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In a first since 1961, the Oscars carpet will not be red

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2023 Invision

A crew member staples the white carpet to the ground in preparation for Sunday's 95th Academy Awards, Wednesday, March 8, 2023, outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

LOS ANGELES ā€“ Many things about the Academy Awards have changed over the years, but for the past six decades there has been at least one constant: The red carpet. The hues have varied over the years, but it has always been some shade of red. Until this year.

On Wednesday outside the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, workers unspooled a champagne-colored carpet as Jimmy Kimmel, who is hosting the 95th Oscars on Sunday, presided over the occasion.

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ā€œI think the decision to go with a champagne carpet over a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed," Kimmel said.

The decision to change the color came from creative consultants Lisa Love, a longtime Vogue contributor, and RaĆŗl ƀvila, the creative director for the glamourous Met Gala in New York.

This year the carpet will be covered, in part to protect the stars and cameras from the weather, but also to help turn the arrivals into an evening event. For Love, there has always been a disconnect between the elegant black tie dress code and the fact that itā€™s mid-afternoon when people arrive to be photographed in the daylight. With a covered carpet, they could change that.

ā€œWe turned a day event into night,ā€ Love told The Associated Press. ā€œItā€™s evening, even though itā€™s still 3:00.ā€

The Oscars red carpet dates back to 1961, the 33rd Academy Awards held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, when Billy Wilderā€™s ā€œThe Apartmentā€ won best picture, Burt Lancaster and Elizabeth Taylor won the lead acting prizes, and there was still a ā€œjuvenile award,ā€ which went to Hayley Mills for ā€œPollyanna.ā€ It was the first televised ceremony, broadcast on ABC and hosted by Bob Hope. The general public wouldnā€™t see the red carpet in all its glory on television until 1966, when the Oscars were first broadcast in color.

There wasnā€™t any debate over the change, Love said. They just knew they had the freedom to break from tradition. They tried some other colors too but they seemed too dark with the covered tent. ā€œWe chose this beautiful sienna, saffron color that evokes the sunset, because this is the sunset before the golden hour,ā€ Love said.

Instead they went lighter and Academy CEO Bill Kramer approved.

They werenā€™t especially worried about upsetting Oscars traditionalists either.

ā€œSomebodyā€™s always got a way to find something wrong with something,ā€ Love said. ā€œThis is just a lightness and hopefully people like it. It doesnā€™t mean that itā€™s always going to be a champagne colored carpet.ā€

As for what we should call it? Love said ā€œchampagneā€ and ā€œsandā€ are apt descriptions, but that thereā€™s no reason to not default to ā€œred carpetā€ either. Itā€™s more metonym for the glamorous arrivals than a literal description of what everyone is walking on.

The 95th Oscars ā€œred carpetā€ opens Sunday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. The ceremony is set to begin at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast live on ABC.

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For more on this yearā€™s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards


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