What Wendy Wore: The 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

If you heard a piercing scream when Spotlight won Best Picture at last night’s Oscars … that was me. I had practically given up hope because MrB kept saying, “Oh, The Revenant is going to win.” I was also jumping up and down over Mad Max‘s six awards (I thought it deserved Best Director too).  I’ll have more to say on what Mad Max‘s Oscar-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan wore to the ceremony in my next post. For now, check out this New York Times story on the clever thinking behind Mad Max‘s costuming and makeup.

The guitar guy should have gotten his own prize. Click to see some scenes.

I watched the ceremony while the lovely Stephanie Daniel, my Los Angeles hair and makeup goddess, prepped me for the Vanity Fair party.

Stephanie and me.

I’m pretty relaxed about hair and makeup. Almost anything goes with me. It’s only for one night, right? I was so oblivious to what Stephanie was doing with my hair that when she was finished, and I finally checked it out in the mirror, I said, “You used this purple hairpiece on purpose, right?” (The answer was yes. Also I loved it.)

See the purple braid? It’s really quite subtle.

After the hair came the makeup. Are my eyebrows on fleek or what?! Thanks, Stephanie!

I wore MrB’s button-up shirt while I was getting glammed up.

I wore the vintage Lillie Rubin dress that I got from Decades around 2006. I first wore it in 2007. I most recently wore it last July. You know that I have no qualms about wearing the same outfit repeatedly! I even wore it with the same purse and shoes as last year.

What Wendy Wore
Dress: Vintage Lillie Rubin (acquired 2006-ish)
Purse: Patricia Field (2015)
Shoes:  Badgley Mischka (pre-2005)
Jewelry: My own designs, of course!

The jewelry I wore included my amethyst and tsavorite Marie Antoinette ring, which matched my purple hair and the green gown.

Click to purchase this ring.

The jewelry I didn’t wear included my diamond chandelier earrings, white gold Gloriana necklace and all of my bracelets. I packed those up carefully but apparently (hopefully!!!) left them at home. Luckily I had my pearl choker, which made the layers of my everyday necklaces look fancier. I’m not wearing red-carpet earrings either: These are my brand-new arrowhead thread earrings in 18K yellow gold and platinum.  I’ve got them in silver too, and they’ll all be on the website shortly.

Thank goodness for that choker!

MrB looked dapper in his tux and Pucci bowtie.

I always get MrB Pucci ties.

But who really cares what I looked like — you want to know who I saw, right? I was up close to Larry David, David Spade, Conan O’Brien (he’s tall), Vince Vaughn (he’s tall too), Adrien Brody, Helena Christensen, Charlize Theron, Serena Williams, Hillary Swank, Jared Leto, Gwen Stefani, Melanie Griffith, Dave Grohl, Dita Von Teese, Kate Bosworth, Naomi Campbell, Sofia Vergara,  Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Selena Gomez, designer Zac Posen, Naomi Watts, Michael Keaton, Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, Brian Grazer, model Liberty Ross rewearing her wedding dress (cool!), Diane Kruger, Tim Cook from Apple and Common. I was obsessed with the sexiness of Kerry Washington’s backless Versace dress because, in the dimly lit outdoor area, I thought it was all white. Now that I see photos of it, I’m not the wild about the yellow accents. Darn. Also after the fact, I realize we saw plenty of Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, but I didn’t recognize her after she changed out of her beautiful yellow Louis Vuitton dress.

We greeted Harvey Weinstein and thanked Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter for inviting us. We had a nice little chat with Jake Gyllenhaal because MrB and I know his uncle Anders, who was editor of the Miami Herald. Liev Schreiber assured me that our journalist friend Marty Baron — whom Liev portrayed in Spotlight — was somewhere in the room, though we never managed to find him. I was amused because I’d asked Marty if he’d be there, and he said, “I’m not invited!” When your movie wins Best Picture, they let you in. We did find Michael Rezendes, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Boston Globe journalist who was portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight. One of MrB’s former Wall Street Journal reporters, Sarah Ellison, now works for Vanity Fair. She introduced us to Tina Fey, whose new movie, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, is based on a book by MrB’s former ProPublica reporter Kim Barker. On our way out, we found Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane, and MrB tried to convince him to have an episode with Brian and Stewie playing investigative reporters.

Our photobooth pictures propped against a tub of Vanity Fair fried chicken.

After the 2014 party, I realized it can be pretty traumatic to learn who I missed seeing at the party. That year it was my almost-husband, Paul McCartney. It took me days to recover from that blow. This year, we managed to miss MrB’s beloved Taylor Swift, as well as Lorde, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Chris Rock, Anne Hathaway, Caitlyn Jenner and — to my great regret — Courtney Love. On the other hand, I got to tell the amazingly talented costume designer Sandy Powell how much I loved her Bowie tribute outfit. I also told her the red-carpet experts at E! had her confused with Tilda Swinton, which we both agreed was a compliment.

Thanks for posing for me, Sandy!

MrB and I didn’t mill about as much as we usually do after we met a lovely lady named Mia over a bucket of fried chicken. It turned out she was with Eric Goode, who started the 1980s club Area. I happily told him that getting in there once and being offered heroin in the bathroom was my crowning achievement of 1986. (I politely declined the heroin, but I was excited to be asked.) Then Vanity Fair’s Bob Colacello came by to say hi to Eric and we had a good time talking to him. Bob spent a lot of time with Andy Warhol in the 1970s as the editor of Andy’s Interview magazine. I highly recommend his book Holy Terror, which is about Warhol. He told me how Warhol associates Brigid and Richie Berlin are doing, so I’d say that having some good, in-depth conversation with interesting people is better than stalking each and every celebrity … as long as Paul McCartney isn’t involved!