You’ve read the 2019 recaps, made your reservations (and/or bought your club crawl tickets), and planned your resolutions — now all you have to do before New Year’s Eve is figure out what to wear. Dressing for the ball drop used to be simple: Throw on your one sequin dress, pack your metallic clutch, and toss on a pair of slinky black heels. But since this New Year’s Eve isn’t just ringing in a new year, but a new decade, why not use the night as an excuse to give your go-to party look a bit of a refresh?
All that’s left to do now is find a dress that’s perfect for you. But since dress shopping probably isn’t on your already-overbooked agenda, we went ahead and did some digging for you. Loyal to sequins? We’ve got those covered. Sticking with black? We’ve found those too. Feathers, rhinestones, velvet, and more — no matter which NYE sartorial trope you’re planning on kicking off 2020 in, we’re betting that it’s somewhere in the slideshow ahead.
At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 07: Mama Cax, also known as Cacsmy Brutus, walks the runway for Chromat during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery I at Spring Studios on September 7, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows)
Mama Cax, the Haitian-American creative, model, and advocate known for her work to make the fashion industry more inclusive for differently abled women and women of color, died on December 16, according to an Instagram post from this morning. She was 30.
Earlier this month, while in London for a photoshoot, Cax discovered blood clots in her leg, thigh, abdomen, and around a medical filter near her lungs that was implanted when she first battled cancer in her teens. According to the Instagram post, she spent a week in the hospital, battling illness with “the same grit” that she brought to her entire life.
A post shared by Mama Cāx 🇭🇹 (@mamacax) on Dec 20, 2019 at 7:58am PST
Cax, who lost her leg to bone and lung cancer when she was 14, spoke generously and openly about how disease affects not only the body, but also the spirit: “Childhood cancer left me with a million scars (mostly emotional)” she wrote. The ferocity with which she advocated for self-care, self-love, and self confidence through creative pursuits made her an undeniable force that helped trigger a new, more empowered phase within the fashion industry. Despite the fashion industry’s notorious reluctance to embrace different kinds of bodies, her career was as dazzling as the rhinestones that frequently appeared on her prosthetic leg. She was the face of Refinery29’s Take Back The Beach editorial in 2016. She landed her first campaign for Wet n Wild in 2017, and went on to model for major brands like Tommy Hilfiger and ASOS, and in 2018, she landed a Teen Vogue cover. She made her runway debut at Chromat’s always-inclusive show, appearing on the catwalk in crutches and swimwear in September 2018. She was also much-followed street style star during New York Fashion Week; her electric outfits were fearless, expressive, and experimental, gleefully combining dozens of references, colors, shapes, and designers as if she couldn’t get enough of the beautiful, lovely things in life.
Cax brought a unique perspective to body positivity that challenged the way the movement has been perceived by the mainstream. After speaking at a recent panel for Oprah Magazine, she posted on her Instagram, “Body positivity [is] not only [about] embracing yourself and your body’s journey but learning that if your embracement of bodies does not include ALL BODIES it is not body positive. […] I always remind my audience that their bodies allowed them to get to work and at the end of the day it will take them home to their loved ones. […] If you’re not ready to love your body for how it looks, admire it for how far it’s gotten you.”
Cax frequently shared images of herself with and without the prosthetic, working to normalize the very radical idea that beauty isn’t limited to able-bodied women. Her commitment to publicly loving and respecting herself despite the way the fashion industry has traditionally treated differently abled women opened the door for a new generation of models to succeed, and designers to create clothing with all types of bodies in mind.
In a post about fashion label Henning in which Cax wore a pair of heeled slides with a transparent prosthetic leg that she called “a jellyfish,” Cax wrote: “After my amputation, I had so many body insecurities. If my future self came up to me and told me that one day, I’d transcend these feelings and start seeing my body as art, I would never believe it. A piece forever in progress, yet art at every stage.”
And what a masterpiece it was.
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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 21: Kate Mulleavy and Laura Mulleavy and Kirsten Dunst attend the Fifth Annual InStyle Awards at The Getty Center on October 21, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Donato Sardella/Getty Images for InStyle)
Last night, California design duo Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte took home the coveted Designer of the Year Award at InStyle Magazine’s InStyle Awards — and they didn’t do it alone. To join in on the celebration, their cult-like following of celebrities, including long-time friend Kirsten Dunst, Euphoria’s Alexa Demie, January Jones, InStyle Editor in Chief Laura Brown, and more, arrived dressed in head-to-toe Rodarte.
