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Stylist Brad Goreski has had a memorable year of styling client Demi Moore in dozens of stunning looks as she promoted and celebrated her groundbreaking film The Substance. While he may be one of the most in-demand stylists in Hollywood today, he’ll always be grateful to his first client. “I thanked my mom after the Golden Globes for letting me play with Barbie[s] when I was a kid because it was kind of what started everything out for me. You know, she was my first client. She was always going to an event. I liked her mostly in evening clothes. I had one Barbie, Crystal Barbie, that I just was obsessed with. Fashion has always been a part of my life,” said Goreski.
Goreski and Moore are longtime collaborators and friends who’ve worked together on other notable red carpet moments—like the Balmain swan dress Moore wore to the premiere of the FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans—but this film presented them with a unique opportunity. “When the movie gained a little bit of traction, Demi and I sat down and talked about how we were gonna move forward. I just wanted her to look amazing. I really just wanted to do a good job for her, to be honest. I just wanted her to be happy, so I put everything I had into it,” said Goreski.
For the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, Goreski sits down with Who What Wear co-founder Hillary Kerr to share the stories behind Moore’s most remarkable red carpet looks, his philosophy on styling, and more.
For excerpts from the episode, scroll below.
The Substance premiered at Cannes last spring, and I read that you had not seen the film beforehand. How did you prepare for these thoughtful, subtle, insightful nods to the film and to her character when you hadn’t seen it yet?
Demi had sent me some photos, BTS, and her in the makeup, but she told me before, “This is what it’s about. This is what happens. I would kind of like to reflect it in my dressing.” When I was pulling for her, I was thinking, “What dresses or gowns would I like to see her in?” I’d always wanted to get her into Armani Privé because [of] the fit, how those clothes are made, [and] just how elegant and luxurious they are. They just look so expensive. Schiaparelli, we’ve worked with them a ton, and Daniel loves Demi. When they told me that they had that dress with the blade, I automatically thought, “Oh, Demi told me there are some needles in the movie.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The Balenciaga gown with the little hip distortion, I’d seen that on the runway. I was like, “Oh, I love this gown so much. If I can get it, I have to place it on her somewhere just because it’s a showstopper.”
I’m telling you—all the way through, from Cannes to the Oscars, it was a full-on collaboration. Discussions, FaceTimes, she’s very involved in the best possible way. [She’s] the best fashion partner in crime a person could have.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
[The] custom Armani Privé for the Golden Globes—it was her first time going to that ceremony since 1997, and it was her first lead-actress win of the season and also of her career, so this is a major moment. How did the whole look come together?
I had been obsessed with that fabric that they made. I think it’s a combination of metal and silk. It’s obviously a staple of Armani Privé. I just love the way it moves. I love the shimmer of it. I love that it looked watery and fluid, but I wanted it in a pretty deep gold.
Why that color?
Because I just felt like she was just so golden. [It was] just the way that I was seeing her. We did a swatch test on her, and Malin, who constructed both of Demi’s gowns, worked all through Christmas holiday to make it happen. We just put it on, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is it.”
It was also the story of the dress being off-balance. I didn’t want to do another strapless dress. One of the big things in The Substance is respecting the balance, and the balance was off. The middle of the gown was Elisabeth Sparkle coming through, and the two sides represented Sue and Elisabeth.
Jessica Paster said to me about the Oscars dress, “Pick a dress that if she wins, she will want to look at in 10 years from now and still like the dress,” and I thought that way about the Golden Globes. Every award show, will she want to look back at this dress and be like, “I’m so glad I wore that” in 10 years?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
I want to talk about the Critics Choice Awards because it really got the conversation going. It was the navy Schiaparelli with the exaggerated hip, that lace-up corset back, the hand-cut ribbons all the way down. How did that look come together?
I made an appointment to go and see Schiaparelli because there was a gown I wanted to try on her. We were trying on one couture gown that didn’t work, and then I was like, “What about the navy-blue ribbon dress?” We put it on, and you could just see in the fitting photos [that] she loved it. They did so much work on that dress to make it proportionally for her, but we thought for the Critics Choice it would make sense because anything goes, and we wanted to counterbalance what we had just done that was so pretty and kind of princess-y at the Golden Globes.
The back of that gown was a reference to one of the images that was on posters [for The Substance] of Demi lying on the floor with her spine sewn up. I think it was that dress that the internet started going, “Hold on a second. They’ve been doing something all this time.” People started putting the pieces together.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The final look at the Oscars [was] Armani Privé again. We’re talking custom silver crystal–covered gown that took 1600 hours and 18 embroiderers to make. How did you come to that dress? What was the process like, collaborating on it? I can’t even imagine how many fittings that must have taken.
I went to Armani because she did it for the [Golden] Globes. We went to their show, and I was blown away. I met with their head of design the morning after the show and pulled out what I was seeing as silhouettes, colors that I thought would work for her. They did an initial sketch while we were there, which was pretty similar to what we ended up wearing. I went back to them like, “I want this neckline” because I didn’t want to do strapless again. I wanted it to be sexy but still super glamorous for the Oscars.
They were amazing. I told them, “I’m seeing silver. I think I want it to be the last time that Elisabeth gets to sparkle. It’s her final shimmer.” We didn’t see the dress until the Wednesday before the Oscars. By the time that we decided on a sketch and the swatch, it was maybe two-and-a-half weeks for them to do the gown.
We saw it the Wednesday before, and then there were three refits of it, and then we decided Sunday morning of the Oscars that it was going to be the gown that she was going to wear. It was exciting. … When I saw her walk onto the carpet and I saw that gown under proper lighting and on her, it just felt like a dream. My friend Shiona Turini, who [styles] Beyoncé, she FaceTimed me, and she was like, “You ate that.” I was like, “Okay, we did it. We did it.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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