Back when the Oscars used to host fashion shows

The proverb says that Epiphany takes away all the holidays, but in the world of entertainment and fashion, the rule doesn't apply. There are the Grammys, Sanremo, the Fashion Month, the BRITs, and even the premieres' red carpets, with the real "party" concluding the Award Season in March, the night of the Oscars. While these days the audience is ecstatic over the incredible looks Zendaya is flaunting at the first screenings of Dune: Part Two, a corner of X (ex Twitter) has brought back the videos of the 1996 Oscars, when Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, and Claudia Schiffer officially sealed the union between fashion and cinema. There was a time when, before red carpet looks provided online engagement records and became one of the main themes of the evening dedicated to the best films of the year, top models were hired by the event to showcase the costumes of the films competing for a golden statuette live. A practice that is no longer used now due to timing issues, it was customary to bring the Oscar-nominated dresses onto the Academy Award stage.

In 1978, before the '90s models graced American screens, it was Star Wars' costume designer, John Mollo, who won the Oscar for best costumes. The looks from the world's most famous science fiction film had paraded during the nominations presentation alongside the dresses from Airport '77, Julia, A Little Night Music, and The Other Side of Midnight, while in 1996, introduced to the public by Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Pierce Brosnan, the dresses of Braveheart, Richard III, Sense and Sensibility, 12 Monkeys, and Restoration, the winner, were nominated for the infamous statuette. Almost thirty years have passed since the last time a film's costumes appeared on the Oscars stage, yet social media still calls for this tradition to be reinstated. Imagine if this weekend we found ourselves facing a real fashion show with all the best costumes of the year: Vittoria Ceretti in the looks designed by Jacqueline Durran for Barbie, Mona Tougaard in those created by Holly Waddington for Povere Creature!, Anok Yai in those of Napoleon, or even Alex Consani in the designs of Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon. While it's understandable that the tradition was removed to facilitate the duration of the awards, now divided into twenty-four categories, bringing a bit of fashion week onto the Oscars stage would make the evening much more exciting.