“Laura and Kate’s creativity comes from something so personal and emotionally moving that their dresses almost feel like songs on your favorite album,” Dunst recalled as she presented the sisters with their award. “They are pioneers of the fashion industry, sticking to their roots and always using their home state, family, and friends as a source of endless inspiration.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 21: January Jones, Natasha Lyonne, Alexa Demie, Laura Mulleavy, Kate Mulleavy, Kirsten Dunst, InStyle Editor in Chief Laura Brown and Gia Coppola attend the Fifth Annual InStyle Awards at The Getty Center on October 21, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for InStyle )
This win comes as no surprise, as Rodarte has had quite the decade. Not only did they win the coveted CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award in 2009, they were also featured in the Costume Institute at the Met in 2013 and the National Museum for Women in the Arts. By collaborating with brands like Target and & Other Stories, writing and directing fantastical films like Woodshock (starring Kirsten Dunst, of course), and designing costumes for major motion pictures like Black Swan, Kate and Laura Mulleavy have made a name for themselves and their brand throughout the 2010s. But it’s their dedication to female friendship that really makes Rodarte feel so relevant and deserving of this award as the decade comes to a close.
For their Spring 2020 collection, rather than go the runway route, Kate and Laura Mulleavy produced a romantic photoshoot with all of their best friends. The week-long production, shot by photographer Daria Kobayashi Ritch, featured Lili Reinhart (holding a puppy), Haim, Gabrielle Union, Kiernan Shipka, Rowan Blanchard, Maggie Rogers, Margaret Qualley, and about a dozen other of-the-moment celebs, in a dreamy sculpture garden reminiscent of Renaissance-era France. The dresses followed suit, all covered in tasteful arrays of tulle, sequins, ruffles, and polka dots. The campaign was a viral success.
Anyone who’s seen a Rodarte gown knows that Kate and Laura Mulleavy can design beautiful and lavish fashion. The way they go beyond just dresses, though, is why this win is so right in 2019. Film, art, fashion, and friendship — Rodarte’s paving the way for fashion that is about more than clothing in the decade ahead.
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Before there were influencers, there were people who acted as “muses” to fashion designers and photographers. Amy Fine Collins is one of those people. Collins worked at Home & Garden, Harper’s Bazaar, and finally Vanity Fair, where she spent over 20 years writing about style, culture, and the fashion industry. Designer Geoffrey Beene considered her a close friend and muse until his death in 2004. She’s one of four people Eleanor Lambert bequeathed her infamous International Best Dressed List to and as one would imagine, she’s just as particular about her own personal style as she is about what makes it on the list.
“It’s not quite severe but it’s not soft and gentle,” she continued. “I’m told often that people find me intimidating. My thought is: Why are you so insecure? It’s just an effect that I can have. But, I often feel like I look like a drawing.”
Fine Collins transitioned her glamorous role at Vanity Fair during Condé Nast’s glory days into an editor-at-large position at Airmail, the newsletter of former Editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. She also wrote a book, The International Best Dressed List: The Official Story. So what happens to the “Best Dressed List” in the age of Instagram? Is it better to just go viral? “I think people want to become memes,” she said. “It happened to me one year at the Costume Institute.”
As a rule, Fine Collins only wears clothing designed by friends. “Clothing is so personal. The maker has such a connection to his creation. It merges sensibility, stories, and narratives,” she explained. “I know so much what Thom [Browne] feels and what he thinks and why he does what he does.” Browne plays a lot with androgyny; and because Fine Collins has short hair and what she describes as a slim, muscular figure, she said it’s a perfect match.
But only wearing pieces designed by her friends has not cut down on the amount of clothing in her closet. “I ran out of space ages ago,” she confirmed. There are things in her country home, her mother’s basement, and racks where she says they shouldn’t be. She refuses to use a storage unit because she needs to have “pigments on my palette within reach.”
Fine Collins will never reach for sweatpants, though. “If I had to run out and grab a cup of coffee and I didn’t feel like getting dressed, I would get dressed,” she laughed. “Or I would have the coffee delivered and be my pajamas.”
The commitment to her personal presentation paid off. So much so that she says she was often photobombed when legendary street style photographer Bill Cunningham would take her picture for the New York Times. “It was so important for so many people to be on that page and they never quite understood that it wasn’t about the person,” she said.
The same can be said not just for the International Best Dressed List, but of Fine Collins’ work at Vanity Fair. She hopes as younger people discover her work, they understand how much work went into her larger-than-life stories. “One of the complaints I hear about 18, 19, 20-year-olds, is that they want it right away,” she said. “Everything is work. Part of the skill of being a good anything is doing so much work, but making it look effortless” — not unlike the way Fine Collins gets dressed.
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