Demi Moore, WWD Style Icon, Talks Career Fashion Highlights

Demi Moore can’t remember the initial looks that kicked off her long-running collaboration with stylist Brad Goreski. But she remembers how she felt.

For this year’s Fashion Icon honoree at the WWD Style Awards, style is deeply personal, visceral and often defined by the people who were part of each moment. For almost two decades, her red carpet appearances have been an ongoing creative partnership with Goreski, who has helped shape the sartorial identity around projects like “The Substance,” “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” and “Landman,” just wrapping its second season.

“One of the greatest gifts that occurred over this last year for me was people having a chance to really see how talented he is,” said Moore a few days before the 83rd annual Golden Globes on Sunday.

It’s been one year after Moore won the Golden Globe for best lead actress for “The Substance,” a career-defining role that also earned the actress her first Oscar nomination. The film’s premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival kicked off a parade of red carpet appearances that paid homage to her on-screen character, an aging actress who makes a Faustian bargain. At Cannes, her looks included a red beaded Armani Privé gown — the color a nod to the film’s body horror — and a champagne Schiaparelli couture look that featured an angular point extending from the top of the bodice, speaking to the duality of her character.

She was in Armani Privé again when she won her first Golden Globe, her dress featuring a Swarovski panel that created a visual split down the middle.

“These were subtle nods that maybe nobody else would get, but for us it made sense,” said Moore. “ We both view it as another opportunity of storytelling.”

She has told many stories throughout her five-decade career, on-screen and through her approach to red carpet dressing, even before method dressing was a defined approach. Throughout her various stages — from the Brat Pack in the ’80s, to the short crop and buzzcut that accented her “Ghost” and “GI Jane” era, into the 2000s and beyond — her style through-line has remained consistent. It’s classic, “but with a little bit of a twist or a little bit of an edge. More of a sweet-sexy,” she said.

In recent years, Goreski has been helping her hit that mark. Moore met Goreski in 2008, when he was a young assistant, and she wants to set the record straight: despite recent reports, her longtime collaborator and friend did not “steal her away” from her previous stylist. He rescued her at a critical moment.

“ His previous employer was supposed to prepare me for Sundance, and called two days before and said she couldn’t do it — and would I use Brad?” said Moore.

That was January 2011, and it’s been a relationship defined by trust ever since. “I know that I have the safety of somebody who looks out for me, who truly is looking out for what’s in my best interest,” said Moore.

Sometimes, her best interest is not necessarily the best dress or best look, but instead a cumulative answer to these questions: “Where am I going, what are we wanting to say in this moment, and how does that best and most authentically reflect me or parts of me?” she said. 

Off-duty and at home a few days before the WWD Style Awards, Moore is dressed casually in loungewear, her long hair glossy and signature thick framed glasses bringing polish to the otherwise egalitarian look. 

“What I’ve learned is you don’t have to try too hard to be unique,” said Moore. “Sometimes I’m looking like this, and I go, ‘oh, is that real when I’m in these other things?’ And I realize, yes, they’re all me. They’re just aspects of me. And how lucky am I that I get to play in that arena? That I get to step into a world that has fantasy?” 

That fantasy has been realized with the help of the numerous designers who have dressed and collaborated with her along the way, from the late Giorgio Armani to Donna Karan. 

Moore became friends with Karan in the mid-’90s, and recalls sitting with the designer at her beach house, discussing Karan’s desire to create elegant clothing that women could move in. Karan asked Moore and her then-husband Bruce Willis to star in her 1996 brand campaign, and the couple reportedly personally selected the outfits they wore for the Peter Lindbergh-lensed shoot.

“I felt a completely different way of approaching being able to bring to life what I felt her vision was, in the idea of making the clothes move,” said Moore, crediting the impact of those personal conversations on the final imagery.

It was a similar friendship-to-fashion arc with Kim Jones, who connected with the actress over dinner after reading her intimate 2019 memoir “Inside Out.” Jones later invited Moore to open his debut couture show for Fendi in 2021. 

“The anchor of our relationship is so much more than just I’m somebody interesting for him to dress,” said Moore of Jones. “He saw ‘it’ in me — and at a time when I don’t know if people were that focused on me. But he saw me from a place that was really seeing who I really am, not what I could do for him.”

The intimacy of all her personal relationships lend meaning to whatever look Moore finds herself in. Last fall, she starred in Gucci’s short satirical film “The Tiger,” directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, as the fictional head of Gucci International. “That was my first opportunity to really get to know Demna,” she said. “It then makes putting something on that he’s designed feel already more whole.”

And, she added, she’d be remiss if she didn’t talk about her love for the late Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz.

“That is a friendship I will treasure for the rest of my life,” she said, adding that her daughter even interned for Elbaz while doing a foreign exchange program in high school. “It feels almost like the relationship of wearing the clothes is so secondary.”

She returns again and again to gratitude for all the designers she’s worked with — Zac Posen, who in collaboration with Kim Jones designed the ethereal ivory gown she wore to Time100, one of many Grecian-style dresses she’s worn throughout the years. And Thom Browne, who dressed her in a whimsical and playful look for the Met Gala last year that, yes, did take some effort to pull off. “I’m willing to endure some discomfort for a beautiful moment,” she admitted.

Moore has amassed a portfolio of beautiful moments throughout the years, but the beauty of some of them has only emerged with the passage of time. 

“ I’ve been collecting vintage clothes since I was 15 years old, and I’ve gone through a variety of looks. Probably some disasters, some things where I could say, ‘oh, maybe I was a little ahead of my time. Maybe I didn’t quite execute it,’” said Moore. “Do I feel a little bit of that embarrassment that comes over the biker shorts? But I think about that now and I think, well, if there was a version of that — and maybe actually there has been somewhat of a version of it — in our current times, that it wouldn’t seem so out of the box.”

The “biker shorts” are from her 1989 Oscars look, an outfit she DIYed and was widely awarded “worst dressed” attention at the time. But considered in context of her career, her bold sartorial choice has transformed into something else: a celebration of Moore’s ability to take risks, have fun — and influence culture while she’s at it. It’s the sort of authentic look that, if worn by an up-and-comer today, would mint them as a style star to watch.

“ I think when we’re younger, it’s a combination of also finding ourselves, and so there’s a lot of trial and error. And even today, the reality is we can do our best to approach it the same every time, but we’re not gonna always hit it out of the park,” Moore said. “It’s also knowing to not put too much stakes on what the outside response is when I walk out the door.”

Also, Moore realizes her carpet appearances aren’t just about her anymore: they’re about everyone who participated in creating each look. “The only pressure I ever feel is really wanting to make everyone proud,” she said.

“ What I do know is that I do have an incredible sense when we’re doing fittings of what to do and how to adjust,” she added. “And also, just knowing every time we’re gonna do our best, we’re gonna give it the same amount — and it may work, it may not. But have we had fun? Have we enjoyed our time together? Because that’s what we have. We have the moment that we’re all sharing in doing this.” 

Production Credits:

Photographs by Greg Swales
Styled by Brad Goreski
Hair and makeup by Dimitris Giannetos using Great Lengths extensions
Nails by Zola Ganzorigt
Styling assistant: Clarke Johnson