Demi Moore, wearing a Matières Fécales dress and Chopard jewellery, arrives for the screening of the ‘Paper Tiger’ at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in southern France, in May.VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images
Of the thousands of red carpet photos from this year’s Cannes Film Festival on Getty Images, one look stood out, dominating fashion headlines from New York to Hong Kong: a distressed pink ball gown with a giant bow, worn by jury member Demi Moore.
The dress was by Matières Fécales, a label designed by Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, Montreal natives who moved to Paris in 2022. It was Moore’s stylist, Los Angeles-based Brad Goreski, a native of Port Perry, Ont., who introduced her to Matières Fécales, which also goes by the name Fecal Matter.
The major publicity win has brought the brand from obscure to exalted in less than a year. It also succeeded in generating the buzz that studios count on to promote their films, both to the public and to the Oscar voters who determine who takes home the coveted gold statuettes.
Lupita Nyong’o attends the ‘Black Panther’ world premiere, in Hollywood, in 2018.VALERIE MACON/Getty Images
Before social media reduced the power and influence of legacy media brands, a Vogue cover would have been the holy grail of promotional tools. Today, film marketers harness the power of the red carpet to create images and videos shared by the social media savvy.
“It’s getting the Gen Z audience that everyone wants,” said Bronwyn Cosgrave, a New York-based fashion journalist and author of Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards. “They might not go to the movies, but they’re talking about the film. And there is so much influence there.”
For Matières Fécales, the publicity has been life-altering. After Zendaya wore the label’s winged gown to the New York premiere of The Odyssey in July, feature stories about the pair appeared in The New York Times, Vogue and other major outlets, propelling the brand to widespread recognition. Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach – arguably the most significant celebrity stylist today – asked the indie darlings, whose avant-garde appearance includes shaved heads and alien-inspired makeup, to save the dress for his client after seeing it at their debut Paris Fashion Week show in 2025.
Zendaya wears Chopard jewellery and a winged gown by Matières Fécales at ‘The Odyssey’ New York premiere, in July.Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
“I knew she had this movie coming up,” Roach told Entertainment Tonight. “I don’t even think the movie was made yet. And I wrote and I asked them to hold the look for us.”
The fashion-Hollywood mash-up dates back to 1980, when Giorgio Armani dressed Richard Gere for his role in American Gigolo, but really took off in the mid-aughts. “There was a generation of stylists who decamped from New York to Los Angeles and created an industry with their friends who were publicists, the talent agents and the retailers on Rodeo Drive,” Cosgrave explained.
When awards shows returned after COVID-19 lockdowns, jewellery brands entered the game in a big way. At the most recent Cannes Film Festival, Colman Domingo sported a full suite of diamonds by Boucheron, including a squid earring that wrapped up and around his ear. Demi Moore opened the event in a five-row diamond necklace by Chopard.
“Fashion and fine jewellery brands are effectively funding what we’re seeing,” Cosgrave said.
The financial aspect of dressing the stars is complex. Stylists can be paid by the brands, the studio or the talent. Actors might have long-standing relationships with fashion houses or short-term contracts after a surge in popularity. Last year, The New York Times reported that a deal worth around US$4-million might involve appearing in advertising campaigns, going to events such as store openings, being dressed for the red carpet, wearing the brand in daily life for paparazzi photos and posting on social media.
“There’s a system which prioritizes not just an actor’s on-screen role but their walk on the carpet,” said Cosgrave. “It starts around TIFF and winds up at the Oscars. Whoever has some energy left might surface at the Met Gala before they go to Cannes if they’ve got another film. It’s a treadmill.”
Add in parties, press interviews, the Golden Globes and other major awards, and that’s a lot of clothes. A-listers often have contracts with major houses such as Louis Vuitton and Dior that, in addition to solving their wardrobe woes, provide a lucrative income stream that supplements the modest fee they would receive doing a low-budget film. “That allows them to make more interesting choices with their film work,” Cosgrave explained.
Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie attend the ‘Barbie’ European premiere in London, in July, 2023.GARETH CATTERMOLE/Getty Images
The risk with a social media-addicted audience is red carpet fatigue: a sort of visual ennui that can come from an oversaturation of pretty dresses. “A Dior gown isn’t necessarily interesting any more. There are thousands of beautiful gowns,” said Toronto photographer George Pimentel, who has been covering the red carpet at TIFF, the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes for decades. “I still think people are fascinated by who is wearing what. But there is so much out there because of social media. So instead of asking, ‘What is she wearing?’ I think people want to know, ‘Why is she wearing that?’”
Timothée Chalamet attends the ‘Marty Supreme’ New York premiere, in December, 2025.Theo Wargo/AFP/Getty Images
Pimentel cited Timothée Chalamet’s ping-pong-ball orange outfits throughout the press tour for Marty Supreme and Ariana Grande’s hair extensions like her character, Glinda, from Wicked as examples of looks that have deeper meaning. Known as method dressing – when a star gives a nod to their film role through their fashion choices – the strategy’s benefits are twofold: plug the movie and create a viral moment.
With so much at stake, nothing is left to chance at major events. “About 10 years ago, stars began bringing a whole glam team with them on the carpet,” Pimentel said. “They have people jumping in, tweaking the hair and makeup, fluffing the dress. I look back at TIFF photos from the nineties and laugh. There weren’t even any stylists.”
Don’t expect the red-carpet images on your social media feed to slow any time soon. “It’s in music, in acting and in sports, where the tunnel walk is another extension of the red carpet,” said Cosgrave. “It’s booming.”