Back in October, a full two months before the release of the romantic comedy Anyone But You, Sydney Sweeney’s stylist Molly Dickson emailed the Miu Miu team to kickstart the process of creating a custom look for the film’s New York premiere. Last week, the dream came to fruition: a sheer, empire-waisted column dress covered in rhinestones, cinched by a black leather belt.
“Kendall Jenner’s Givenchy for the Met Gala was one of my all-time favorite looks ever,” Dickson says of the My Fair Lady-inspired dress the model wore to the 2021 Met Gala. “That was my first inspiration for it: something sheer, dripping in diamonds.”
The custom Miu Miu was just one of more than a dozen looks that Dickson and Sweeney dreamt up for the whirlwind rom-com press tour. Over the course of the tour, Dickson outfitted Sweeney in a host of outfits including a fiery custom Balmain, a preppy Shushu/tong, and a sophisticated Schiaparelli. “[Sydney] was so excited that this was the first rom-com in a really, really long time that is hitting theaters,” Dickson says. “So I think it put a lot of pressure on us. Since it is a bigger platform, being in the movie theaters, we did feel like we had to knock all the press looks out of the park.”
Much of the fashion was uncharted territory for the Emmy-nominated actor, who is best known for her work on Euphoria. While she’s aged out of playing high-schoolers (pending a season three of the HBO hit), Sweeney is also using this more grown-up role to level up her style.
“This was the first fitting where she has been way more elevated and fashion,” Dickson says. “I think she before was going a little bit younger and girly, and I feel like this was a this was more mature than she’s done before.” Sweeney, it seems, is among a growing swathe of actors interested in method dressing, tailoring her press tour looks to her Anyone But You character, Bea. “She always taps into whatever the role or the movie is, like for Euphoria, we go for more fun and daring. For this, since it’s a rom-com, she really did want it to be more romantic and pretty.”
The actor had her own ideas in mind for the press tour—her first movie promotion of this magnitude—and was eager to make the styling process collaborative. “Sydney’s very, very involved. Before October we were already sending photos back and forth of options. She’ll text me photos from Vogue like, ‘This would be great for the Anyone But You tour,’” she says. Dickson noticed that Sweeney had also gained a new insight into fashion. “She’s from a small town in Washington. I think we were both tomboys growing up and we didn’t know fashion, and now she’s learning all the designers,” she adds. “She’s becoming more knowledgeable of how important tailoring is and what works for her body. Her knowledge of fashion has progressed tremendously. She’s always sending me photos, like, This new designer is really cool.”
Dickson took a meticulous approach to styling the press tour, even coordinating with Sweeney’s costar Glen Powell to ensure that the two would be on the same sartorial page—lest they spark overdressed women/underdressed men discourse (or memes) á là Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran. Because the film is a romantic comedy, she was keenly aware that presenting a level of interconnectedness between the two leads carried more importance than it might have in Sweeney’s other projects. “We wanted their looks to be somewhat cohesive,” she says. “I never reached out to the Euphoria cast to see what they were wearing, but because they were the two leads, she couldn’t wear something super, super, super dressy and him just jeans.”
Still, even the best laid plans don’t always work out. Dickson, who is always equipped with a bag full of quick fixes for any potential wardrobe malfunction, had to pull off a quick pivot when she learned that the Australian premiere was going to take place in 100-degree temperatures. Sweeney’s original outfit—a custom dress with long sleeves—would have been far too warm. So, days before the actor went down under, Dickson wrangled a brand new premiere-worthy dress: an exquisitely draped sheer off-white Givenchy—an unseen look from spring 2024.
Finding a Hail Mary dress wasn’t the end of the journey, though. The Givenchy fitting took place the night before Sweeney left for Australia. With such a sheer look, proper undergarments were integral to the final result, and Dickson wanted them to match the gown’s specific hue of off-white. “We had to call the dyer to have them go back and open the store to dye it for us,” Dickson says of Sweeney’s underwear. “And we dyed a pair of Jimmy Choos to match, too.”
But in the end, the last-minute replacement all came together. Dickson knew it was the perfect dress the moment Sweeney tried it on. “She felt so confident in it in the fitting, that’s when I know it will translate amazingly on the red carpet,” she says.
Below, see more photos from Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You press tour, styled by Molly Dickson.
