Awkwafina’s Red Carpet Style: Classic With a Twist
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Awkwafina’s stylist Erica Cloud kept “a little bit of playfulness” in her awards looks for “The Farewell,” while respecting the film’s tone
Cloud bonded instantly with Awkwafina over their love of pairing “really cool separate pieces.” “She’s a New Yorker, and has this innate ability to make something as simple as a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers with a coat look very edgy,” she says. Cloud also considered “The Farewell.” “It’s a dramedy about a serious issue, so we didn’t want to be gregarious. Given the tone, we wanted to pay it respect and be a little bit on the more classic side than do anything too wild.” Cloud loved the beaded detail on this J. Mendel dress the actor wore to the Governors Awards. “It looked like metallic ruffles, which we both really liked. And then I felt like it needed to have some type of cinching at the waist, so I sourced a metal belt to give it that bit of an edge.”
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“We try to keep a little bit of playfulness in the dressing, but for like the Globes, that’s a serious event,” says Cloud, who went with this tuxedo-gown hybrid by Christian Dior Couture. “They actually let us combine two couture looks, because the gown itself was shown separately, and then the jacket was part of a short suit look. It just felt that it needed a finishing piece. And the ruffle on the dress is quite large and it looked so nice and framed her face once you put the jacket on.” When Awkwafina tried the look, it was “undeniable.” “It was so chic and classic, and that’s a look you’re never going to regret or get tired of,” she says. “We tried to keep it very classic with the red lip and the hair back and [Forevermark] diamonds, and just keep it clean.”
“We like to mix it up,” says Cloud. She loved the “striking” marigold hue and cape-like effect of this Elie Saab dress for the Critics’ Choice Awards. “This is when we were like, ‘We’ve done the blush tones, we’ve done the classic black and white, let’s have some fun with color!’” When Cloud does bold color, she’ll often balance it out by doing “a set of three.” “I thought it was pretty fresh to do yellow, green and a corally-pink,” she says, coordinating with hairstylist Marcus Francis, who used yellow-gold hair pieces, and makeup artist Kirin Bhatty, who did a coral lip. “We dyed her Stuart Weitzman shoes to match the dress. And the [Irene Neuwirth] earrings are flowers, so I thought that was nice to add a little bit of softness.”
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