How the actors’ strike could kill off red carpet fashion
Days before the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike commenced in Hollywood on July 14, its president, actress Fran Drescher, demonstrated how life may go on for members who, like her, work in film but also represent some of the world’s finest luxury fashion brands via endorsement deals.
The actress, who portrayed the title character in the 1990s sitcom The Nanny, decamped from Los Angeles to Puglia, Italy, where she attended Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda 2023 couture fashion show.
The weekend getaway invoked the ire of many SAG members, who complained about inappropriate optics on Drescher’s part.
How could she be photographed in a Dolce & Gabbana black satin gown – and flanked by a bejewelled Kim Kardashian?
They were preparing to wield placards outside the headquarters of movie studios with whom they were about to go to war over fee compensation and the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in filmmaking, among a host of other hot-button issues.
Nevertheless, the union stood up for their glamorous boss, stating that Drescher’s presence at the annual Italian haute couture show honoured her “representational work”.
According to the film industry trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter, the actor’s strike has “imposed a full work stoppage during the strike,” meaning that SAG-AFTRA members can’t appear in television shows or movies for “major studios or streamers.”
Promoting “finished projects” is also prohibited at premieres as well as at upcoming film festivals in Venice and Toronto where, for decades, the red carpet has operated as an alternative catwalk to those found in the world’s major style capitals. Promoting fashion and beauty deals, however, is exempt from the strike guidelines and so Hollywood’s fashion icons are getting on with it.
Three days after the strike, for example, Gwyneth Paltrow introduced a new beauty product from her brand Goop by teaming up with Gucci to host a dinner on the grounds of her Hamptons home showcasing the brand’s summer collection. Two nights after the strike began, Natasha Lyonne and Storm Reid joined other hip celebrities for a preview of an avant-garde dance performance staged in Santa Monica by Hermès.
“Miu Miu had an event in Malibu last week and, two days before the strike, Coach had an event with Kirsten Dunst,” explains Chris Gardner, who as the Hollywood Reporter’s “Rambling Reporter” columnist makes his living by going out with celebrities.
“There are still events. They’re just not big, splashy red carpet events with a press line filled with actors talking about their projects.”
The strike could last for another six months. It’s also historic because it coincides with a Writers Guild of America strike, which commenced on May 2.
But the initial feeling – that the red carpet hiatus could prove as disastrous for fashion as the strike is for the US economy (as of this week, experts predict a colossal $4 billion blow) – is shifting from ominous to optimistic. “My view is there is a big opportunity for fashion and luxury brands during the strike,” says Imran Amed, the Business of Fashion’s founder and CEO.
“Many of the actors are looking to stay busy while respecting the confines of the strike. For most of them, brand endorsements and campaigns are fine – and so while there may be fewer red carpets promoting new films, there will be plenty of opportunities for brands to collaborate with talent during fashion month [which starts on September 7 in New York.] I’m expecting a very Hollywood-heavy fashion week season, especially for big brands who have the muscle and budgets to attract top talents.”
Boothe Moore, West Coast executive editor of Women’s Wear Daily, agrees, citing the upcoming appearance of Angelina Jolie during Paris Fashion Week (which runs from September 25), to debut a capsule collection she produced for her new sustainable fashion brand, Atelier Jolie. With production in freefall, “Hollywood needs luxury brand money,” states Moore.
The smash-hit status of Pharrell Williams’s blockbuster Paris debut in June as creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear – which saw a procession of models flaunting 70 looks along the Pont Neuf bridge accompanied by an orchestra and gospel choir as well as an after-show concert starring Jay-Z – is an example of a new style of “commercial mega deal” which agents are seeking to strike for their top-tier talent right now, according to Moore.
“That kind of partnership is more important than ever and they’re only going to progress,” she predicts, pointing to the “advanced talks” Kering’s CEO, Fran?ois-Henri Pinault, is said to be conducting with Creative Arts Agency (CAA).
After the turn of the new millennium, the Hollywood talent agency’s commercial division brokered deals that transformed the red carpet from a glitzy step-and-repeat to a stalking ground for luxury brands to target celebrity brand ambassadors. Nicole Kidman turned the tide.
After successive faultless appearances on the Oscars red carpet during the late 1990s, she landed a rumoured $3 million contract to star in her first Chanel No5 commercial. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the budget was estimated at $42 million and since it aired in 2004, Hollywood stars have shone brighter than models enjoying lucrative deals representing all manner of luxury products.
These subsidise the often paltry salaries they earn making the style of indie and arthouse films that typically generate festival play and award nominations.
As the film festivals carry on in September – minus celebrities groomed and gowned by Chanel, Dior and Gucci – Merle Ginsberg, a veteran Los Angeles style editor and columnist, states what will soon happen: “Athletes, influencers, musicians and models with social media clout will get more attention.
But this will be temporary. People’s appetite for Margot Robbie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jennifer Lawrence wearing designer clothes is just too huge. Think back to the pandemic.
They all showed up on Instagram wearing designer clothes and got tons of hits. Even though there was no red carpet, there was a red carpet.”
Luca Solca, the senior research analyst, global luxury goods, at AB Bernstein, refutes the claim that luxury brand revenue will suffer greatly as red carpets remain in storage.
The red carpet is a “communication and advertising format of the past – like glossy magazines or the traditional fashion week,” he observes.
“Luxury brands have embraced many other communication and promotion formats to attract attention. This is not to say that [the red carpet is] not important – but the battle for relevance is also fought elsewhere.”
Yet the abrupt halting of work for stylists, make-up artists and hairdressers who toil behind the scenes of the red carpet is sending shockwaves through Hollywood’s fashion community and is raising fears that a sustained lack of income may result in the sort of desperation prompted by 1988’s five-month WGA strike.
Back then “Hollywood became a virtual ghost town” reported WWD. “Hair and make-up people ended up living in their cars for some time,” explained Patty Bunch, who served as make-up department head for the sitcom Will & Grace.
Unlike WGA members, who are supported by a Strike Fund – which can provide financial assistance to members – there is no safety net for fashion creatives, because their business is not unionised.
Nevertheless, leading stylists are outspoken in their support for the strike and share the frustrations of SAG-AFTRA and WGA picketers about unfair compensation.
While vogue.com recently noted that “Netflix had cut styling rates to about $750 from … $1,500 per day,” the current day rate is known to be more like $500 and insufficient considering the task of dressing a star who can earn millions from a luxury brand endorsement deal.
“$500? I mean, that barely covers an assistant,” says Alexandra Mandelkorn, whose clients include Rachel Brosnahan, Katy Perry and Janelle Monáe.
“For years I have essentially been paying to work for these studios. My own frustration was really building. I think that the strike will end up benefitting us all.” “It is a broken model,” admits Micaela Erlanger of the red carpet economy.
The stylist – who modernised red carpet glamour by masterminding daring looks for stars including Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o – speaks with great authority.
Though Erlanger has dressed a dizzying roster of A-list names, including Amal Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jared Leto, the pandemic prompted her to diversify her business to include bridal styling and also enrol in Harvard’s Executive MBA programme, which she is halfway through.
“When I entered this line of work, it was a very, very different time, and I have seen its decline,” she reveals. “The strike has to happen. I was actually sitting next to Fran Drescher at Dolce & Gabbana’s show, and I [said to her], I hope that this strike happens. Not because I want it to happen, because it’s going to cause so much pain and heartache for so many people. But if it doesn’t happen, nothing will change.”
Bronwyn Cosgrave is the author of Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards (Bloomsbury)