Oscars: The Ultimate Advertisement
Star power is advertising power these days, and an Oscar-nominated actress is potentially the best billboard money can’t buy.
If a famous actress wears a designer’s dress, she delivers a kind of endorsement that’s pure gold. No one knows that better than the elite Hollywood corps of celebrity fashion stylists who can transform ordinary actresses into extraordinary stars by virtue of selecting the right clothes to wear to the right event.
That event, hands down, is the Academy Awards.
As elegant gowns and glittery gems increasingly overshadow the Academy Awards ceremony, the competition among fashion designers, jewelers and even cosmetics companies is reaching a new level of frenzy. The Oscars could be subtitled: World’s Most Important Product Placement Opportunity.
“It’s the biggest runway show of them all,” says Scott Woodward, chief marketing officer of the Movado Group, which launched a multifaceted effort to land its Concord brand of watches on some very famous wrists. “There are two things people care about when they’re on their sofa watching the Oscars: who wins, and what are they wearing. I’m not necessarily sure it’s in that order.”
Just as landing Ray-Bans in movies or Gatorade at the Super Bowl can skyrocket awareness of a brand, dressing stars at high-profile awards shows has become one of the most important marketing moves for fashion companies.
“It’s product placement out of control,” said Suzanne Kramer, president of Epaulette & Associates, which is helping Concord give away five $20,000 movie-themed watches to the movies’ stars and loan dozens of custom-made styles, some $150,000 each.
“If you’re not a player on this level, you can’t be considered a leader in your category,” she said.
All this fuss is about the 10 actress nominees and a handful of presenters and male nominees, plus an occasional head-turning date. Behind-the-scenes discussions focus on the four young nominees who have demonstrated a fashion sense: Hilary Swank, Julianne Moore, Angelina Jolie and Chloe Sevigny. Other nominees such as Toni Collette, Catherine Keener and Samantha Morton could explode into the public consciousness like a modern-day Eliza Doolittle with one fabulous dress.
The L’Ermitage has become the favorite staging ground for the attack on stylists, who at Oscar time become as important as agents, lawyers and publicists in Hollywood. They can earn up to $1,500 a day.
Here and at the Four Seasons, the Mondrian and the Peninsula Beverly Hills, so many fashion designers, jewelers and even cosmetics companies have buzzed into town that the hotels have become sort of a West Coast version of New York’s Seventh Avenue.
The ritual courtship of the stars and their support staffs is both subtle and not. By putting Swank, who wore Versace at the recent Golden Globes, in the front row of his Paris show earlier this month, Valentino basked her in fashion’s limelight. Stylist-to-the-stars Phillip Bloch is regularly center-stage at New York shows.
The courtship intensified weeks ago, when fashion companies began staging a datebook-clogging array of parties and dinners. Giorgio Beverly Hills invited stylists for cocktails to see the Oscar gowns that the store commissioned. Shoemaker Jimmy Choo held a tea; Escada, a brunch; Barneys New York, an exclusive cocktail party. But the most oddly compelling invitation was to a dinner Tuesday at the exclusive Hotel Bel-Air, where--only in Hollywood--the jeweler to England’s royal family, Asprey & Garrard, could dance to the ‘70s power rock band Styx.
At the hotels, negotiating the throngs is no glamorous shopping trip.
Awake since 5 a.m., top stylist Jessica Paster burst into the L’Ermitage suite of Pamela Dennis early last Friday morning, seeking that special something for her Oscar clients.
In under 45 minutes, Paster had scanned the three rolling racks of clothes, memorized fabrics and colors, placated publicists, dodged questions, phoned Chad Lowe about the details of his tuxedo fitting, rejected a special Dennis dress swathed in $1 million in diamonds, answered her beeper three times and returned two other calls, all while 15 people buzzed through the room.
Paster maintained her laser-beam focus while Dennis’ publicist, Piera Rossi Blodwell, pressed her to reveal her Oscar-night clients.
“Oh, gosh, you know,” Paster demurred. “We don’t have to say if we don’t want to. We really don’t. But I do want a pair of pants for Cate Blanchett.” Blanchett, a presenter at the ceremony, is one of the A-list actresses whom designers beg to dress.
“We’ll make them specially,” Blodwell offered.
“I don’t want anybody to make me anything,” Paster countered. “Because, you know what, afterward, everyone goes crazy and says, ‘Oh, she made us make something.’ They offer, and then . . . if you don’t wear the designer, there’s always a snide remark that you did something wrong, and you didn’t.”
Tight Schedule Results in High Stress
Three times last week, her packed schedule pushed appointments off until midnight. On Wednesday, she flew to Georgia and back to conduct a fitting for Blanchett, who was there filming a movie with, coincidentally, Swank, another top Paster client.
The stress is so high, her muscles so tense, that Paster said her masseuse prescribed daily massages for two weeks post-Oscar, just to uncoil her knots. She copes by keeping quiet on the details of who and what she’ll send down the red carpet.
“She doesn’t want to tell you too much because you don’t want everyone knowing,” said Frederick Anderson, president and chief executive of Douglas Hannant, a New York evening-wear house, who was thrilled that Paster showed interest in the collection.
“She told me, ‘If you know I’m dressing someone you really want, you’ll call me every hour of the day.’ Honestly, I would call her every hour of the day,” Anderson said.
The established companies have only to dress one star to stay in the game. But for Oscar-dress derby newcomers, such as Hannant, Carmen Marc Valvo, Reem Acra and Halston’s Craig Natiello, just one dress could make their business explode, overnight.
