Nicole Kidman’s Dress Was a Metaphor at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards
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In times which Nicole Kidman calls “extraordinary,” the actress is managing to fly above it all — courtesy of both some high-fashion wings and the support of a few decades worth of fans.
Dressed in a Christian Dior tiered gown adorned with a cartoon bird, Kidman accepted her Glamour Woman of the Year award Monday night at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, explaining that her dress was a reminder of the individual's limitless potential.
“I want to be able to say thank you for supporting me, for embracing me, for giving me chances, for allowing me to fall and fail, and then allowing me to get back up and brush off my knees, even if they're bloodied, and fly,” she said to the audience. “I'm wearing wings tonight, and I tell you, to all of those young girls and boys, even if your wings get clipped, you can build them back and you can fly.”
The message came after the actress thanked her husband Keith Urban for his unyielding support, admitting that despite being a “strong woman,” she still needs the help her partner, for more than a decade, offers her.
“He gives me so much strength at times, and he gives me so much love," she said, adding, “I'm very very fortunate and I know so many people in this room don't have that, but I have it, and I want to acknowledge it.”
But it was Kidman's upbringing, she explained, in a household consisting of a feminist mother and a loving father where “everyone was equal” that taught Kidman the concept of “good love.” It’s what she uses to navigate what she called “unchartered territories,” though she didn’t specifically mention politics or the current climate in Hollywood in a post-Weinstein era.
The Big Little Lies actress ended her speech — in a night with several political calls-to-action from fellow Women of the Year, including Gigi Hadid, Maxine Waters and Samantha Bee — with a warning that, Dior dresses aside, birds of a feather should no longer, flock together.
“It's so easy for us to gravitate towards the places in the world that are safe,” the actress said. “The people who are most like us the people, whose gender whose sexuality or race we share, but I'm convinced the galvanization of all of us together is what's essential. I truly believe we must share the good love that we receive whenever we see that it's needed.
“It's about building bridges. Bridges bring understanding, they bring empathy, but they bring change, and that's what we need, we need change.”
This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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