The path to an Oscar can be long and winding or sudden and short, but whatever the route, it ends on a red carpet guarded by hundreds of photographers.

“I literally walked in here and the first person I saw was you,” Lucas Hedges, a best supporting actor nominee for “Manchester by the Sea,” said to Ryan Seacrest, the evening’s unofficial interrogator in chief. Before the stage, before inevitable delays, before teary speeches, there is the question of costume: Who are you wearing? (It is one of the evening’s odd ironies that this is the one question Mr. Seacrest habitually forgets to ask.)

So they come and parade, divided, by and large, between the princessy and the sultry: those who maneuver their massive ball skirts (Janelle Monáe in Elie Saab, Kirsten Dunst in Dior, Leslie Mann in Zac Posen) and those who strut in dresses sleek, slinky, often high-slit or sheer (Nicole Kidman in peachy Armani Privé, Naomie Harris in white sequined Calvin Klein, Taraji P. Henson in plunging, blue-velvet Alberta Ferretti, the evening’s early standout).

They clutched evening bags and suffered in silence in what were almost certainly uncomfortable shoes — save Octavia Spencer, the “Hidden Figures” best supporting actress nominee, in feather-frilled Marchesa, who said her forgiving Stuart Weitzman shoes made her “a very happy woman right now.” Several outfits were pinned with a blue ribbon, to show support for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Trends tend to fall by the wayside, though this year many stuck to black (Ms. Dunst, last year’s best actress winner Brie Larson), white (Ms. Harris, the model Karlie Kloss, Chrissy Teigen) and optimistic Oscar gold (Emma Stone, in flapper-fringed Givenchy). Ruth Negga, a best actress nominee for “Loving,” was a welcome flash of color in red Valentino; likewise Viola Davis, in red Armani Privé.

That love is the work, months in the making, of a small army of stylists, designers, agents and publicists conspiring to dress the evening’s stars and drape them in millions of dollars’ worth of borrowed jewels. (“There’s like 20 bodyguards following me around for this,” Dakota Johnson, a presenter, told Mr. Seacrest about her Cartier jewelry.) An entire industry spins around securing the starlets and a moment of media airtime in which they dutifully recite their labels. The days of Edith Head, the great midcentury costume designer (and eight-time Oscar winner), whipping up a gown for one of her actresses are long in the past. Dresses are big business, and Oscar dresses the biggest of all. Not for nothing did the costume designer Lizzy Gardiner show up to collect her Oscar in 1995 in a sheath custom made of Amex Gold cards.

With machinery so grand, competition is fierce and tempers run hot. Just before the Oscars, Karl Lagerfeld, the designer of Chanel, touched off an international incident by claiming, in Women’s Wear Daily, that Meryl Streep commissioned, and then declined to wear, one of his gowns, saying she had been paid to wear one by another designer. Ms. Streep fired back, in no uncertain terms, in People. (Mr. Lagerfeld apologized.)

Ms. Streep, for the record, there to celebrate her 20th Oscar nomination, ultimately chose a gown by Mr. Saab. “Nice dress, by the way,” Jimmy Kimmel, the evening’s host, called out from the stage. “Is that an Ivanka?”

Next to these flaring passions, most men wisely embrace a policy of decorous restraint. A foray into navy from basic black was as far as many men dared. (Pharrell Williams, in chain-bedecked Chanel, is not many men.)

Casey Affleck, a best actor nominee, had gone to the Independent Spirit Awards the day before wearing, in a more independent spirit, a shirt of his own design that spelled out “love” in Arabic. Here he opted for a Louis Vuitton tuxedo with the classic bow tie and studs. Mahershala Ali, who took the best supporting actor trophy early in the evening, went, as he often has this awards season, for Ermenegildo Zegna, this time in black on black.

At least one nominee went even lower-key. “I got my tux at San Marko in Yonkers, N.Y.,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, up for the award for best original song, told Mr. Seacrest, “where I got my prom tux in 1998.”

Source: www.nytimes.com