Red Carpet Trends Through the Ages

Oscar season is upon us and along with frantically watching as many nominated films as we can, we’re also building up excitement about what everyone will wear on the red carpet. How many celebrities will be draped in Versace and how many in Chanel? Who will shock the press with a plunging neckline or spark a new trend?

We were thrilled, this week, to come across someone who did the research and came up with “The Red Carpet Project”. This “someone” happens to be The New York Times and they’ve put together an interactive tour through red carpet trends. They provide some commentary, but also look at the red carpet data, giving us an overall view of the event through its garments.

You can even narrow down the galleries by colour, year, style, designer, or celebrity. I know, your finger is itching to click through to the site.

“No event on earth, not even an Obama inauguration, can top the Academy Awards when it comes to inflating one simple question to the level of stop-the-presses significance. That is: What are you wearing?

Ah, the anticipation of all the frocks has come to play as significant a role at the Oscars as who goes home with an award. For designers, dressing actors comes with the potential of publicity that is worth millions of dollars. And for those of us watching at home, as we will be on Feb. 24, there is always the excitement of decoding the fashion winners and losers.

For an interactive feature at nytimes.com/red-carpet-project, editors of The Times combed through 15 years of red carpet moments, giving an entirely new perspective on the patterns that have emerged there. For instance, of more than 400 gowns categorized by shape, designer and color, the most popular style over the years has been strapless, with a total of 127 examples. That is largely thanks to a surge of strapless dresses that really began in earnest in 2005, with examples that year from Charlize, Beyoncé, Gwyneth and Renée. Last year alone, there were 17.

Also, although some of the most memorable dresses have been brightly colored ones, the most popular looks over all, surprisingly, have been black. There are 76 examples, and that does not include the men. And the most successful red-carpet designer of the last 15 years? By this count, it was Versace, with a total of 36.” (Eric Wilson – The New York Times) 

To read the entire article and see the Oscar looks, click here.

We couldn’t post an article like this without throwing in our two cents, so here are a few of our favourites.

Helen Mirren wearing Christian Lacroix in 2001

 (photo: Kevork Djansezian/AP)

Penelope Cruz wearing Armani in 2012

(photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times)

Kate Hudson wearing Versace in 2007

(SGranitz/WireImage)