During her two-month-long tenure as the first female president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, at the end of 1941, Bette Davis called for an overhaul of the Oscars ceremony in light of the horrors of Pearl Harbor. To celebrate in high style as the U.S. entered the war would be to fiddle while the world burned. The two-time Oscar winner proposed, among other things, that the Academy Awards be a ticketed event, with proceeds going to the Red Cross. When Davis’ plan was shot down, she resigned in a huff, but her successors followed her cue and produced a muted, austere ceremony befitting the moment, with a casual dress code (save for military uniforms). A headline in the trades announced the changes: “Will Hold Academy Dinner After All, But Nix Finery, Hoofing and Glitter.”
Today, as wildfires have laid waste to much of Los Angeles County, there are once again calls for lavish awards ceremonies to be rethought, if not canceled outright, as the likes of Jean Smart and Stephen King have suggested. Stars have reason to wonder whether the seasonal red carpet peacocking might come off as insensitive to the devastation. With January’s fires having claimed at least 28 lives, displaced roughly 150,000 residents and destroyed more than 16,000 structures across 60 square miles, it’s understandable that some would wonder how — or even whether — to dress for the occasion. Several awards events have been postponed (twice, in the case of the Critics Choice Awards) and many film premieres canceled.
But requests to do away with the red carpet as usual are alarming the throngs of gig workers who ready stars for the dozens of events that typically take place during the three-month awards season. If the idea is to show solidarity with the industry’s most vulnerable, these style professionals argue, cutting off their biggest source of income for the year is not the way to do it.
“We already endured so much during the [2024 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes],” Kerrie Urban, a groomer whose clients include Brett Goldstein, Charlie Hunnam and Kevin Kline, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We were the collateral damage of the strikes, because we missed six months of shooting. This on top of that is too much. We’re just working-class people with families to feed and bills to pay.”
Makeup artist Vincent Oquendo, whose clients include Wednesday star Jenna Ortega and Emilia Pérez best actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, says the freelancers who comprise the glam teams for Hollywood stars also experience economic hardships when disaster strikes. “COVID happened, and we adapted,” he says. “Then last year we had the strikes, which personally hit me hard financially, because there was a lot of maneuvering about what was and wasn’t allowed. With this, I have friends I work with who have lost their homes. We shouldn’t be making things worse for them.”
Indeed, armchair critics who love to watch awards shows and post their thoughts instantly on social media rarely comprehend how many creative individuals are involved in putting a star’s look together before he or she steps onto a red carpet. By Oquendo’s estimate, it could be up to 16 people, from a stylist and their team to hair and makeup artists, a manicurist, seamstress or tailor, a publicist, at least one security guard if a jewelry loan is involved — and that’s just for starters. “And we’re all gig workers,” he adds. “That’s what you’ll see on the day of a big awards show, like the Golden Globes or the SAGs.”
Star stylist Jessica Paster, whose clients include Quinta Brunson, doesn’t believe people will end up toning down the glamour. “All of us stylists, we all talk to each other, and so far everyone is saying we’re keeping the looks the same as they were [before the fires],” she says. “We heard that there was discussion of the Critics Choice Awards becoming a cocktail event — but no matter which dress you’re wearing, you’re not going to change the way your heart feels. I think these events easily can become fundraisers and show that all our hearts are with the Hollywood community.” For the past two weeks, Paster has been among the industry professionals who have been volunteering at clothing-donation drives, assisting displaced people with putting new wardrobes together.
With a client list that includes Baby Reindeer‘s Nava Mau and Anora supporting actor Oscar nominee Yura Borisov, styling duo Amanda Lim and Luca Kingston say they’ve received no requests to change up the looks they already planned. “The people we work with tend to like things that are sleek and black with a bit of an edge,” Lim explains. “Nobody is thinking they might look out of place.”
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Lim and Kingston can’t be accused of being callous to fire victims: The roommates had to evacuate their home, moving both their personal belongings — including two dogs, a cat and a 75-pound tortoise named Lumpy — and the copious samples they had collected for awards season into the Burbank home of Kingston’s mother. “We underwent a forced relocation, which changed our perspective on everything,” Kingston says. “It’s very important to us that we’re respectful to everyone who has suffered a loss, but this is also a city filled with gig workers, and people need their livelihoods. We can’t just shut down; we rely on this season specifically to make a lot of our income for the entire year.”
Raha Dixon, CEO of Tailor Here, agrees. “During awards season, instead of two or three parties a week, it’s 30 parties in one week, so it’s a huge part of our business,” says Dixon, who founded the business in 2017 with her mother, Nanaz Hatami, a self-taught seamstress who has provided her services to private clients, stylists and high-end fashion houses for almost 50 years. “We have up to eight people assisting Nanaz on a big awards show weekend — shortening a men’s jacket or adding a beaded panel to a gown because an actress just had a baby, for example — and most of the people working on these pieces for us are contractors. The work also helps to carry you through those summer months when everyone is on vacation and nothing is happening in town. It’s an energy and a lifeline, and when that energy and lifeline is cut off, it’s scary.”
Local businesses that support awards shows are likewise ambivalent about the appropriateness of muting awards season revelry. “In times of crisis, whether or not to cancel an event weighs on the minds of the industry,” says Peri Ellen Berne, who heads up strategic partnerships for Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz. “It is important to pause and reflect on those impacted by the recent fires in the various communities in Los Angeles, [while] at the same time acknowledging how vital it is to keep the creative workforce employed to continue to drive the local economy.”
Lim adds that events already postponed or canceled — the latter includes the Jan. 11 BAFTA Tea Party and the Feb. 10 Oscar Nominees Luncheon — can become sources of conflict between a stylist’s agent and the entity that booked the job. “We’ve done the work: days of prep, gathering and shipping pieces, organizing looks, getting fittings underway. When the event is canceled, we still should be paid for that time and effort,” says Lim, who adds, “It is an industry epidemic that no one honors [fees for] cancellations. It’s an industry-wide problem.”
While many awards season events remain in flux, the gig workers responsible for the head-to-toe looks of Hollywood stars are hoping they won’t get lost amid the well-intentioned conversation. “There’s nothing you can do if people need time to heal. You can’t force that,” Dixon says. “It’s scary and it’s tough. But we got through the strikes, and we’ll get through this, too.”
This story appeared in the Jan. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
