Cate Blanchett Is Always on the Cutting Edge of Fashion

Hello, Vogue.

I m Cate Blanchett, and this is My Life in Looks.

[upbeat jazzy music]

I m a little nervous, but je ne regrette rien, right?

Oh, my giddy aunt.

I think I m wearing my mother s sweater,

and it looks like my school shirt.

I m probably also wearing the underpants

that my mother made me.

Until about 10 years ago,

I still had the underpants that my mother sewed.

Clearly not wearing any makeup.

God bless me, I look like I m 12,

but this was at the Sydney Theater Critics Awards,

and I won Best Newcomer.

I was in a production of Oleanna,

and then I loved it so much, I ran the company.

I think I might ve come straight from rehearsals.

Clearly, I didn t realize

I was gonna be photographed or win.

Next.

Oh, look, this is the very first time I went

to the Academy Awards.

I had done a shoot in Australia,

and I d fallen in love with this dress

that John Galliano had designed that was knitted,

white knitted, and was embellished

with all of this amazing embroidery,

and I met him in London

and he said that he would design something for me,

and he said, Let s change the color.

And he sat down, it was like being on the couch,

and he asked about my family and my marriage,

and then he embellished, I think you can just see it

at the bottom there, there s a little hummingbird,

and there s two hummingbirds on the dress,

and one was me, and one was my husband Andrew.

so there s kind of a real beautiful story.

I gave it to amfAR,

so now someone else is wearing it, sadly. [laughs]

But anyway, I love that dress so much.

Oh, an A for effort.

This is me at the BAFTAs. I played Queen Elizabeth I.

When we made the film, we actually thought,

we ll have to take the first off there,

because maybe an audience would think

there was a sequel coming, that it was Elizabeth Part One,

but it was Elizabeth I, and I m glad I m wearing a slip.

I mean, you just take the slip off,

I guess you could wear that today.

Am I an early adopter of that?

No, or am I holding something? I have got my glasses on.

Oh, this was a dress that Jean Paul Gaultier designed.

My father-in-law, who s no longer with us,

called it an exit dress.

He said people don t think much when you come into the room,

but when you leave, they go, wow.

There was obviously a lot of jewelry Jean Paul Guttier

had put on the dress, but Cynthia Bach then provided

all of the amazing pieces.

I was playing a psychic in Savannah

in a small film called The Gift with Sam Raimi,

and I had never been to a psychic,

and I got her to do a reading for me,

and she made some predictions, wild predictions.

I d play a writer who had short hair

who died for what she believed in, Guavin Guevin.

I played Veronica Guerin,

and she said that I would wear a dress

that was gonna change my career, and then I wore that.

I don t know if it s changed my career,

but I m very pleased I wore it.

Oh, bless.

Now, that is my own hair,

and that s just me on a Sunday morning in the pond.

Next, in a little-known film called Lord of the Rings,

playing Galadriel.

I did have someone I deeply respect say to me,

Look, they re making this weird film in New Zealand,

and they want you to play an elf for three weeks.

You don t wanna do that, do you?

Yeah, I did.

After the film was over, my husband,

he s fallen out of the habit,

he sort of does it to the children now,

but he used to drag me around by my ears.

It was playful, and so I told the guys at Weta

who did all of the prosthetics this,

and they gave me, it was kind of creepy,

a chocolate box full of ear tips

that they d made to look like chocolates,

and then they bronzed my ears

so I could give em to my husband.

That is me on the set of The Aviator,

which Martin Scorsese directed.

I think it s between takes.

I was playing Catherine Hepburn.

One of the more daunting things I ve ever done,

but when Scorsese asks you to do anything,

I d be a tree for him.

That was the first time I worked with the great Sandy Powell

on the costumes, and my relationship with costume designers,

I ve realized over time,

is really pivotal to creating a character,

and obviously, even before you utter a word,

an audience is gonna start reading your character

by what they wear and how they wear it,

and something that Marty did,

he liberated me from having to do any imitation of Hepburn.

He played a lot of those early screwball comedies she did,

and Bringing Up Baby was one of them, so I watched that.

Catherine Hepburn is so raked thin,

and then you don t plan for these things,

and then the film got nominated, and I did,

and so I had to do a lot of red carpets pregnant,

and Donna Karan made me this amazing stretchy dress

that really celebrated the fact I was pregnant.

