Vogue cover star Emma Stone’s instalment of Life in Looks begins with a gasp—shock, horror! It’s the 2007 premiere of Superbad, Stone’s first serious red carpet appearance. Her long copper red hair sits in an of-the-era, half-up-half-down style with a deep side part, and she’s wearing a cornflower blue mini dress with a puffed top and bodycon skirt, paired with black stilettos. So far, so very ’07. For Stone, the image represents a transformative time—her breakout debut, her first major public appearances, and a press run with some of her best friends.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a moment in here where I’m full of regret,” Stone says. “What’s the point? Every time period of your life is different.”
That sentiment holds true for all of five seconds. “Oh my…I told you before I wasn’t going to say I regret anything...I immediately am going against that,” she says when she turns to an image from the Critics Choice Awards in 2011, where she’s wearing a shimmering silver Balenciaga halter-neck gown. It’s not the dress though, it’s the glowing spray tan. Dressing up and looking glamorous, to Scottsdale, Arizona-born Stone, required a deep spray tan.
Next up that same year was the Golden Globe Awards, wearing a peach Calvin Klein dress. Again, same issue: beautiful gown, unfortunate skin tint. “I really thought the tan was the move,” she says. But it was a brilliant night, where she brought her mom and sat next to Angelina Jolie.
Then comes the 2012 Academy Awards—where Stone hosted alongside Ben Stiller and wore a raspberry red, bow-necked Giambattista Valli gown—and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 premiere in London, where she opted for a canary yellow, nipped in waist Versace gown with her hair set in old school Hollywood waves. It was this film where she first met Andrew Garfield, Sally Field, and Mark Webb. “The recurring theme is the people more than the film itself,” she says. The press tour, though, was another story: “I remember it being nine countries in two weeks…you re functioning at a state of jet lag never previously known to you. I felt truly psychotic at this time. I’m half dead in this photo, but I love the look.” It’s through these years that we see Stone find bolder, confident silhouettes and a striking, playful color palette.
We cycle through to the 2012 Birdman premiere, where Stone opted for a black tulle Valentino gown. Her hair stylist, Mara Roszak (responsible now for her coiffed pixie cut) had just given her a fresh bob, for her first appearance at the Venice Film Festival. “That experience shifted my relationship to films that I’ve wanted to be part of,” she shares. “My instinct is to choose high-wire acts.”
Next came the 2015 Oscars, in a sparkling, chartreuse Elie Saab gown with Tiffany Co. cuffs tacked to the sleeves. “Some might call [the color] putrid, but not us—we love it,” she says.
We then come upon her November 2016 Vogue cover, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot, where Stone sports a chic little pixie and a cropped Michael Kors Breton stripe shirt, to promote La La Land.
She reminisces over some of her greatest hits on screen: costume designer Mary Zophres’s joyous, primary-colored looks for her character Mia Dolan in La La Land, as Abigail in The Favorite styled by the formidable Sally Field–on a corset: “I can confirm it shifts your organs”—as as the chaotically dressed Bella Baxter in Poor Things, crafted by Holly Waddingham.
More red carpet moments include the sparkly, fringed Givenchy gown for the 2017 Oscars, her “Heavenly Bodies” Louis Vuitton look at the 2018 Met Gala, and the 2019 Oscars, where her custom bronze LV dress got meme-ified as a waffle: “Well waffles are my favorite food, so you got got,” she says.
Saturday Night Live is where Stone met her husband, and it’s the stage she loves most. Of course, in the show’s anniversary year, she had to don the campiest dress possible: a cinema seat red Louis Vuitton dress with pockets into which she piled popcorn, devised with Nicolas Ghesquière over text. Grab your own sweet or salty treat, and dive into Emma Stone’s equal parts stunning and silly life in looks.
Director: Symone Ridgell
Director of Photography: Stephen Tringali
Editor: Michael Suyeda
Producer: Chase Lewis
Associate Producer: Anisa Kennar
Assistant Camera: Osiris Nascimento
Gaffer: Eric Fahy
Audio: Gloria Marie
Production Assistants: Spencer Matheson, Hope Millner
Production Coordinator: Tanía Jones
Production Manager: Kristen Helmick
Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Global Entertainment Director: Sergio Kletnoy
Executive Producer: Rahel Gebreyes
Senior Director, Digital Video: Romy van den Broeke
Senior Director, Programming: Linda Gittleson
VP, Video Programming: Thespena Guatieri
Images Courtesy Of: Mert Alas
Marcus Piggott - Art Partner / Trunk Archive
Filmed on Location: Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles
