Anita Rani wows Baftas in ‘loving my life’ see-through dress
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It wasn’t so much a revenge dress as an “I’m loving my life” dress. Amid a host of TV stars who took to the Baftas red carpet on Sunday evening, it was Anita Rani in a sheer, pearl encrusted gown who stole the show.
The Woman’s Hour and Countryfile presenter, 46, has recently spoken of the freedom she feels being “a single, Asian woman with no children” following her split from her husband last year. “I love it,” she told Good Housekeeping magazine. “I’ve sort of got a blank slate in front of me, and that feels really good.”
Rani’s stylist, Krishan Parmar, confirmed that they had chosen the see-through gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance “to show that Anita is really feeling herself and comfortable in her own skin”.
He told The Telegraph: “We wanted to project confidence, but also a vulnerability, which I think this gown does so well. As soon as we both saw it, we were drawn to the simplicity of it but also how striking it looks.”
Rani and Parmar opted to style the gown with a pair of platform heels by Sole Bliss, a British shoe company loved by women including the Queen, Helen Mirren and Julia Roberts because it creates heels designed to be comfortable – even if you suffer from bunions.
The see-through dress, which Rani wore with a skin-coloured body suit to protect her modesty, proves that midlife women can join in with a trend which has dominated catwalks and red carpets for several months; Victoria Beckham and Sienna Miller have also recently sported sheer gowns.
Rani is clearly deriving a lot of joy from dressing up as she navigates life following the end of her marriage to Bhupinder Rehal in 2023. “My bedroom is dusky pink and I’ve turned my spare room into a dressing room. Just talking about it makes me happy,” Rani said.
Midlife women shone elsewhere on the Baftas red carpet, where there was an anything-goes attitude.
Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman co-ordinated in white as they accepted the Best Entertainment programme award for Strictly: Daly in a sleek column gown by Rachel Gilbert and Winkleman in masculine suiting.
Leading actress nominee Sharon Horgan sported Vivienne Westwood elevated ghillie heels in pink with a one-shoulder dress by the British designer, while fellow nominee in the category Helena Bonham Carter wore a dark floral gown with a pair of red sunglasses which lent instant rock and roll glamour.
Two other British grande dames settled on unmissable red. Both nominated for supporting actress awards, Dame Harriet Walter and Lesley Manville both exhibited how brilliant a vibrant hue can look on more mature skin, Walter in a fitted off-shoulder gown and Manville in a satin creation with a square-necked bodice which came with a giant needle poked across the chest.
Most of the men stuck to classic black tie, though shout out to Dominic West and Jeff Goldblum for giving their traditional looks a suave edge by adding sunglasses.
However, one man outshone almost everyone. The comedian Joe Lycett looked spectacular in a silver ensemble created by Yashana Malhotra and consisting of a foil-like cape with a dramatic ruff collar.
The outfit was made to resemble the costumes worn by Queen Elizabeth I after Lycett promised on his Channel Four Friday night show to attend the ceremony dressed as the Tudor monarch if his aunts Margaret and Pauline gained more than 100,000 Instagram followers.
At the time of writing, they have 248,000. The two women accompanied him to the ceremony looking elegant in gowns from a boutique in Solihull, in the West Midlands.
