“Reverse tracking, reverse tracking!” Baz Luhrmann cried out as Nicole Kidman, wearing a custom-made black Chanel dress and a diamond necklace as a tribute to Rita Hayworth, strutted out onto the Paramount back lot. “Cut!” He said, as a camera trailed her. “We’ve got it!”
They weren’t filming a movie but something very else entirely—Vogue World: Hollywood.
Vogue World isn’t an event that can be easily explained in a few words. At its core, it’s an open-air fashion show where models and celebrities wear a dazzling array of designers during a production that’s meant to symbolize something bigger. In 2022, the first Vogue World took place in New York City to celebrate the city reopening after COVID-19. The next year, it took place at the Drury Lane Theatre in London to raise money for the performing arts scene after government budget cuts. In 2024, meanwhile, Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner rode horses in the Place Vendôme in Hermès during Paris Couture Week and right before the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
This year, the event had set its sight on Hollywood—aiming to celebrate the connection between fashion and film while raising money for the Entertainment Community Fund, especially those costume designers impacted by the Los Angeles fires. Award-winning costume designers, such as Colleen Atwood, Milenia Canonero, Ruth E. Carter, Catherine Martin, Arianne Phillips, Sandy Powell and Jacqueline West would collaborate with the world’s top fashion houses to create their costumes from iconic movies, and show how iconic movies inspired real-life fashion.
On Sunday, before it was time to call “action,” Luhrmann was up and about, kissing cheeks and shaking hands (including with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who sat front row with his family). He mingled through the Hollywood heavy crowd that included Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Connelly, and Henry Golding. Then the lights dimmed and the music started—showtime!
Once the cameras began to roll they didn’t stop for thirty minutes. Kendall Jenner (or as Luhrmann introduced her, “KJ”, hit the runway in a bedazzled costume once worn by Kidman in Moulin Rouge. One of her B.F.F.s Hailey Bieber, in a black leather Mugler dress, whipped out her phone to film Jenner as she walked by. More costumes designed for Luhrmann’s films, including The Great Gatsby, were interspersed with romantic looks from Miuccia Prada and Alessandro Michele’s Gucci.
Anok Yai went full method in a reproduction of Atwood’s goth catsuit for Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands. Yai was soon trailed by Gabbriette and Amelia Gray in moody looks by McQueen. (Gabbriette’s fiancé, Matty Healy, bopped his head as she took the runway.) Hunter Schafer somehow made the ass-balooning pantaloons from Sandy Powell’s Orlando seem hot.
Teyana Taylor whipped ring blades around in a costume from Carter’s Black Panther and then hugged the costume designer when she spotted her in the crowd. Kyle MacLachlan meandered down the runway in a Tom Ford bathrobe-type getup and Julia Garner wore one of Canonero’s frilly-let-them-eat-cake outfits from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.
A pair of models dressed as Cher and Dee sprinted about, as did a blunt-bobbed, fur coat wearing Margot Tennenbaum, a Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn, and a Bonnie & Clyde in getaway clothes made by Zac Posen’s Gap. Model Betsy Gaghan, wore a Ralph Lauren recreation of Diane Keaton’s tie-and-vest outfit in Annie Hall—a touching tribute to the late actor, who was known to have a zany style all on her own. Gracie Abrams came out wearing an oxblood red Chanel set, which is a flex any day of the week, but even more so when you realize Matthieu Blazy just sent it down the runway three weeks ago.
Perhaps the best word to describe it would be “spectacular.” The term “spectacular” entered the popular lexicon in the late 1880s, when Barnum & Bailey used it to describe their over-the-top circus productions that included a variety of acts with lavish sets, impressive feats, and glamorous costumes. Their traveling shows waned in the 1920s as American attention turned to a new form of entertainment: the movies. Nearly all of them were shot in California, due to the good weather, abundance of land, and cheap labor. Suddenly and then all at once, the press began to use “spectacular” to define the sky-high budget films of Cecil B. DeMille like “Samson and Delilah” (1949), and “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952). Soon, “spectacular” became synonymous with Hollywood itself.
Demille used to film here, at the Paramount backlot. So did many other legendary filmmakers: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate, Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard where Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond descended into madness and said “Mr. Demille I’m ready for my close-up,” were all made here.
Nowadays? Not so much. Hollywood is more of a figurative word than a literal one as competitive tax credits have lured productions out of California and often outside the United States altogether.Yet there’s hope on the horizon: Governor Newsom has said he’s making it a priority to keep productions in-state. A week ago, he announced that 52 different films would receive tax credits to film in the Golden State under his California Film & TV Tax Credit Program.
And last night, the Hollywood spectacle was back and better than ever. Vogue World raised $4.5 million for Entertainment Community Fund, to help those so key to the industry. There was singing and dancing and beautiful people and fashion and a visual production so over the top the plot didn’t matter. Men wearing all black held cameras on their shoulders. They hooked them into harnesses with carabiners, to film a dynamic, lose-yourself-into livestream that brought the event to the masses. “Yes, it is heavy,” read a sticker slapped on one of their backs. They sweat profusely as they made movie magic, so that anyone, anywhere, could be California dreaming. And as Luhrmann and Kidman walked out to close the show as The Beach Boys’s “Good Vibrations” played—you realized you really didn’t want them to call it a wrap.
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