After a several month-long press tour for Wicked, you’d expect even the most devoted of dressers like Cynthia Erivo to experience red carpet fatigue, but her Oscars 2025 look says otherwise. Known for her fearless and often outré approach to tackling the step-and-repeat, Erivo once more proved that she is a sartorial force to be reckoned with, wearing a velvet court dress by Louis Vuitton.
But it wouldn’t hold true to the actor if she and her stylist, Jason Bolden, didn’t put some extra thought into the outfit before her potential Oscar win. Much like her fervid fandom, Erivo is still ‘holding space’ for her on-screen character, as she continued her green dressing period, opting for a more pared-back, deep emerald green velvet. And whilst going less fluorescent in shade, the silhouette of the dress - a wide pannier skirt topped with an exaggerated, pointed collar - still had Elphaba-cum-couture written all over it.
Wicked aside, the deeper meaning behind her red carpet get-up - as revealed by Bolden on Instagram before the event - was a nod to Hattie McDaniel, who was the first ever Black actress to win an Oscar, for her role as Mammy in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind.
'Tonight is for Hattie McDaniel [...] Hope this Dress Makes You Proud!! Love Jason & Cynthia,' he wrote on his Instagram story.
If Erivo receives the Oscar for Best Actress in leading role tonight, she’ll be one of very few stars that have reached EGOT-status, meaning she will have won an Emmy, an Oscar, and a Tony. She’d also be the second black woman to ever win the award, following Halle Berry. ‘I wanted a big dress if I made it to the Oscars. I feel amazing,’ she said on the red carpet. That she delivered on.