Kate Winslet's Oscar Dress

 The depths of my love for this woman knows no bounds. 

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So that means Kate Winslet is the first modern actress I've ever rooted for, ever earnestly watched the Oscars simply because I wanted her to win. All the years she was nominated and lost, I was a young teen staying up waaay too late crossing everything that her name would be called (this was pre-internet, rural hometown, had no idea about pre-cursors or frontrunners and truthfully believed that people voted for who they wanted to win). You have no idea how angry I was that Hilary Swank won for Million Dollar Baby over Kate in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Anyway!

In 2008, Kate was all over Hollywood. She was getting notices for her (supporting) role in The Reader and her lead role (and re-team with Leonardo DiCaprio) in Revolutionary Road. She won both the Best Actress Drama and Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes. And then she got nominated for The Reader over Revolutionary Road... baffling decision akin to Audrey Hepburn getting nominated for Wait Until Dark over How to Steal a Million. Anyway!

So this was the first awards season a Kate Winslet fan had real, sustained, evidence-based hope that she would finally win the Oscar she should've won for Titanic. And then she showed up in a stunning, one-shoulder Yves Saint Laurent gown. Two-toned, two fabric types, timeless and elegant, and sporting probably the best hairdo I've ever seen on the Oscars stage in a long, long time. 

When it came time to pick a dress, Kate told Oprah, on her post-Oscars special (remember those?) that Yves Saint Laurent reached out to her. She also revealed that she was thinking sustainably about choosing who to work with. "I think in this time, in the economy, it's just not nice to have people make lots of dresses and you just wear one out of a possible five."

Stefano Pilati, the designer at Atelier Yves Saint Laurent at the time, made this beautiful grey gown. Asymmetrical, one-shouldered. Covered with a a drape of black lace that extends down the side, accentuated with a large black belt. It's so perfectly unique and timeless; there's an elegance there, but also a hint of rebel: it's not the traditional princess gown, or the sleek A-line, or the chic shift. It's so perfectly Kate.

Kate also revealed that when she called her daughter, Mia, backstage post-win, she was like 'yeah, congratulations, why'd you wear a grey dress?'