Emma Stone arrived at the 98th Academy Awards on March 15 in a floor-length silver beaded Louis Vuitton gown that immediately became one of the most discussed looks of the entire evening. The 37-year-old actress brought a particular kind of composed glamour to the red carpet, wearing a low-back design that balanced structural elegance with a quietly daring edge. She styled the look with a chic bob hairstyle that kept the focus squarely on the gown’s intricate beading, which according to E! took 600 hours to create. It was the kind of fashion moment that feels effortless precisely because so much thought went into it.
Stone attended the ceremony alongside her husband, director Dave McCary, who accompanied her in a classic black tuxedo. The couple married in 2020 and welcomed their daughter, Louise Jean, the following year. McCary has collaborated with Stone professionally as well as personally, and their presence together on one of Hollywood’s biggest nights carried that particular warmth of a partnership built on genuine mutual respect for each other’s creative work.
The occasion was significant beyond fashion. Stone received a Best Actress nomination for her work in ‘Bugonia,’ her latest collaboration with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, making her the youngest actress ever to accumulate seven Oscar nominations at the age of 37. She also picked up a Best Picture nod as one of the film’s producers. The nomination added to an already remarkable awards season record that includes a Best Actress win for ‘Poor Things’ in 2024 and her first Oscar for ‘La La Land’ back in 2018. Her ongoing creative partnership with Lanthimos has become one of the more distinctive and productive director-actress relationships working in cinema today, following ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Kinds of Kindness.’
In ‘Bugonia,’ Stone plays Michelle Fuller, a pharmaceutical company CEO who is kidnapped by a group of conspiracy theorists convinced she is an extraterrestrial agent plotting to destroy humanity. The role demanded one of the more striking physical transformations she has undertaken in her career. To make the conspiracy theorists’ plot convincing on screen, Stone shaved her head — a decision she approached with a blend of pragmatism and genuine enthusiasm. She told USA Today in 2025: “I just said, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I’m going to take my hair off and it’s going to grow back. Isn’t that so silly and fun? We can do whatever we want with our hair! It can change all the time.’”
The shaving scene itself was filmed with multiple cameras to ensure everything was captured properly on the first attempt, given that there would be no second chance for a take. Stone recalled a brief moment of pre-shoot nerves that dissolved after a conversation with Lanthimos. “I was sitting there, building the anticipation. So I had a little last-minute freak, and then Yorgos came over, we talked, and I was like, ‘I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be great.’ And I absolutely loved it,” she explained. She also took care to prepare her young daughter ahead of time so that the sight of her mother without hair would not be alarming. It is a detail that says something about how Stone navigates the intersection between a career built on transformation and a personal life built on stability and warmth.
The silver Louis Vuitton gown she wore to the ceremony felt almost like a deliberate counterpoint to the stripped-down intensity of her work in ‘Bugonia.’ The beading caught the light with every movement on the carpet, and the low-back silhouette gave the overall look a sense of quiet confidence that did not need to announce itself. Stone has developed a reliable red-carpet sensibility over the years, one that tends toward elegant restraint rather than spectacle, and this appearance sat firmly within that tradition while still feeling genuinely special given the stakes of the evening.
Louis Vuitton was founded in Paris in 1854 as a luggage and trunk maker before eventually becoming one of the most recognizable luxury fashion houses in the world, a trajectory that spans more than 170 years and makes 600 hours of beadwork on a single gown feel entirely on brand. Emma Stone’s real name is Emily Jean Stone — she adopted the stage name Emma because another actress had already registered Emily Stone with the Screen Actors Guild when she first joined. And the record she now holds for seven Oscar nominations before age 37 puts her in rare company historically, a number that reflects not just talent but an unusual ability to consistently choose projects that the Academy finds worthy of recognition across a sustained career.
What do you think of Emma Stone’s silver beaded gown and her fearless approach to transformative roles — is this her best Oscars look yet? Share your thoughts in the comments.
