When Halle Berry wore the perfect dress for the perfect moment

Halle Berry in that Elie Saab dress, as the first black actress to win an Oscar

Transcript

00:00One of pop culture's most iconic dresses happens to have been worn on one of the biggest

00:04nights in Oscars history by the actress Halle Berry.

00:07It was an award she wasn't expecting to win, because she hadn't won a Golden Globe,

00:11but at 35 years old she won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Monster's Ball,

00:16becoming the first and only black actress to win the award in the 94 year history of

00:22the Academy.

00:23When she accepted her award she said,

00:24It's for every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance, because this

00:29door tonight has been opened.

00:31There was already enough to celebrate that evening, but we also can't ignore what she

00:35was wearing.

00:36Designed by the Lebanese designer Elie Saab, Berry was wearing a dress from a previous

00:40season and back in the early 2000s wearing something to the Oscars that wasn't fresh

00:44off the catwalk might be considered so last season.

00:47Nonetheless, Berry's stylist Philip Bloch seemed to know it would make an impact.

00:51At first he selected it for another client, at the Emmys, but said,

00:55I looked at it again and thought, this is a winner's dress.

00:58This is an Oscar dress.

01:00So he waited for the right occasion.

01:01Because the dress wasn't custom made for the actress, it needed a few final touches,

01:06namely for the sake of modesty.

01:07And I remember thinking that if my little nipple pops out of here I was gonna kill him.

01:12Saab credits Halle Berry's moment at the Oscars for raising his profile, saying she managed

01:17to really put the name Elie Saab on the international market.

01:21And it was the beginning of an enduring relationship between Halle Berry and his fashion house.

01:25The dress now sits on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

01:29In an Instagram post about the display, Halle Berry wrote that the dress will forever be

01:34a reminder that all things are possible.