Jennifer Lawrence’s iconic 2013 Oscars dress is best remembered for two things: its seven-figure value, and ‘the fall’.
Designed by Raf Simons for Dior Haute Couture, the gown is widely cited as the most expensive in Academy Awards history, with an estimated $4 million price tag.
A strapless dress in white and pink, it came with a voluminous, floor-length skirt – a design that ended up betraying Lawrence during her big moment.
JLaw takes an Academy Awards tumble
That night, in what remains her only Oscars win to date, the then-22-year-old was named Best Actress, for her performance in David O. Russell’s hit comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook.
When Lawrence got up to collect her prize, however, her feet seemed to get caught in her frock’s long, billowy fabric. This, combined with what appeared to be a slippery surface beneath her, caused her to fall flat on her face as she climbed the stairs to the stage.
“I tried to walk upstairs in this dress, that’s what happened”
“What do you mean ‘what happened?’” a giggling Lawrence told a reporter in her post-victory news conference. “Look at my dress! I tried to walk upstairs in this dress, that’s what happened. I think I just stepped on the fabric and they wax the stairs.”
Asked by another journalist what had gone through her mind when she stumbled, she quipped: “A bad word that I can’t say – that starts with ‘F’.”
Second stumble sparks conspiracy theories
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show in 2018, Lawrence added: “I would give anything to be able to go back and re-do that moment. The problem with the fall is that it startled me and it made me forget a speech, it made me forget to thank important people.
“But also, the next year, I fell on a fucking traffic cone.”
Despite wearing an apparently more user-friendly dress, Lawrence took a second Oscars tumble 12 months after her Best Actress win, stumbling over an orange cone placed at the beginning of the red-carpet walk.
The repeat slip-up, Lawrence told The Howard Stern Show, led to accusations that her falls were not so much accidents as intentional attention-seeking: “Everything would have been fine if I didn’t fall on that goddam traffic cone, because then it immediately looked like it was my schtick.”
Lawrence’s Dior debt to Nicole Kidman
Lawrence’s $4 million Dior dress comes in at around twice as expensive as another legendary, costly Oscars gown – one that is credited with sparking the current haute-couture culture at major film awards ceremonies.
In 1997, Nicole Kidman’s yellow-green, John Galliano-designed silk gown – also for Dior – “changed the face of red-carpet fashion”, writes Vogue’s Emily Chan. “Haute couture was introduced to Hollywood,” Chan quotes Galliano as saying.
Per Marie Claire’s Penny Goldstone, Kidman is believed have been paid around $2 million for wearing her famous, trend-setting frock.
Sixteen years on, Lawrence also boosted her bank balance by wearing her Dior dress, having signed an endorsement deal with the French fashion house the year before.
It’s not clear exactly how much the Hunger Games star pocketed from her original Dior contract, but by 2014 she had penned a deal with the luxury label that earned her a reported $15 million to $20 million.
