Part of an ongoing series of 29Secrets stories, taking a deep dive into the history of legendary beauty products and iconic fashion moments…
By Christopher Turner
Illustration by Michael Hak
When people discuss the best Oscar dresses of all time, certain gowns unanimously and consistently come up. One of those dresses is the chartreuse Christian Dior mink-lined dress, which featured chinoiserie-inspired embroidery, that was designed by John Galliano and worn by actress Nicole Kidman to the 69th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, March 24, 1997. The dress – a streamlined explosion of shimmering chinoiserie – is stunning, but what many fail to realize when talking about it is what kind of impact the dress actually had.
Despite her appearance in nearly a dozen films since meeting her then-husband, Tom Cruise, on the set of Days of Thunder, Kidman had yet to star in a breakout hit, and was really more recognized by audiences as Mrs. Tom Cruise. Similarly, Galliano – a British-Spanish designer who had just been appointed the creative director at the French fashion house Dior – was relatively unknown outside of fashion circles. The mink-lined chartreuse gown was so unexpected, it instantly catapulted both Kidman’s and Galliano’s careers into the stratosphere, and ultimately changed the face of celebrities dressing for the red carpet.
The dress wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, though. At the time, it was panned by numerous critics – including Joan Rivers, who remarked live on air, “What an ugly dress!” But more on that later.
Read on for the full story of the chartreuse Dior dress, the frenzy it caused on the red carpet, and how it changed Kidman’s and Galliano’s careers as well as the face of Oscar red carpet fashion, becoming one of the most iconic gowns of all time.
Galliano’s first haute couture collection for Dior
John Galliano was born in Gibraltar on November 28, 1960. He first captured the attention of fashion watchers in 1980, when he attended St. Martin’s School of Art in London, where he developed a passion for historical costume, which was fully realized with his extraordinary 1984 Graduation Collection, called Les Incroyables, which was inspired by the French Revolution. That led to him setting up his own warehouse studio in the East End of London, where he quickly made a name for himself as the wunderkind of British fashion, receiving a nomination for Designer of the Year by the British Fashion Council in 1987.
The turning point in Galliano’s career came in 1995, when he was called to replace Hubert de Givenchy, the founder of the historic French fashion house, making him the first British designer to head a French haute couture fashion house. But Galliano’s time at Givenchy was fleeting. In 1996, when Italian couturier Gianfranco Ferré, who had been designing at Dior since 1989, left, Galliano crossed over to take over as creative director at Dior, a rapid change that had been orchestrated by Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH (the French conglomerate that owns both labels within its portfolio of luxury brands).
At Dior, Galliano was tasked with creating his first haute couture collection for the famed French fashion house. At the time, the couture business had been dwindling to the point of irrelevancy, so Arnault put the pressure on the young designer to deliver a collection that not only sold but generated press for the label, capitalizing on the buzz surrounding the arrival of Galliano at Dior.
Dior’s spring/summer 1997 haute couture collection, which was presented in January in Paris, received thunderous acclaim from the fashion press for Galliano’s ability to blend different cultural influences. One of the standout dresses from the collection was a chinoiserie-embroidered gown in an unusual chartreuse colour, trimmed in mink with flowing tassels, that was worn by American fashion model Debbie Deitering on the runway. The ‘Absinthe’ gown, as it was originally called in the show notes, was inspired by Peking Opera costumes, which can be traced back to the mid-14th century.
“Mr. Galliano’s show was a credit to himself, to Mr. Dior, whose name is on the door, and to the future of the art, which is always in question,” declared New York Times fashion critic Amy Spindler at the time…and that was just a small part of a wider rapturous reception.
Shortly after its appearance on the runway, the dress was shot by famed fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh for a spread in Vogue’s April 1997 issue highlighting Dior’s new creative director. This issue hit newsstands in March, just before the Oscars. Talk about timing.
Oscar night: There’s couture on the red carpet!
“The embroidery on it was just…[gasp]. And the shape of it,” said Kidman of the dress in the recent In Vogue: The 90s documentary. “Everything was so beautiful.”
Kidman and her stylist (later designer) L’Wren Scott were enchanted by the creativity of Galliano’s debut Dior collection – and mesmerized in particular by the unusual colour of the ‘Absinthe’ gown, choosing it for Kidman’s upcoming appearance at the 69th annual Academy Awards. Scott picked up the colours in the intricate embroidery of the dress and matched them with a pair of pale blue satin Manolo Blahnik slingback kitten heels, and Indian-inspired pearl-encrusted gold jewellery from Martin Katz. The trend-defying couture outfit was against the advice of Kidman’s team, who worried that the actress would stand out for all the wrong reasons at an event that was remarkably conservative when it came to the fashions seen on the red carpet.
