Inside Hong Chau's Impeccable Awards Season Style

Tying it all up in a custom Prada bow at the 2023 Oscars, styling duo Zadrian + Sarah discuss dressing a first-time nominee for a winning red carpet run.

"Oscars weekend is like carnival for stylists — we look forward to it all year," says Sarah Edmiston, one of half of Zadrian + Sarah. "We also do private [clients] and consulting, so for us, there's an apex in each of the three divisions — this is it for red carpet."

For her and business partner Zadrian Smith, it's also the culmination of an entire awards season styling a nominee — this time, it's Hong Chau, whose performance in "The Whale" garnered her recognition at some of the biggest ceremonies of the circuit this year and whose fashion along the way has only earned her more fans.

On Sunday night, Chau walked the Oscars red carpet as a contender for Best Supporting Actress — the same category that fellow Zadrian + Smith client Ariana DeBose won last year. That's not the only connection between the two.

"None of this would be possible without Morgan Pesante and Matthew Avento at the Lede Company," says Smith. "They're two young, dynamic publicists who have their pulse on what's happening in culture, who are very strategic and very smart." They also represent DeBose and connected Smith and Edmiston with Chau, whom their agency had recently signed.

"I'm a researcher, so I researched and was like: Brendan Fraser? "The Whale"? A24? Cannes Film Festival? Yeah, we'll do it," Smith remembers. "We started the conversation late November, early December, when you start to know what's going to be nominated. At the time, there was a buzz around Brendan, but we had already said to Matthew and Morgan, 'Regardless, we want to work with her, because her performance was incredible.' Then you read her story, see the family... That tells you the kind of people that they are."

"If you stick with your values really religiously, your people find you — on the publicist side, on the agent side, on the manager side, on the talent side, on the designer side," adds Edmiston. "You all band together in this funny little moving circus, and it's really, really fun. It makes the job joyful, and it also fills it with purpose for all of us."

From the beginning, Chau let her new styling team know that she wanted to do things differently. "We were sitting around the table like, 'Let's do timeless, old-school Hollywood glamour,'" Smith remembers. "And she very calmly said: 'No, let's not do that. Why would I want to emulate an era that didn't recognize or see me as valid?'"

This was just what the duo needed to hear.

"We were like, 'Amazing.' That's the 'why' for us — what gets us up on Monday morning, what keeps us working at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday night," Edmiston says. "We were just like, 'Thank you for the petrol.'"

"I really love how she disagrees with us," Smith adds. "We'll be in a fitting, like, 'This is the gown.' And she'll go: 'No, it's not. But let's move on to the next' — like her character in 'The Menu.'"

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It was also very important to the actor to have her fashion reflect her story — and her work as a storyteller — as creatively as possible. She didn't want to look like everyone else, according to Edmiston: "That's the best brief we could possibly have, and that's the best person we can work for."

The styling duo set out to build a wardrobe filled with brands that "you might not usually see on a big, flashing-bulb red carpet," Edmiston argues — "but when the values of the designer and the creative that they're dressing and that we're dressing align, everybody is willing to go outside of their comfort zones and norms." Those included Jason Wu, Dries van Noten, Simone Rocha, Erdem, Fendi, Rodarte, Didit Hediprasetyo and Prada.

The first look they worked on together — "what Sarah likes to call a cleansing-the-palate look," according to Smith, as it's meant to introduce a new chapter — was a white fringe top and matching trouser from Jason Wu's Spring 2023 runway collection.

"I was actually at that show with a client, and that was one of my favorite looks," he says. "It was obviously really important for her to honor her heritage, so we immediately thought we wanted to start with an Asian designer. Sarah and I are huge fans of and have worked with Jason. Again, morals and values: He comes to the fittings, he pins — he's that designer."

"Doing it with Jason gives us a lovely security that the client's first experience is gonna be an open, creative and fun one," notes Edmiston.

