“Considering the few years we’ve had, it’s amazing to celebrate films and fashion,” Stacy Martin tells me. “I usually try to be very French about it, but I’m very grateful to witness everything.” The actress has certainly been busy making the most of life, following the past few years of restrictions and social distancing; recently, she was on the red carpet for the Cannes Film Festival and then jetted off to Italy for Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 2024 show, sitting front row with Cate Blanchett, Gemma Chan, Oprah Winfrey, Emma Stone, Phoebe Dynevor and Alicia Vikander. Of course, her wardrobe rose to the occasion.
“The film I was presenting [Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe] at Cannes is about a painter, whose work is full of colour. He is often known as the painter of joy,” Martin tells me over the phone from France. “I wanted something that went with that spirit and the colour palette of the story.” After seeing Louis Vuitton’s sketches and the fabrics that would create her look, she felt it embodied the personality of the film perfectly. “It’s amazing how it all matches together,” she says, the excitement in her voice plain. “Usually, I’m more messy with the organisation side of things, but this time I made a really conscious effort to try and represent the film as much as I could.”
“Fashion and art are so interlinked, I think a lot of people forget that,” Martin continues. Just like an iconic painting, hours of time and resources go into creating a red carpet moment. Just as she did with her Cannes dress, Martin loves working closely with designers who “like to break the mould and try to reinvent the codes of fashion and identity,” crediting some of her favourite names to work with as Miuccia Prada and now Louis Vuitton’s Nicholas Ghesquière.
“Half my job is dressing up and wearing costumes from another world,” she says. “People look to the red carpet to dream and tap into the imaginary, much like art.” In her eyes, red carpet dressing acts as an exhibition not only of a designer, but an entire team’s work. “It’s a very specific short performance,” she explains. “There’s a whole team of people behind it and when you get to the red carpet, you really realise it’s all about this one moment that defines it all. It’s all such a humbling experience, you want to celebrate all the hard work that you and the team have put in. You want to make everyone proud.”
Months of work, for one short moment where you’re the focus, sounds like a lot of pressure. Does she feel the weight of striving for perfection? “When I started out and the industry was all so new to me, it felt so overwhelming. Nowadays, I am much more familiar with it all,” she says. “Having my stylist, Rebecca Corbin Murray, makes me feel less alone in the process. I no longer listen to that nagging voice inside that we all have; instead, I remind myself that not everyone has this chance and to just enjoy it.”
Finding such a dress for big moments sounds like a daunting task, but Martin keeps things simple and trusts her gut instinct. “The more practical you can be in a fitting, the more honesty you can bring to the process and the better something looks on you. A dress can look so beautiful on one person and completely different on the other, so I am quite brutal with what’s not going to work for me,” she says.
This inner intuition never fails her, as the actress always brings something special to the red carpet. As Cannes Film Festival draws to a close for another year, Martin is saving the best until last; for her personally, it’s her most memorable fashion moment to date.
“When trying on dresses for the event, I had this moment for the first time where I didn’t want to let this dress go,” she admits, when usually, she isn’t one to get attached to the different pieces she wears for various events and premieres. “However, this specific dress I just couldn’t let go of.” She already had her first look sorted during the fitting in Paris, so when she was asked to wear this dress to return to Cannes, she was overjoyed. “Louis Vuitton very kindly said the dress was meant for me. There’s such a simplicity to it that’s quite off-kilter in a Ghesquière way. It feels so right.”
“Fashion defines identity and how we want to present ourselves to the world,” she says. “It’s a very instinctive way of communicating. We put a lot of importance on words and language, but ultimately, the way that we dress and the way fashion evolves is an instinctual, visceral and personal way of saying things that sometimes we might not feel brave enough to say, or that we might not fully be able to understand or explain to other people. It will always be important.”