Rowben Lantion
Look closely at Emma Stone’s Poor Things promo wardrobe and you’ll see little nods to Bella Baxter – a uniquely special character that could well see the actor bag her second Oscar. “We wanted to keep Emma, Emma,” says her longtime stylist, Petra Flannery. “But show her affinity with the character and Bella’s spirit.” Ornate brooches and pins detailed with “BB” have punctuated her custom Louis Vuitton wardrobe, while the colour palette has blurred from black and white to the saturated colours and whimsical pastels in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Frankenstein-adjacent epic. Stone’s BAFTAs dress and her Vogue Fashion and Film party look are the latest homages to come out of Nicolas Ghesquière’s imaginative atelier.
For the detail-obsessed creative director, who, like Flannery, gobbled up the Poor Things references, no idea was too obscure to turn into a fashion statement. The levity and whimsy of Bella’s period costumes are reflected in the sheer underlay of Stone’s peachy BAFTAs red-carpet look: a “fantastic” one-shoulder top rendered in contrasting silk jacquard and a transparent textured chiffon skirt featuring a quilted band to polish things off. Team Stone has had the look in mind for a while, because it felt pitch perfect for the BAFTAs – a setting which calls for extra “flair” and “drama”. “Diaphanous is how we started off the Poor Things tour [Stone wore a pearlescent pale blue take on the slip with a fabulous ruffly robe shrugged over the top to the London premiere], and this felt so graceful for a beautiful [BAFTAs] stage.”
Stone would later change into another custom look that’s testament to her own “spirited” approach to fashion: a black dress that’s resolutely not just an LBD, thanks to Ghesquière. Like its peach companion, which took some 450 hours to perfect for the red carpet, Flannery says, “It’s special, because when you do custom, nobody can expect it. These things are all made for Emma and her personality.”
Petra, who has worked with Stone for well over a decade, describes her style as “fun, chic, elegant, graceful… but with an edge”. The witty Hollywoodite and the house of Louis Vuitton are a harmonious match, because Emma, says Petra, “has range. She can wear it all.” If, as her stylist suggests, Poor Things, with its exquisite high-fashion nods and wildly eccentric narrative, got under Stone’s skin, every intelligent and idiosyncratic Louis Vuitton collection press release must pique the same kind of interest. Ghesquière’s brilliant confections have found the perfect poster girl who also dreams big.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
