The 2025 Golden Globes isn’t just any other awards ceremony for Viola Davis. The EGOT winner will be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, joining fellow industry titans including Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, and Meryl Streep. While the occasion more than calls for a fabulous look, rather than commissioning a brand-new dress, Davis and her stylist Elizabeth Stewart turned to Gucci to refashion one of her past pieces.
Tonight, Davis is rewearing the Gucci look that she sported for the 2024 LACMA Gala in November—a black sequined dress complete with a V-neck and a dramatic beaded cape. “Sabato [De Sarno] sent a beautiful sketch for the LACMA Gala and we knew it could be something special,” Stewart tells Vogue. “And when we actually tried it with everyone from Gucci there in the room Viola loved it and said something like, ‘I would wear this a thousand times!’”
Now, she’s chipping away at those thousand wears—with some updates. “While in our first Gucci fitting we all immediately started dreaming,” Stewart says. “What if she did wear it again? How would Sabato make a great dress even greater?” They decided to embrace Davis’s love of color with a rainbow cape. “A rainbow is a symbol of hope and happiness in a dark time. Very meaningful for Viola who never does anything without purpose,” Stewart says. She added a pair of custom rainbow Swarovski earrings. For Davis’s part, the actor says, “The dramatic, bold but classic style made me feel like I was stepping into the woman I’ve always been….and dreamed of being.”
For Stewart, this is an opportunity to highlight sustainable fashion practices. “I think sustainability is what we should all be striving for, in any small way we can, and the fashion world, with its visibility and impact, has an opportunity to help lead the charge,” she says. “We wouldn’t have thought to re-wear it so soon but with Viola receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, we realized what a perfect choice this would be.”
