Now that the awards have been given out, and the red carpet has been rolled up, it’s time to noodle the Oscar gowns worn by the actresses, and consider designs will inspire fashion, courtesy of mass- and mid-market labels. But the dresses picked out for the 80th Annual Academy Awards Sunday looked more derivative (of the Roman Empire, of Old Hollywood, of the iconic Taittinger Champagne advertisements) than directional.

Actresses favored smooth, body-hugging silhouettes, solid fabrics, and primary and pale hues. In a town where everyone is attempting to stand out from the crowd, there was also a surprising amount of basic black, and embellishments were remarkably few. Those who chose a gown cut from the most striking of candy-apple red looked glamorous, if not all that original — given that so many of the guests wore similar designs (15-year-old “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus and 83-year-old actress Ruby Dee among them).

“There was very little scan-scandal,” a New York-based stylist, Samantha von Sperling, who heads Polished Social Image Consultants, said. “We saw a lot of movie stars look like movie stars, for a change — not like Cher or J-Lo, from years gone by.” And the simple elegance of this year’s Oscar fashions should make imitative designs particularly easy to produce. Yesterday, the creative director of ABS, Allen Schwartz, was already at work making dresses inspired by the red carpet. Gowns reminiscent of Miss Cyrus’s square-neck Valentino are in the works, Mr. Schwartz said. “She’s the hot ticket, so we have to do it,” he said, noting that the actress’s fan base could make these designs popular for bat mitzvahs and proms.

For the grown-up set, Mr. Schwartz said he will try his hand at looks evocative of Amy Adams’s emerald, mermaid-hem gown by Proenza Schouler; Renée Zellweger’s strapless, silver Carolina Herrera dress with embroidered accents, and Cameron Diaz’s textured, pretty-in-pale-pink number by Christian Dior. ABS designs, sold in department stores, typically bear price tags in the $200–$400 range.

Staff Reporter of the Sun