Practical, the Oscars are not. This year, however, the creative team behind the award show really outdid themselves: on March 12, viewers bore witness to a brand-new white carpet [1]. Except, it wasn't white at all. (Our mistake. How embarrassing.) The new carpet was champagne, as described by Lisa Love, the event's first-ever red carpet creative consultant.
Why not take it a step further? "We chose this beautiful sienna, saffron color that evokes the sunset, because this is the sunset before the golden hour," Love told The Associated Press [2] prior to the Oscars. Love later elaborated in The New York Times [3]: "The sienna-color tent and champagne-colored carpet was inspired by watching the sunset on a white-sand beach at the 'golden hour' with a glass of champagne in hand, evoking calm and peacefulness."
Gone are the days of that garish red carpet, marked by decades of tradition. Enter instead, a beige substitute — and don't mind the growing layer of gray footprints. (Yes, even Louboutins can track dirt.) Now the floor is also guaranteed to match the many ivory dresses [4] conveniently worn by Hollywood's brightest stars.
For you eco-conscious viewers, however, rest assured that the polyester-based carpet is made up of recycled materials, so the stained rug can always be recycled afterwards. Plus, as Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel aptly pointed out [5], "I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed." It's not white! It's the dawn of a new era!
The criticism was inevitable and anticipated, Love said, but it seems the Oscars are also open to change again in the future. "Somebody's always got a way to find something wrong with something," she said. "This is just a lightness and hopefully people like it. It doesn't mean that it's always going to be a champagne-colored carpet."