"There's a little bit of nerves, but honey, once she had that glam done and Miss Thing stepped on that balcony, I was like, 'Oh, girl, this is about to be a thing,'" Smith adds. "From there, it snowballed into what it is now."

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In those initial conversations, Chau also conveyed that she wasn't interested in doing "pretty" — rather, she wanted to subvert that idea and redefine what it meant.

"I thought that was truly a big challenge, and I wasn't sure if we could accomplish it," Smith confesses. "But, I say this humbly: We kicked ass. We went from Jason Wu tinsel top, then the Dries van Noten — I knew that the girls that needed to know would clock it — then the Simone Rocha... Then she was like, 'I want to wear a short dress to the SAGs.' So she wore Fendi Haute Couture."

Edmiston chimes in: "Disco mini Fendi Haute Couture!"

A personal favorite of Edmiston's from this awards season is the Spring 2023 Erdem dress Chau wore to the 2023 BAFTAs. She knew it was the one when the actor did a little dance after trying it on for the first time.

"It was where we got to really stretch our limbs right into the full breath of the creative, in terms of doing something really quirky but also classic and traditional," she says. "The craftsmanship and the internal corsetry on it, it was just beautiful. Also, the gloves, which are the classicism of opera, but something about the chiffon makes them completely different."

For Smith, the Dries van Noten was a coup.

"We're a blessed studio because there are only a few houses we haven't collaborated with," he explains. "We've had Dries for editorial, but never for a red carpet. You have to be a very special caliber for Dries to look at you, so when the confirmation came through, we all internally screamed andw did backflips."

It's also a look that got noticed: "When people saw her in that Dries look, they were like, 'Oh, okay, so this is what this is. This is what it's giving,'" Smith says.

The through-line between all the brands Chau's worn this season, Smith argues, is that "they respect the woman and the artist first."

"Not once did any of these designers say, 'Well, she should do this, she should wear her hair or makeup like this,'" he says. "They gave us the look and said, 'Breathe Hong into it and bring our look to life.' And that's why it's so strong."

"We're very unafraid as people," Edmiston explains "I think people who want to show up differently and want to stand out in that way come and find us, because that's a space we're going to protect vigilantly for them. We're not interested in the running order or the status quo. We're interested in being disruptors and working with disruptors."

In the process of working together, the Zadrian + Sarah team discovered that Chau has a discerning fashion palate. That became especially clear when it came time to talk Chau's Oscars gown. The custom pale pink column gown by Prada featured with a black pailette train and a detail that was pitched by the actor herself.

"The sketches come through, and she goes, 'What was that Spring 1997 collection that Miuccia did with the mandarin collar? Can we add the mandarin collar to the sketches? That'll be a nod to my Asian roots,'" Smith recalls. "We were both just like, 'Amazing. No words. Done.'"

"They sent back the sketch with her request and it was a better, different dress," Edmiston says. "It was always beautiful, because with the Prada team, we know what we're getting is insane, but all of a sudden, it was insanely Hong. She delivered her request with so much grace and acceptance of their creativity and their process, and the result was phenomenal."

"Those moments sum her up and sum up working with her," she continues. "We approached the best, they delivered something amazing, she added to it and made it better, we supported it and support every turn of it."

It's also a full-circle moment for the stylists. When Smith was still working solo, Prada was one of his first collaborators on a custom look (for Ella Purnell at the 2016 Venice Film Festival).

Chau also wore Prada to the 2023 Producers Guild Awards in February, so this represented an opportunity to continue to build a relationship between the actor, the styling team and the house.

"This carnival, we also got to go back to Versace, who's supported Ari since the beginning," Edmiston notes of DeBose's look for the Oscars (also custom).

Looking back, Edmiston describes this most recent awards season as "affirming."

"When we started doing this, we said we want to [work with] a host of different women and represent them as themselves, in the ways they're different," she explains. "People saying to us now like, 'Wow, Hong looks so different from Ariana, the direction you're doing is so different' — we're like, 'Of course they would. They're different people.'"

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