Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren at the Armani Pre-Oscar Party


BEVERLY HILLS, California — After an intense, months-long process Oscars During awards season, Hollywood picked up where it left off before the pandemic and became unmasked, radiant, open to all.

Fashion companies like Saint Laurent, Chanel, and Gucci, and powerful talent agencies like the CAA, competed with tech Goliaths like Apple to secure the best restaurants, the most elegant party venues, and the rarest of celebrities.

There is no consensus yet on who wins the best flapping race. Some parties were meticulously private – just like the CAAs. San Vicente Bungalows club On Friday—only mega-celebrities like Elon Musk, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Taylor Swift were invited to graze on a buffet of fried salmon, pork, chicken curry, and mini meringue.

But as writer and producer Mitch Glazer once wrote, Hollywood greedily eats its own history, often eclipsing talent itself.

An example of this was the party on Saturday for the reopening of the Giorgio Armani flagship on Rodeo Drive, a glamorous pit where hundreds of people from Juvéderm and its micro-mini facelift set jostled for breath.

They sipped Veuve Clicquot Champagne or iced Limoncello and looked at the various showrunners—Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, Annabelle Wallis, Miles Teller, and Dylan Sprouse—who were heading out on a chilly California evening. No matter who she was talking to, all eyes were on the front door awaiting the arrival of the evening’s guest of honor, Nicole Kidman.

A wave came into the room when Ms. Kidman, Oscar-nominated for her role as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos,” surrounded her at 5:52 p.m. by a security phalanx and CAA co-chair Kevin Huvane. in full-back form.

Dressed in a black Armani trouser suit, a low-cut bustier, and straight trousers (“I wanted to wear men’s clothes,” she told this reporter), Ms. Kidman immediately shut herself in a corner wedged between a velvet satchel to balance her dominant stature. and a rack beaded dress.

Unlined and non-porous, with her bisque baby skin and bewildering Dresden blue eyes, she looked extraordinarily attractive to match her own character. latest Vanity Fair articleas a “weird ball”.

“Oh, I’m a weirdo,” said Mrs. Kidman when asked about her self-assessment. “I am an introvert. Thinking laterally – I always have and always will. ”

Kidman, 54, first starred in a movie 33 years ago. It seems difficult to surpass such a feat of surviving in show business. But 20 minutes after he arrived, the crowd parted again, this time for the arrival of Sophia Loren, who had made her movie debut seventy years ago.

Whatever doomsayers may say about a shattered dream machine, these brilliant beings will have an everlasting impact on our cultural consciousness. Of course, changing technologies will change the way fantasy is presented. The appetite for it will always remain.

Consider a spontaneous scene that explodes when the mob clamoring outside the Armani party spotted a two-tone convertible Rolls-Royce tuxedo cruising up and down Rodeo Drive and Mark Wahlberg at the wheel. Suddenly, the crowd took to the street to surround the “Locust Day”-style vehicle, with smartphone cameras hungrily fixed on their view.

Wahlberg grinned like a tanned and benevolent god accepting tribute as the screams of strangers shouting his name echoed down the street: “Mark! Sign! Sign!”

Depending on one’s point of view, women either have all the fun or do the heavy lifting when it comes to Oscars outfits.

Harvey Keitel wore a plain black jacket and sandals to the pre-Oscars dinner held in the gardens of Chanel’s Beverly Hills Hotel on Saturday. It was socially acceptable for both Charles Finch and Jamie Dornan, co-host of the starry, hot ticket night, to wear white shirts with deeply open collars. Chris Pine brought out ooh and aahs in something more special than a crumpled linen suit from Don Johnson’s “Miami Vice” closet.

Even when Chanel generously provides some with rags of party cheer, women’s jobs are not that easy.

“I told my stylist I was scared of this dress,” said Minnie Driver, referring to a skinny creation with a floor-length black skirt, a tight beaded coral top, and stylized pagoda shoulders. “You said, ‘You should be afraid of this dress! Up your game.’”

Still, Ms. Driver looked Instagram-ready, and that was the task.

And so, when one female guest after another lined up against the wall of a philodendron for a photo shoot, the result was a show that probably didn’t exist anywhere else outside of this city during the Oscars.

The scene was like one of the Discovery Channel’s specials about exotic reef fish or snow cranes—an influx of extraordinary beauties moving themselves in the most spectacular way.

Here are Kristen Stewart in stunning, brash, dour tough guy poses in Chanel tweeds. Here’s Rashida Jones somehow making a matronly frock look fresh. Here Sofia Coppola illustrated Coco Chanel’s maxim that luxury is not the opposite of poverty, it is the opposite of vulgarity. Here’s Kate Beckinsale in a tower that looks like buns sucking air with her hair, little guppy puffs keeping her lips photogenic apart.

And here is Joan Collins powering the red carpet in a pair of four-inch “Dynasty” heels. As she explained to this observer, with a series of appearances lined up for a new memoir she wrote aloud in diary form, Miss Collins showed no evidence of losing her appetite for fame, her pitfalls, or the effort required to hold on to both. .

When asked what the secret to her determined ambition to remain an actress as she approaches 90, Miss Collins paused and slowly lowered her mink-like eyelashes. After a while, his eyelids opened again and he got a response.

“I would say eat life,” said Miss Collins. “Or life will eat you up.”



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