Cate Blanchett may have RSVP-ed no to the Golden Globes—read into that what you will—but she did turn up to collect her best actress gong at the Critics’ Choice Awards last night. And for her first major awards season appearance in 2023, the Tár actor looked not to her beloved brands of Armani or Alexander McQueen, but instead to Max Mara. In the process, Blanchett found a fresh take on a look championed by fellow Hollywoodites since the golden age: the classic button-down.
While crisp white shirts have always made an appearance on red-carpet stars with an aversion to tulle (remember Sharon Stone’s 1998 Oscars look, which paired a lilac Vera Wang skirt with a classic Gap shirt?), Cate’s blouse and matching maxi skirt came in an undyed, unwashed shade of linen that looked one part safari chic, two parts fashion explorer. It defied the formality of awards season and singled Blanchett out as a trailblazer who goes her own way, thank you very much.
We’ve seen it happen before. While Tinseltown slowly woke up to the word “sustainability” and accepted vintage as more than a passing trend for nostalgia, Blanchett was re-wearing her own archive and proving that it’s “chic to repeat” all the way back in 2018. “Cate is as thoughtful and present in everything she does as she is in her acting,” her longtime stylist Elizabeth Stewart said recently. “Even when selecting a red carpet look, she inspires me to think bigger and harder about our choices and the impact we can have.”
“We stylists often get caught up in getting looks right off the runway—partly for the ‘we got it first’ bragging rights, and partly because change and moving forward is a big part of fashion,” Stewart continued. “But, as Cate says, great design is great design, and doesn’t stop being great right after it’s worn or shown on the runway.” And the versatility of Blanchett’s Max Mara look means we’ll almost definitely see that easy, artfully unbuttoned shirting again.