The 79th EE BAFTA Film Awards took over London’s Royal Festival Hall on February 22. Alan Cumming was hosting, Hamnet and One Battle After Another were cleaning up, and – for the first time since 2023 – the Prince and Princess of Wales walked in together, which tends to do something to a dress code.
Nobody was risking a fully naked dress with the future King of England ten feet away. So the night went jewel-toned and velvet-heavy and very grown-up, in the best way: royal blue, eggplant, cherry red, butter yellow, sage green, all cut with open backs and serious jewelry. This is the kind of carpet I actually love picking apart, because when the volume comes down, the construction has nowhere to hide. Here are the 10 looks that earned it, counting down to my best dressed.
10. Catherine, Princess of Wales, in Gucci
Let’s get the headline out of the way: Kate didn’t buy a new dress, and that’s the entire point. She pulled a blush-pink and lavender Gucci gown out of her own archive – last seen in 2019 – and re-styled it with a burgundy velvet belt that matched William’s deep crimson Armani tux down to the shade.
Embed from Getty ImagesA rewear at this altitude is a flex most people can’t pull off, and the belt is what keeps it from feeling like a repeat: it cinches the whole thing into 2026 and quietly color-codes her to her husband. After skipping last year entirely, she came back and made her loudest statement by being the most restrained person in the building.
9. Gracie Abrams in Chanel
Yes, this was the red-carpet couple debut with Paul Mescal, and yes, everyone clocked it. But look past him for one second, because the dress has a genuinely great backstory: it’s from Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel Métiers d’Art collection – the one he staged on a recreated New York City subway, originally shown with a coffee-cup bag and pointed flats like the world’s most expensive commuter.
Embed from Getty ImagesAbrams stripped out the gimmick, swapped in chandelier earrings and a real heel, and let the craftsmanship carry it. It’s the rare case of a pop star borrowing from a runway concept and improving the styling. Commuter queen to awards-night queen in one alteration.
8. Odessa A’zion in Dior
The Marty Supreme and I Love L.A. breakout could have referenced her own projects and instead went full gothic moor. Her custom Dior had an off-the-shoulder bodice and a semi-sheer lace skirt that read like a Wuthering Heights fever dream – romance and rot in the same gown.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis is the look for everyone who thinks “princess dress” should come with a little menace. The lace does the heavy lifting, but it’s the off-shoulder line that gives it that windswept, slightly-haunted silhouette. Of all the rising names on this carpet, she’s the one I’d bet on to keep getting weirder, and I mean that as the highest compliment.
7. Wunmi Mosaku in Ahluwalia
Mosaku has been on a maternity-dressing tear since she revealed her pregnancy at the Golden Globes, and this might be the strongest entry yet. Her cobalt-blue Ahluwalia gown was built around panels of fringe that spilled into a flapper-style train – a direct nod to the speakeasy world of Sinners, which she’s nominated for.
Embed from Getty ImagesFringe is a risk because it can read costume-y fast, but the depth of that blue keeps it firmly in gown territory. Bonus points for the designer choice: Ahluwalia is a London Fashion Week regular, so wearing it at the BAFTAs, mid-LFW, in London, is a hometown move with real intention behind it.
6. Sadie Sink in Prada
From the front, this sage-green Prada is all polite restraint – strapless, sculpted neckline, a skirt cut to actually let her walk. Then she turns around and there’s a sudden cut-out to the waist, held together by a single strap, and the entire dress reveals it was hiding a second personality the whole time.
Embed from Getty ImagesThat’s the trick I never get tired of: a gown that behaves on the approach and surprises you on the exit. Sink and stylist Molly Dickson have been building toward exactly this kind of grown-up Prada moment for a couple of years now, and the payoff finally landed.
5. Kate Hudson in Prada
Hudson is nominated for Song Sung Blue and showed up in cherry red, which is the kind of confidence I respect. The custom Prada married full Grace Kelly drama – off-the-shoulder, structured bodice, hip-skimming skirt – with one sharp modern intrusion: a geometric open back sitting just above the waistline.
