each other in the morning. But the reality of the uneasy alliances that develop around awards time is more often one of disappointments and betrayals, according to those involved in Oscar’s fashion race.

Self-interest drives both sides: Designers want attention for their most dramatic creations and brand names, plus the lasting glow that comes from a sprinkling of celebrity fairy dust. Performers want to look fabulous in front of an audience estimated at a billion viewers, and to avoid being criticized or ridiculed for fashion faux pas.

So a number of high-profile international designers employ Los Angeles-based publicists whose chief job is to keep Hollywood happy. Throughout the year, they lend samples to be worn for talk-show appearances, parties and premieres and for photography sessions that turn up as glossy magazine layouts. Obviously, they are happy to accommodate someone who does their clothes justice and is likely to be noticed at an event.

Samples have usually been worn by models in runway presentations of the designer’s collection. They are costly to produce and can’t be sold to the public, so they’re useless except as a working lending library for the fortunate and very slim. “It’s a lot easier to dress someone who’s a sample size,” one Italian designer’s local liaison said. “It would have to be someone really important for us to pull something from stock.”

So when presenters are chosen and the nominations announced, the designers’ reps call stars’ agents or publicists, offering their bugle-beaded best, and everyone’s happy, right? Not exactly.

Publicists representing stars also contact designers, requesting that gowns be shipped to their clients for approval. No problem there. Things get sticky when stars abuse the privileges extended to them. The idea that performers can be vain and insecure is hardly a revelation, and who wouldn’t be, under the glare of a worldwide spotlight?

“We’ve been burned when an actress we’d love to see in our clothes has kept 10 of our best dresses until the last minute, and then doesn’t wear any of them,” one designer’s rep complained. When a star promises to wear one designer’s gown, then gets a better offer and shows up in a competitor’s dress, the spurned designer is entitled to a little pout. The situation is worse when the forsaken dress was not a sample, but a custom item created just for the Academy Awards.

Last year, Sharon Stone was praised for seeming to repudiate the fashion madness surrounding the Oscars by showing up in a black turtleneck she had picked up at the Gap. Not widely reported at the time was the fact that Stone had collaborated with two designers making custom gowns for her, then wore neither.

Such behavior is far from unique, designers complain. The morning of every important awards show, faxes from designers arrive at The Times’ fashion department. “We are proud to announce that Star A will wear a black lace gown by Designer B to the Golden Globes,” they state. The faxes are often wrong because some stars stockpile gowns from a number of designers, promise to wear each of them, then change their minds at the last minute. The designers lose out on the promotional opportunity that attracted them in the first place.

The designers try to chalk the aggravation up to a simple cost-of-doing-business equation. If they spend X dollars catering to stars, they earn Y worth of “free” publicity. But they occasionally ask themselves if it’s all worth it.

It certainly has been for Giorgio Armani. Until several years ago, he was known as a suit designer without parallel, someone who could be counted on for wonderful daytime clothes. Now that both men and women have appeared in his elegant evening wear, he has entered the public mind as among the world’s most desirable providers of special occasion clothes. The value of that image adjustment, plus the reflected glory of his association with Hollywood’s best and most beautiful, is priceless.