“I remember Nicole telling me about going to the Oscars in an haute couture dress and saying that this was against the advice of her team,” recalled Australian costume designer Catherine Martin in In Vogue: The 90s documentary. “There wasn’t a kind of risky, edgy fashion Olympics happening. And [Kidman] said, ‘This is art. I wanna celebrate in artful clothes. I wanna celebrate the beauty and the extravagance of fashion in this special moment.’ And she, kind of, pushed on ahead.”
The 69th annual Academy Awards took place on Sunday, March 24, 1997, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. That night, Kidman’s then-husband, Tom Cruise, was nominated for Best Leading Actor for his role as slick sports agent Jerry Maguire in Cameron Crowe’s romantic comedy Jerry Maguire.
Since the pair had met back in 1990 on the set of Days of Thunder, Kidman had appeared in nearly a dozen films but had yet to star in a breakout hit. She was still arguably most famous for being the wife of one of the most popular film stars in the world at the time. But that all changed with her appearance on the red carpet, and her subsequent appearance on stage to present the Oscar for Film Editing to Walter Murch for The English Patient.
W magazine stated that the Dior dress Kidman wore that night (which was the most expensive dress ever worn on the red carpet up to that time) was “a landmark moment for both designer and wearer: Galliano had just been appointed creative director of Dior the previous fall, and Kidman’s Oscars appearance signaled his arrival as a potent new force on the red carpet.”
Writing in 2003 for Vogue, Sally Singer described the dress as “the first time anybody had worn haute couture to the Oscars with real conviction.”
“John made it for me, and I love it,” the actress told Women’s Wear Daily on the awards carpet that night. “I don’t know if people will get it. But if they don’t, well, maybe they should.”
“I just remember Madonna and Courtney Love saying, ‘Best dress!’ [laughs],” Kidman recalled In Vogue: The 90s.
Not everyone loved the dress
The chinoiserie gown may be considered iconic by today’s standards, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, a considerable number of people really didn’t like it when Kidman stepped out on the red carpet that night.
Leading the army of critics was none other than Joan Rivers, who was on the Oscar red carpet that night with her daughter, Melissa, for the E! News style review. Joan annihilated Kidman’s dress selection – in front of her. While Melissa expressed her awe at the striking Asian-inspired dress, calling it the “first true couture gown on the red carpet,” her mother felt quite differently, and wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions about it.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that Joan shouted at the actress: “Nicole! Come tell me why you wore such an ugly colour!” Whether the actress heard or not, she sailed by, leaving Joan screaming, “I hate that colour! You are making me puke!” And then she mimed puking noises live on air. Graphically.
Despite that awkward moment, the gown quickly became a landmark moment for both Kidman and Galliano.
The aftermath
“I remember seeing the coverage in Vogue, and it was reported that [Kidman’s] Oscar appearance, in every magazine from People to Paris Match, exposed around 54 million women to Dior. That’s a lot of people,” said fashion editor Tonne Goodman in In Vogue: The 90s. “I think that this in fact was the exact moment that everybody understood exactly how significant the relationship between a fashion house and a celebrity was.”
It’s true. Kidman’s appearance on the red carpet wearing the chinoiserie chartreuse Dior dress, and the enormous amount of press it generated, changed everything. Suddenly designers were vying to dress celebrities, and celebrity endorsements and partnerships with fashion houses started to replace relationships that previously had been built with models. Suddenly the paparazzi were everywhere, and red-carpet looks were analyzed, praised and ripped apart.
“I was the new boy at the big house of Dior, and there were more than a few people who didn’t think I could cut it,” said Galliano years after that big night. “Because Nicole was willing to show the world she believed in me, I wanted everyone to see her step out from her husband’s shadow.”
In the years since Kidman’s iconic appearance at the 1997 Oscars, she has become a true force to be reckoned with, both on the red carpet and on the big screen. She has become a fashion darling, regularly praised as one of Hollywood’s most fashionable and turning heads on the red carpet with bold sartorial statements. As for the big screen and the small screen, she is one of Hollywood’s finest, and has won an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award and one BAFTA Award, to name a few.
The dress propelled Galliano’s name to worldwide fame. His reign at Christian Dior lasted until public anti-Semitic remarks prompted his dismissal in 2011. He went to rehab, made public amends and quietly resumed work. In 2014, he was named the creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, a role he still holds today.
The dress, of course, remains iconic. The Smithsonian Institution even called it one of the most influential Oscar dresses of all time.
Unsurprisingly, Kidman still regards it as one of her favourite red-carpet looks to this day. And she’s not the only one who was impressed. “That was fashion with a capital F coming to the Oscars,” said Hamish Bowles, Vogue’s current global editor at large. “She was so spectacular.”
So, where is the dress today? Kidman still has it in her wardrobe.
In 2017, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Australia highlighted the ‘Absinthe’ dress as part of The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture exhibition that ran from August to November that year. Discussing the gown, Kidman told The Sydney Morning Herald: “I have the couture dress at home. This one in the exhibit is from the runway. I have the one John Galliano actually fitted and made for me.… My daughters will inherit that dress.”
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