bLavish

Oscar Fashion Night Show-Down

March 3, 2006 | Posted by bLavish as Chasing the Greenbacks at 1:01 pm | Comments off

Are you ready to watch who’s-wearing-what at the Oscars?  But maybe it’s really, who’s getting paid what to wear what at the Oscars.  As if big-name celebs really need to supplement their income. 

Every year the well-publicized Academy Awards ceremony draws nationwide attention, not just for keeping tabs on their favorite films, but to admire and critique the glamorous celebrity fashions. Clothing, cosmetics, hair styles, and jewelry worn to star-studded events like the Oscars can influence fashion trends for months or years to come.  We can thank J Lo for some awful trends after some of her appearances. 

It’s not surprising that fashion designers are willing to make significant sacrifices to get their designs onto the bodies of celebrities who attend these big events.  Product placement is older than ET & Reese’s Pieces.  For years, the big fashion design houses have allowed celebrities to borrow their designs, free of charge, to wear to high-profile events.

Today, popular celebrities are paid large sums of money by designers to wear certain designs to public events. So your favorite actress might not even like the high-priced necklace and earring set you see her wearing. She could be working a paid advertisement for a design house, even though she appears to be on her own free time.

Consider the luxurious little Chopard diamond earrings worn by Best Actress winner Hilary Swank at the 2005 Oscars. According to TimesOnline Swank originally borrowed jewelry from Harry Winston for the event, but returned it after accepting an offer from Chopard to pay her an estimated $90,000 to wear its design instead, apparently she had fallen on hard times.

The L.A. Times reports that both Swank and actress Charlize Theron returned their loaned Harry Winston jewels within 24 hours before they planned to wear them to the Golden Globes, reportedly receiving “6 figure checks” from Chopard to wear its designs to the event.

Swank wasn’t the only celebrity wearing Chopard on Oscar night, although its unclear whether other stars received similar compensation from the company. The list of Chopard wearers reportedly included Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole, Nicolette Sheridan, Penelope Cruz, Star Jones Reynolds, and even Al Roker god bless him.

Lesson to be learned:  You can never have too much money, so say yes to product placemement.  I’m eating a Chiquita banana with Peter Pan peanut butter.  What are you eating?