“This is the final walk,” Anna Sawai says, reflecting on last night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards appearance. More like the final victory lap, as the actress took home the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her role as Toda Mariko in the FX series Shōgun, following major wins at both the Golden Globes and Emmys. It’s a bittersweet ending to what has been a life-changing experience and award season run for the Australian actress.
So what does one wear for a final walk?
For the occasion, Sawai quite literally shined in a custom illusion column gown by Giorgio Armani Privé. The stunning red georgette dress featured a sculptural bustier embellished with crystals that scattered throughout the body and a plot twist as she turned to reveal a velvet black panel on the backside. The sparkling number first appeared in silver and black as part of the house’s Fall 2024 Couture show, where it caught the attention of Sawai and stylist Karla Welch. “We’ve actually had [the dress] since the fall and it was pretty wonderful to have Anna wear it to SAG and WIN!” Welch tells Who What Wear.
The decision to have the gown made in red and black was a clever nod to Sawai’s Shōgun character, Mariko. “Throughout this whole award season I have been wearing quite a bit of red because it’s Mariko’s color,” Sawai shares. “She starts off wearing a snowflake design and then slowly the camellia’s on her kimono start to blossom and towards the end when she’s found her voice, we see her in red and black, so I felt like this was the right color to wear for the finale.”
When seeing the gown in person for the first time, it literally took Sawai’s breath away. The way it shimmered, it was the most exquisite dress she had seen.
Welch added a pair of towering black Christian Louboutin platform heels and a smattering of Cartier jewels which included a pair of earrings, bracelets, and a ring all set in 18k white gold and diamonds from the luxury brand’s Reflection de Cartier collection. Sawai, a Cartier ambassador, especially loved the dangling earrings and how they almost cast a reflection on her face and really popped against her sleek black hair.
With the Armani Privé dress doing most of the talking, Sawai and her glam team, hairstylist Anh Co Tran and makeup artist Yukari Obayashi Bush, decided to keep her beauty look clean and understated with a face of Dior beauty and her hair styled casual and down with a middle part.
With tunes from the artist The xx radio playing in the background, the vibes in Sawai’s getting ready suite were calm and full of great conversation, a necessary distraction from her usual pre-carpet jitters.
Looking back on the night, Sawai tells Who What Wear she was excited to see Demi Moore take home another win for her performance in The Substance and felt empowered by listening to all of the speeches and the community of the room. It was also the last time, she and her Shōgun cast and crew would all be together celebrating their work, which led to her own tearful speech.
“This role is my favorite role that I’ve ever played, ” she tells us. “The story is the most meaningful story, and the people that I met are the closest people that I’ve gotten to on any job. All of these things aligned and we were able to make something that was so great because we all just wanted to do what genuinely for the work and not for any other motives. I’ll take that genuine love of the work with me and hope that I can find something else that I can really delve into in the same way.”
Looking at herself in her final look right before her final walk for Shōgun, Sawai was feeling all the gratitude for what has truly been a banner year marked by a series of best dressed moments. “It started as an introduction to Anna outside of her character wearing a Vera [Wang] princess moment and then the [Giorgio Amarni] felt like a movie star,” Welch says. Now that’s how you end on a high note.
Click here for more of our Screen Actors Guild Awards coverage.
Photographer: Andie Jane
Stylist: Karla Welch
Makeup Artist: Yukari Obayashi Bush
Hair Stylist: Anh Co Tran
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