Embed from Getty ImagesThat geometry is what saves it from looking like a 1955 reissue. The color alone would’ve gotten her photographed; the back is what gets her on the list. She’s been doing this for two decades and still knows exactly where to put the one detail that makes a classic shape feel like now.
4. Rose Byrne in Miu Miu
If Kate was scouting the room for her own future references, this was the dress to steal. Byrne, nominated for Leading Actress, wore custom butter-yellow Miu Miu styled by Kate Young, with crystals running along the straps and bodice and yellow diamonds doing the rest. The pastel could have gone wedding-cake, but the fluid cut keeps it airy and the crystal placement gives it just enough bite.
Embed from Getty ImagesMiu Miu has been quietly dominating red carpets for a while, and this is a clean argument for why: it’s soft and modern and a little fairytale without tipping into costume. Pair it with Boucheron jewels and you’ve got the most quietly covetable look of the night.
3. Teyana Taylor in Burberry
Taylor is constitutionally incapable of a boring carpet, and on a night this refined she found the smartest possible way to be the loudest. Her custom Burberry was a Victorian fantasy – an eggplant-purple ruff that nearly swallowed her face, a gathered skirt, a train unspooling behind her.
Embed from Getty ImagesIt’s drama, but it’s the right house doing it: Britain’s biggest luxury name going full period-romance at the British film awards. Then the jewelry: rare Tiffany & Co. pieces including a Bird on a Rock brooch glowing with a citrine north of 50 carats. Most people play it safe near royalty. Taylor looked at the assignment, said “regal” back to it louder, and won.
2. Chase Infiniti in Louis Vuitton
Nobody is having a breakout season quite like Chase Infiniti, and her stylists Wayman + Micah keep finding sculptural Louis Vuitton to match the moment. This one was an exaggerated trumpet skirt frozen mid-spin – a gown that looks like it’s still moving after she’s stopped.
Embed from Getty ImagesArchitectural dressing can read stiff, but the genius here is that all that structure is shaped to suggest motion, so it feels alive instead of armored. It’s the kind of look that announces a new name on the A-list without a single word, and it’s exactly why she’s one of the most exciting people walking any carpet right now. She came in second only because the woman ahead of her made velvet feel like a coronation.
1. Jessie Buckley in Chanel
Buckley is the frontrunner of this entire season for her devastating turn as Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet, and she dressed like she already knew where the night was headed. Her custom Chanel – styled by Danielle Goldberg – was deep royal-blue velvet, cut clean and modern, with crystalline detailing landing on each shoulder like epaulets for a woman about to be crowned.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis is the whole case for quiet luxury made in a single gown: the fabric does the talking, the silhouette refuses to shout, and the result has more gravitas than anything covered in cutouts. Velvet is the easiest fabric to get wrong and she got it completely right. On a carpet built around restraint, she understood that the most powerful thing you can wear is total certainty. Best dressed, no argument.
Honorable Mentions
A few more that kept the carpet interesting: Emma Stone went sleek and sheer in custom black Louis Vuitton, leaning into her longtime ambassador status with a look that needed zero color to land.
Embed from Getty ImagesKerry Washington stunned in custom Prada – navy and black sequins with Chopard jewels – proving sequins can read regal instead of disco when the cut is right.
Embed from Getty ImagesEllie Bamber pulled the best vintage move of the night in Giorgio Armani from the Fall/Winter 1994 archive, a reminder that the resale-and-rewear conversation is now firmly a best-dressed strategy.
Embed from Getty ImagesMonica Bellucci did exactly what Monica Bellucci does in Stella McCartney, and Glenn Close brought genuine character to Erdem.
Embed from Getty ImagesRounding it out: Carey Mulligan and Maya Rudolph kept things polished in Prada and Chanel respectively, while Alicia Vikander and Renate Reinsve joined the very long list of women custom-dressed by Louis Vuitton – which, alongside Prada and Chanel, basically ran this carpet.
Embed from Getty Images