Three weeks ago, Natiello, who is Halston’s new designer, and his team of publicists holed up in the L’Ermitage to offer his $4,000 to $7,000 dresses to one or two actresses who might match the company’s new image. He even returned this week to personally conduct second fittings on a few important dresses he has on loan to stars he won’t name.
“It’s wildly important,” Natiello said. “Let’s be honest about it--it’s the most free advertising you are going to get in your entire life.”
Chanel sent its national makeup director, Guy Lento, to Beverly Hills, where he demonstrated new products and sent makeup artists home with a large supply of Chanel products to try on their clients’ famous faces. For Chanel, which doesn’t offer a discount for makeup artists, this is its opportunity to build recognition among Los Angeles’ celebrity makeup artists--and to hand out enticing gift bags of products worth an estimated $1,000.
Showing your gratitude is essential at Oscar time because fashion companies desperately need “relationships” with the right people.
“We’re not just doing this for the Oscars,” said Kramer of the Concord promotions. “It’s for all year long. It’s to get into the right TV and movie opportunities during the year. It’s cementing relationships.” The company hopes the red-carpet exposure could launch a new line of watches based on the Concords worn at the Oscars.
The imbalance of power in these relationships favors the famously fickle stars, who bring out a hidden side of the fashion industry: humility. Only the Oscars have forced a level of civility and personal service once available only to paying clients. It’s now standard practice to offer one, or several, specially made, one-of-a-kind dresses for free.
Jobs, Reputations Are on the Line
If designers get greedy or careless in their pursuit of the ultimate publicity, they’ll risk being ostracized. Overexposure can be death in Hollywood. If a designer’s publicist fails to land a dress on a celebrity, the client may fire the publicist. Stylists can also lose their jobs if their stars wind up on any worst-dressed list.
Designers quake at the thought of a poorly fitted dress, such as last year’s baggy ball gown on Gwyneth Paltrow. That’s why Heidi Weisel, another New York evening-wear designer, also offered to fly back from an Arizona vacation to personally fine-tune the fit of a dress for presenter Salma Hayek, should she require the service.
When Hayek’s stylist, Bloch, visited Weisel’s hotel showroom, his every wish was her command, because Bloch delivers Cinderella and her glass slipper.
“If you dress someone like Salma, and it’s the Oscars, you get international exposure instantly,” Weisel said.
Weisel’s publicist, Jill Eisenstadt, says a celebrity’s Oscar gown can deliver the equivalent of a global advertising campaign. Free. To give her clients a sense of the event’s impact, Eisenstadt recently compared the number of publicity opportunities the Oscars deliver against the number in fashion magazines.
“You can get more in one event--the Oscars--than you can get in fashion editorials in all the magazines, all year long,” she said. “And you can continue to get good coverage for months afterward.”
There are costly risks, of course.
“You go through all of this, and you never know if they are going to wear it,” said Hannant, who is trying to lure stars to wear his $3,000 beaded jackets or mink-lined bustiers. “And you have no control over their hair.”
“It’s incredible. It’s gotten so out of hand,” he said. “Every time I’m interviewed, it’s ‘What celebrities are you dressing?’ Even the stores are asking.”
He hopes to add his dream girl to that list: Oscar nominee Julianne Moore. Just four years in business, Hannant will shift into overdrive for the right person.
“Depending on who it is, I definitely will make one of a kind. I’ll even go out and find a different lace or the color they want,” he said. “And if Julianne Moore calls, I’ll make it in a day.”
Smart Hollywood players know not to abuse their power. But that doesn’t mean that things can’t get ugly.
“It’s not fair when someone holds a dress,” Bloch complained. “A lot of stylists will take things and hold it for three weeks, and no one gets to see it.” In contrast, he promises to take two or three days to elicit a client’s approval and often sends a wish list ahead of appointments. “I’m not going to sit and play games,” he said.
Dana Ravich, a stylist for the E! Entertainment cable network, has arrived at showrooms to discover that a particular color was “taken.”
“It gets a little cutthroat,” she said.
“No,” said Patrick McGregor, a publicist for New York designer Reem Acra. “It’s really cutthroat.
“Everyone makes appointments, but no one can keep them. There’s always a more important designer who is there and you get bumped down,” he said. Acra got just half a dozen appointments over a few days, but she was philosophical about the scant turnout.
“If you have something good to offer, it’s never a risk. It’s all positive, because the more people see it, the more they talk about it,” she said. Coming to Los Angeles opened her eyes to the city’s unique style.
“Now I know there is a market that is a little more daring. I can go back to the drawing table with a focus on L.A.,” she said.
The hotel showrooms are mutually beneficial.
“I love the idea of coming to the West Coast and doing this,” Natiello said. “The stylists tell you what they think in no uncertain terms.” And stylists get to know more about more collections without hopping a plane.
The Oscars have helped luxury fashion companies recognize the city’s new power in fashion.
“L.A. is more crucial to the business. The reason is that celebrities are more crucial to our business,” said Sandra Graham, who is designer James Purcell’s “celebrity liaison,” a job that seemed unnecessary five years ago.
“It’s more than just going out to dress someone,” said Anderson, of Douglas Hannant. “It’s part of being in another scene and getting out of New York. It’s another understanding of how fashion works, as opposed to how we see it spin on the East Coast.
“We’ve decided that we’re coming back in June. We have a collection that would fit for the Emmys [which are in September]. In fact, they will affect what we design,” he said. Hannant and Anderson also plan to come back in time for Oscars 2001, but a lot wiser for their experiences here.
“The competition is going to be fierce a year from now,” Hannant sighed. “God knows what we’ll have to do then.”
Valli Herman-Cohen can be reached at valli.herman-cohen@latimes.com.
