Surprisingly, the best talked-about Grammy attending never alike hit the red carpeting or the stage.
After blame off the awards appearance on Sunday with a baking achievement of "Drunk in Love" with Jay Z, Beyonce afford her La Perla collar, Nichole de Carle bodice and Saint Laurent tights to don a barely-there, body-hugging Michael Costello Couture gown. She debuted the bright nude-and-lace attending from her front-row bench about an hour and a bisected into the advertisement -- a moment that larboard even Jamie Foxx talking in circles aback presenting the Grammy for best rap/sung accord to Jay Z for "Holy Grail" with Justin Timberlake.
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The abutting morning, artist Michael Costello woke up to added than 400 argument letters from accompany and family, all sending their praises of the handmade look. "There are three layers to the dress -- a white lace, a nude apparition mesh, and addition band beneath it with bewitched fairies, captivation up all the flowers -- I'm sorry, I'm bad at dress descriptions!" Costello tells Pret-a-Reporter, still in disbelief. "I adulation to architecture things that accept that aspect of whimsical, and that aspect of about nakedness. I adulation nakedness."
Though the singer's stylist, Ty Hunter, had appear in to his Los Angeles flat aloof a anniversary ago, afterwards affair the artist at a Golden Globes afterparty, Costello didn't accept Hunter was austere about affairs looks.
"I was in a mini-shock -- I'm so acclimated seeing her in Valentino, Versace, Gucci or maybe alike her own brand," he says of audition from Hunter. "Let me acquaint you, aback he was set to appear in, we mopped that floor, bought new mannequins, got a chandelier!"
Hunter was fatigued to the nude-illusion attending that Costello had set to admission in his accessible New York Fashion Anniversary assuming at the Helen Mills Event Space on Feb. 8, with New York Fashion Anniversary able Barbara Berman on board. "It's such a huge A-lister, you consistently wonder, what are your affairs of bathrobe this person? It's so abbreviate to none. But aback Hunter came into the exhibit and saw the dress, he said, 'Yes, this is the moment.'"
Since interning with Bob Mackie at a adolescent age and aggressive on division 8 of Project Runway, the self-taught Costello has dressed Colbie Caillat, Jessie J, Vampire Diaries' Kat Graham and Shahs of Sunset's Lilly Ghalichi in his signature "nakedness" aesthetic, while additionally outfitting Ke$ha, LeAnn Rimes, Mary J. Blige, Celine Dion and others in added covered red-carpet looks.
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At Sunday's Grammys, Costello additionally dressed Skylar Grey in a nude covering MT Costello gown, as able-bodied as appointee Tamar Braxton in a red bogie Michael Costello Couture dress, complete with a new shoulder-length aggregation and a congenital microphone for the accompanist to abide taping her WE tv absoluteness shows while at the awards ceremony.
"I've been designing dresses with nude illusions, in all honesty, aback I was a kid," he explains. "I anticipate it's all allotment of that fantasy and bogie tale. Aback I design, I anticipate of things amphibian all the time, attractive like it's been fabricated of air. Aback I created that dress Beyonce wore, I capital to actualize article that looked like the flowers were aloof falling, magically placed there in those spots. Aback you abrasion these, you accept to be somewhat of a risk-taker -- they're not for everyone."
He hasn't heard aback from the accompanist directly, but Costello appreciates the shout-out she gave on her Facebook page, and still isn't abiding if he's activity to action the dress for sale, let abandoned accommodate it in his aerodrome appearance abutting week.
"It's so appropriate to me now -- not alone because Beyonce wore it but additionally because I'm such a die-hard fan, like, I apperceive every lyric -- I would maybe adulation to aloof accept it displayed in the exhibit as a abracadabra moment, or maybe alike about area the apple can see it," he says. "But maybe I'll bandy it on the aerodrome too; it's still up in the air. We've gotten so abounding emails about [purchases], but there's so abundant assignment that goes into that dress, it's about adamantine to carbon that one. But I'd like to maybe action a aberration of it. A convenient adaptation beneath $1,500 for bodies who appetite to get the dress."
Still, he addendum the assured bind of accepting a buzzworthy red-carpet look. "But I apperceive by tomorrow, there's activity to be a actor knockoffs. It's gonna happen."
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With the Grammys carelessness abaft him (plans to dress Lorde as able-bodied had collapsed through), how does Costello break sane in alertness for his eighth NYFW showing?
"Now, it's all about trust," he says after hesitation. "I've never been able to assurance myself, because I appetite to do aggregate -- I appetite to be complex in the pinning, stitching, ironing, last-minute details, planning, fits -- but the best important affair is to assurance your aggregation and let them do what they do. But, accept a huge crew, because there's consistently one last-minute affair that's gonna happen. You accept to be prepared."
Email: Ashley.Lee@THR.comTwitter: @cashleelee