[gasps] Oh, this is back in 2006 for Vogue.

It s a very memorable shoot.

Tonne Goodman styled it, and Steven Klein shot it.

The clothes were insane.

I mean, this one was another Galliano.

The pose was really difficult to hold,

and I learned so much about making a picture working

with Steven Klein and Tonne on this shoot.

Next.

[gasps] Oh, this was the first time I went to the Met Ball,

and I went with Nicolas Ghesquiere

when he was at Balenciaga.

So we just shot with Irving Penn that day,

and Nicolas had done his take on an Elizabethian garment,

and then we went straight from there,

we had to do a quick 360 and then show up to the Met Ball.

The theme was Poiret: King of Fashion.

I mean, I just went to the exhibition

and could have stayed there.

It s always so great.

I mean, the room is really vibrant, of course,

but it s always important to remember the exhibition

and the reason why you re there.

Okay, next one. [gasps] There we go.

Here is the photograph that Irving Penn took,

and this was in Penn s studio.

The taking of the picture was incredibly quick,

but the sitting and preparing,

it s like I ve had the great fortune

of being photographed by Penn and by Avedon.

It s all about their regard

and knowing when to press the shadow,

and so to be beheld by him was just unforgettable.

This was the second time I played Queen Elizabeth

in Elizabeth: Golden Age.

The costumes were designed by Alexandra Byrne.

I mean, she referenced a lot of haute couture,

and there were a lot of Balenciaga references,

and she made one dress that was so enormous,

I couldn t fit through the doorway of the cathedral

that we were shooting in. [laughs]

Hello, Bob.

I ve worked with the great Todd Haynes a couple of times,

and I hope I get to do it a couple of times more.

He s so fantastic to work with.

I had literally walked off the set

of playing Queen Elizabeth

in Queen Elizabeth: The Golden Age on a Friday, wrapped,

and then had to be on set playing Bob Dylan

in Montreal on Monday.

Todd had divided Bob s persona, Bob, like I know him,

Dylan s persona into many different characters,

and the late, great Heath Ledger was one of them,

and Christian Bale. and I played this electric silhouette.

I think he wanted a woman inside this period

of Dylan s musical career.

It meant that there was a separation between

how iconic this period and this look of Dylan s was

and the character playing,

cause you know there s a woman inside that,

but it was so liberating.

I had fantastic eyebrows and sideburns.

Was that the only time my husband hasn t wanted to kiss me?

Oh, this is from Carol, a Todd Haynes film.

I played alongside the wonderful Rooney Mara,

and that coat was a nightmare.

Sandy Powell did the costumes again, and once again,

I mean, she can do an enormous,

we worked together on Cinderella with unbelievable costumes

with a much bigger budget,

and then we had $2.50 to pull this one together,

and she had two coats, and one was great and stable,

and this one was like a little fragile creature

that kept falling apart, and I said,

I m really sorry, Sandy. I think it s that one.

And she goes, I know, I knew you were gonna say that.

So Sandy, the great Sandy Powell,

was literally behind the car in between every take,

cause we had to get out, and it was really windy,

and the coat would come apart,

and so she was there in between takes sewing it up.

I felt a responsibility for this for sure,

because films like this, up to this point,

weren t really made and certainly not made

in the mainstream, and really,

if anyone comes up to me in the supermarket,

this is the film that they talk about,

and so it was really, really important to a lot of people.

[gasps] Oh, this is Sarah Burton when she was at McQueen,

and it was the most exquisite piece of embroidery.

The bottom, you can t really see there,

but it was all feathers.

so I love that dress so much that then, during COVID,

I presided over the jury in Venice, and there was no time.

All the ateliers were closed, so I said,

Could I borrow that piece of embroidery again?

And then I had a pair of pants and wore it,

because I thought, when you have something

so beautiful like that, it s a crime to wear it once.

It s even more beautiful in person.

The year I was nominated for Blue Jasmine

at the Golden Globes,

Mr. Armani had designed this beautiful preve dress.

It was an impossible gown,

and you didn t really see the back,

because it goes right down to this plunging base.

