Inside the Atelier: Emma Stone's BAFTAs dress took 450 hours to make
It was a big night for Emma Stone yesterday. The star took home the Leading Actress award at the 2024 BAFTAs, thanks to her role in the hit Yorgos Lanthimos film Poor Things.
Naturally, she accepted her trophy in style, wearing a Louis Vuitton gown that was custom-made specially for the occasion. As an ambassador for the French fashion house, Stone has worn the brand on numerous occasions this awards season, most notably for the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards.
For last night's BAFTAs, which took place at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the actress wore a sorbet-orange one-shoulder gown, which took more than 450 hours to design and construct. The asymmetric bustier gown featured one oversized balloon sleeve and was crafted from different patterns of silk jacquard organza, cut from nearly 20 metres of fabric. A padded band around the bottom edge of the semi-sheer skirt gave it extra structure and volume.
The gown was likely designed in tribute to the exaggerated costumes of Bella Baxter, Stone's character in Poor Things – a woman in Victorian London whose body has been brought back to life and implanted with the brain of a foetus. According to the film's costume designer, Holly Waddington, both Stone and Lanthimos were very involved with the conversations around Bella's playful, theatrical wardrobe.
"Yorgos was really open-minded to anything I would have come up with, and I presented him with a lot of ideas and options from the late 19th century, and he kept going towards these enormous sleeves," Waddington told Bazaar previously. "He and Emma were both pushing for it in meetings. I love them, and what they do to the body. It pushes forward this sense of otherness – these highly textured fabrics that are quite creature-like."
She added: "Big sleeves are definitely worth wearing – they’re very empowering. Whenever sleeves have been big for women – the Elizabethan period, the 1940s, the 1980s – women have generally been in a good place. I’m so glad we went for them."
Catch up on all the fashion from the 2024 BAFTAs here, then see our edit of the 10 best-dressed from the night below.
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