The bob was intact, but the sunglasses, at least at first, were absent.
In a bit of tacit but obvious promotion, Anna Wintour, the Vogue empress, appeared onstage at the Academy Awards on Sunday to present the awards for best costume design and best makeup and hairstyling alongside Anne Hathaway. This spring, in a sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada,” Ms. Hathaway will reprise her role as a publishing world striver who stumbles into the web of a fashion editor very much in the mold of Ms. Wintour.
To her credit, Ms. Wintour hasn’t shied from “The Devil Wears Prada.” In 2006, she attended the film’s premiere wearing Prada. In doing so, she got in on the joke.
She was again in on the gag at the Oscars. Or at least she tried to be. The setup of her appearance with Ms. Hathaway framed the actress, dressed in a strapless, floral Valentino gown (yes, florals for spring, groundbreaking) as an eager aspirant, seeking validation from the editor to her right.
Ms. Wintour looked off to the side, disinterested, in her lacy Dior jacket.
Ms. Wintour may be the editor supreme of American media, but her acting skills were lacking here. It was difficult to tell at first if it was a bit or if Ms. Wintour was genuinely unsure of where to look from the stage.
The uncanniness of the moment was heightened by the fact that Ms. Wintour arrived onstage without her omnipresent black sunglasses. It was probably the first time many had ever seen Ms. Wintour’s eyes.
As she declined to comment on Ms. Hathaway’s look, she put the glasses on, just before the pair announced that the costume designer Kate Hawley had won for “Frankenstein.” The bit reached its climax when Ms. Wintour, turning to the best makeup and hairstyling award, referred to her onstage partner not as Anne, but as Emily, the name Ms. Hathaway’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada” is mistakenly called. Ms. Wintour sold that dismissive line convincingly.
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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