Months before Lupita Nyong'o walked down the 2025 Oscars red carpet and onto the best fashion moments list outside Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, stylist Micaela Erlanger was already crafting the star's custom Chanel looks for the 97th Annual Academy Awards. Models debuting the house's Spring 2025 collection had barely stepped off the Paris Fashion Week runway last September when Erlanger visited the Chanel Atelier to start her Oscars research process.
Digging through the archives led Erlanger to a reference she knew would make an impact by the time the Oscars red carpet rolled around. "I found this incredible photo of Linda Evangelista on the runway, I think from the '90s, in a beautiful dress that stood out to me as understated, elegant, timeless, and glamorous—everything I hoped to achieve with the overall mood and feeling of Lupita's look," she tells Marie Claire just before the ceremony in an exclusive interview. "I sent them the reference, and we went back and forth on some sketches. Of course, Lupita weighed in and played a big part in my creative process; it’s such a collaboration."
