We can imagine what led to the hideous step and repeat at the Emmys on Monday night. The network probably handled it the way I imagine they do scripts that land on executives’ desks in magnificent shape.
Bob: Hey, Ed, you should check out this script, it’s great.
Ed: [Reads four lines of script.] It’s good — but you know what? The audience just won’t get it. If we’re going to sell this thing to millions of people, we need to beat them over the head with the most obvious points.
Bob: You’re right. It’s so good now that, even if we dumb it down as much as possible and assume the absolute worst of our viewers, it will still be fantastic.
Ed: Exactly. It’ll be elegant — like a wine glass with cursive words on it.
Bob: Glad we agree. I’ll call Deb so she can get the rewriters to ruin this before lunch.
Now, let’s imagine the conversation about the step and repeat:
Ed: Have you seen the production design for the Emmys? I gotta say, it’s looking pretty good. Did you know they can make walls out of flowers now?
Bob [glances at tasteful mock-up]: Wow, even I can see that that looks good — and I can’t even be trusted to pick out my own fleece vests! But — and you know I hate to be that guy, Ed — how are people going to know what they’re watching and what network they’re watching it on?
Ed: This is why they pay you the offensively big bucks. You’re right.
Bob: We need to make sure that, whenever any of our viewers — who have, let’s say for the sake of argument, even worse taste than me — are looking at the red carpet, they see EMMYS and FOX.
Ed: I’ll call Deb and see if the designers can ruin it before lunch.
Bob: And, Ed — make sure they repeat EMMYS and FOX in big, blocky, high-contrast letters. It should look like it’s, I don’t know, menacing all the actors who stand next to it.
Ed: You’re right. That’s the only way to approach it.
With award shows in decline, getting the red carpet right matters more than it ever has in history. The Oscars even bulleted out creating excitement around the red carpet, like the Cannes Film Festival and Met Gala, as part of their multi-pronged plan to save the enterprise full-stop.
The recent Golden Globes, the zombie-est of all of these shows, which had one of the ugliest step and repeats ever last year, managed to turn out something aesthetically acceptable this year. The Oscars got dragged for having a stain-emphasizing cream-colored carpet in 2023, but this seemed overblown and I thought the arrivals on the whole looked quite nice. Compared to this year’s Emmys backdrop, it’s may as well be haute couture.
Oscars organizers hired Met Gala planners Lisa Love and Raúl Àvila to re-think last year’s design, and they chose to use a symbol of the Oscar statuette instead of huge words, which was a nice approach. People who tune into the Emmys know what an Emmy statuette looks like, and a silhouette of the award would have been enough of an indicator to viewers.
With the step and repeat they ultimately chose, enjoying the fashion was difficult when, behind every dress, you had to look at EMMYS EMMYS FOXFOXFOXFOXHAHA!WERUINEDITFOREVERYONE!FOX. (I complained about this on Instagram last night, and someone replied, “It looks like they just swapped ‘Sunday Night Football’ with the Emmys.”)
But, this thing can be saved. Just look at the 2010s Tonys. In 2014, lifelong theater fan Anna Wintour called the Tonys red carpet a “disaster.” It was hard to disagree: the step and repeat was white with black CBS and Tony Awards logos. The watch brand Audemars Piguet sponsored, and managed to both get their logo on the step and repeat and foist a giant photo of a watch behind the night’s honorees. An investment banker could have designed something prettier using Canva.
In 2015, the carpet looked like it had been imported from Anna’s Mastic estate. As her longtime colleague Hamish Bowles explained to The Cut in 2015, “It’s no secret that [costume designer] William Ivey Long conspired with Anna.” Attendees stood before a green hedge, on a red carpet, the Tony Awards logo in silver. (Bowles also made it sound like Vogue had thrown its fashion might behind dressing the honorees.) The Tonys arrivals area employed lovely flower walls for several years, went back to hideous backdrops in 2021 and 2022, and then something in-between in 2023.
The Met Gala never puts VOGUE.COM MET GALA VOGUE.COM MET GALA anywhere near the arrivals carpet. The Cannes red carpet succeeds in part because it’s just a carpet, not a red carpet designed by an executive with a label maker. The Venice Film Festival employs a similar approach. It’s the same idea as the long-held fashion rule about taking one thing off before you leave the house.
Such restraint lends itself to glamour. Viewers see: the carpet, the star, the photographers — and the dresses. The only people who stood a chance against the Emmys step and repeat were those who wore a solid color. The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri looked incredible in a black leather Louis Vuitton dress, but looking at her photos, you could hear the background laughing at how the rare time a Louis Vuitton dress managed to look this good, it had to be near that background. Sarah Snook and Suki Waterhouse popped in red. But Selena Gomez, in embellished Oscar de la Renta with sheer panels, did not stand a chance. Jeremy Allen White looked like he was matching the logos behind him on purpose, which didn’t exactly serve his current image as His Holy Hotness of Hollywood.
Oscars organizers have the right idea in making every effort to present that award show as a major fashion event. If its cousins like the Emmys don’t want to lose any more cultural relevance than that which TikTok has taken from all of them, they would be wise to do the same. And creating a good-looking red-carpet on which that may happen is step one. There’s a reason why Bottega Veneta’s Mattieu Blazy bothered to hire artist and architect Gaetano Pesce to design chairs for his spring 2023 show. There’s a reason Virgil Abloh staged his first Louis Vuitton men’s show on a rainbow runway.
Countless fashion professionals could have explained this to the Emmys. What makes this all the more confusing is that it’s so easy to get a better step and repeat. You can even buy a 33-square-foot boxwood one from HomeDepot.com for $65.
Here are a few looks from last night, super-imposed on that very backdrop. If I can make this much of an improvement with a Home Depot jpeg, imagine what someone who actually knew what they were doing, like Anna Wintour, or, oh I don’t know, any of the people in the television industry who make gorgeous sets every working day of their lives, could come up with.
Did you watch the Emmys? What were your favorite looks? Please sound off below!
