How Zendaya Became Hollywood's Reigning Red Carpet Queen

Red-carpet fashion experts give us the dish on why we can’t stop talking about the “Challengers” star’s clever, campy press tour gowns.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/how-challengers-star-zendaya-became-hollywoods-red-carpet-queen



For weeks, it seems, the name on everybody’s lips has been Zendaya. Coming into the Challengers press tour, we all knew that Queen Z would show up to every red carpet ready to serve. After all, the looks she used to promote past films like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dune: Part Two are still etched into our brains. Still, the eye-popping green and white ensembles she and stylist Law Roach have put together this year feel like their magnum opus; night after night, photo after photo, they’ve had us basically screaming “game, set, match!” (Is that the correct usage of that term? I’ll be the first to admit that my interest in tennis began when Luca Guadagnino announced this movie, and will end after it premieres this weekend.)


From her tennis ball stilettos, to her preppy white halter dress appropriately adorned with tiny tennis rackets, to her 2013 Louis Vuitton green and white checkered mini jacket dress, Zendaya has nailed the perfect balance of preppy and campy with each and every Challengers outing. But what is it that makes her red carpet fashions so captivating in the first place? According to the experts I spoke with, much of the appeal comes from her ability to play with a theme in both elegant and cheeky ways. It also doesn’t hurt that Zendaya looks like a model. Journalist and The Daily Beast’s Obsessed contributor Esther Zuckerman, who wrote the book on red-carpet couture with Beyond the Best Dressed: A Cultural History of the Most Glamorous, Radical, and Scandalous Oscar Fashion, kept returning to a specific word to describe Zendaya’s looks: purposeful.

Looking back on all of Zendaya’s most memorable get-ups—like the gorgeous Vivienne Westwood gown that she wore to the 2015 Oscars, the archival 1995 Thierry Mugler cyborg suit she wore for Dune: Part Two, and her many, many Challengers fits—Zuckerman observed that Zendaya and Law Roach are deliberate and creative in how they craft a whole, cohesive outfit from head to toe. It’s not just about the gown, or the shoes, or the accessories; all of it is part of one well-executed vision. And unlike some celebrities who tend to rely heavily on their stylists, Zuckerman believes Zendaya plays an active role in shaping her visual brand. “It’s very thoughtful. It’s very creative,” Zuckerman said of the collaboration. “It’s like two artists coming together.”


Beyond how put-together the outfits are, their real innovation is how they transform whatever movie Zendaya might be promoting into an aesthetic playground. It’s not unheard of for a movie’s stars to dress up in specifically targeted ways; Margot Robbie spent the entire Barbie press tour recreating the doll’s most iconic looks, and Zuckerman wagers that Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will be wearing green and pink for the foreseeable future, until Wicked premieres in November. Still, what we see from Zendaya and Law Roach feels different. “As opposed to theme dressing, it’s sort of like variations on a theme,” Zuckerman said. “We’re taking the idea of ‘sci-fi fashion’ or ‘tennis fashion’ and spinning it out into something new.”

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