The back is bare, and this beautiful lace,

which has become quite signature,

I was at on the jury in Cannes,

and I wore it to the opening night,

and I remember people saying to my publicist, [laughs]

Okay, Kate s wearing the-

She s worn that dress before, as if I didn t know.

Oh, really?

And I was so pleased to wear it again

because I d loved it so much.

[gasps] Sarah Burton, there she is in Cannes.

Sarah made this beautiful, it was like a tuxedo,

but it was a dress, and had this massive bow on the back,

and it was actually shown on the runway as a jacket,

and she said, why don t I try and turn it into a dress?

And so I love that, and I wore that again

to Sarah s final show for McQueen.

Here we are back at the Venice Film Festival,

and this is a Schiaparelli flummery

which I d seen on the runway and absolutely loved

and managed not to poke myself in the eye with it.

This was an example on Tar

of the character coming to life, really.

The script by Todd Field was just,

he didn t change a syllable,

it was so exquisitely wrought and written.

It was like, how do you make a female conductor look,

someone who was in incredibly powerful

and very, very aware of her presence?

And so we went for this,

I guess what has been termed quiet luxury look,

really great tailoring.

I ve had a couple of experiences in my life

where I ve just been so in sync with a director

and a script, and you re lucky if you have one

of those experiences in your life,

but I ve had a handful of them, and I m so grateful,

and Tar was definitely one of them.

Music has come back into my life in a really major way,

and that s because of this experience.

Here we are. This is Armani Prive.

This is the dress that just keeps on giving,

That was from the current Prive collection, and I said,

Look, I know there s this leftover lace from the dress

that I d worn to the Globes all those years before,

and they found an offcut,

and so they made the internal corset out of that offcut.

It s felt great, and I ve since worn it again

with the actual piece that goes underneath it,

and I wanted to wear it with a T-shirt,

but Mr. Armani wouldn t let me.

You gotta respect the maestro, right?

[gasps] Oh, hey. Well this is an oldie but a goodie.

With my first paycheck as an actor,

I bought an Armani suit, and this is it,

and I wear it wherever I can,

and I think we were there in Milan for a Prive show.

Okay.

Oh, well, this is at Cannes,

and this is the incomparable Nicolas Ghesquiere.

It s a particular type of beading,

so the dress is incredibly heavy,

but such is his mastery that he makes it look so light,

and the shoulders are really big.

In the hands of someone else, could look really solid,

but then he s got that beautiful drape,

but yeah, I can t wait to wear this one again.

It s beautiful.

This is Brandon Maxwell.

I m going to Good Morning America.

Looking so good. Did my own hair and makeup, right?

Have that time in the morning.

I love a Canadian tuxedo, double denim, triple denim,

and this wasn t actually denim, it was more like a velvet,

so it was really comfy and cozy.

Oh, once again, this is also for Borderlands,

and I m obsessed with this Swedish designer.

She s taken sustainable dressing to a whole new level

and seamed this piece that was a dress all done in spoons.

Underneath this is kind of a cotton netting

into which she put the spoons on when you get dressed

and it s backless, and then she put some spoons

onto sort of a suit that I wore

for the Disclaimer premiere in Toronto for the festival.

I mean, it was a crazy bonkers COVID film that I made.

I really love the films of Jodorowsky,

and there was one film of his

where they were all in the desert,

and the character has these incredible fingerless gloves.

I thought it d be good to have something on your hand

in a close-up.

[gasp] Oh, this is the 2024 Rumours premiere

at the New York Film Festival,

and I d seen this, and I just thought it was hilarious.

It s Fiorucci, I think.

I wear those leather pants every Wednesday.

My favorite pair of leather pants.

Yeah, it s a bit my Cousin Itt look.

Not breathable, and don t go near me with a naked flame.

This is the thing,

when you think about re-wearing something, you think,

how could I wear it?

It would kind of be cool as a skirt.

Black Bag.

Working again with Steven Soderbergh,

one of the most stylish filmmakers around,

and Alan Mirojnick, who is one

of the greatest costume designers, and I play a spy,

and the only thing Steven said to me is, I want big hair.

It s a great film, and really fantastic cast.

[upbeat jazzy music] [pen scratching]

Thanks, Vogue. That wasn t so painful after all.

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