It’s not very often you come across a garment that is so singular and clearly tells a story.
The original owner of this outfit had it custom-designed to wear to the 72nd Academy Awards ceremony in 1999. Her husband was part of the special effects team of The Matrix, which won a well-deserved Oscar.
Scott Tallenger designed the ensemble, and I was delighted to hear from him recently, when he saw the outfit in my Etsy store. He sent along 1999 photos he took of a friend with a strong resemblance to Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity) wearing his creation.
From a photoshoot on an LA rooftop. Photos by Scott Tallenger.
I asked Scott if the design for this outfit involved the person who commissioned it.
“She and I collaborated on this for sure. The faux fur cape was all her idea. We were inspired by the 1963 film Irma La Douce. I was fresh out of Fashion College, working my first post-production job in film at the Computer Film Company, and she was actually my boss.”
In Matrix-y shades of gray, the outfit consists of a boned corset top with back lacings, a flaring long skirt, and an extravagant wrap. The dark grey silk skirt is luminous; it has stills from The Matrix made into fabric-like strips, decorating the skirt in vertical stripes all around. The wrap was designed to be worn with the faux fur bands held together. I had it explained to me this way: “The wrap was based on something Rita Hayworth wore in Pal Joey; the fur parts kind of went together with the organza showing anywhere it naturally gapped.” However you choose to wear it, the wrap is gorgeous. The organza sparkles with golden metallic threads.
I photographed the wrap on myself before being clued into the Pal Joey reference, then I rephotographed it on my beautiful model Sarah.
I asked Scott about how he created the skirt’s photo strips.
“I took a lot of darkroom classes in college. I was working with a product called ‘Liquid Light’ back then. It was basically a liquid emulsion you could paint on fabric, wood, metal, or glass. But it had to be applied in the dark and let dry for 24 hours before you could put it in the developer in a dark room setting. I wanted one big image of Trinity across the torso, but the finished garment didn't turn out—the tests had all worked perfectly. So I settled for vertical strips (sequences from the film) at every gore of the 6-gore silk skirt.”
This may have been a fallback, but it’s a sensational technique!
This outfit is a stunning slice of the late 1990s—a piece of both fashion and cinema history.
You can find the Matrix Gown (as Scott referred to it) in my Etsy shop here: Academy Awards Matrix Outfit - Corset Top, Skirt with Photo Print Fabric & Faux Fur Wrap by Scott Tallenger (affiliate link).