Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock"It looks like the ocean on her."
When asked to describe Mandy Moore's 2018 SAG Awards ensemble, stylist to the stars Erica Cloud offered that vibrant depiction. Her client, a first-time SAG Award nominee this year for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble, stepped out on the red carpet on Sunday quite literally shimmering in a sequin royal blue custom slip gown by Ralph Lauren. To compliment the sea theme, Moore's ears were adorned with green and blue starfish-esque earrings by Niwaka and her eye makeup was a mix of bronze and blue, the work of makeup artist Jenn Streicher. "She almost looks like the sunset in the ocean," Cloud elaborated.
As the stylist revealed to E! News, the look is a full-circle nod to a dress she wore more than a decade ago. "One of my all-time favorite dresses is the Ralph Lauren that she wore to the Saved premiere," the stylist said. "It was just this beautiful slip dress and I remember thinking, 'Wow, that's a perfect dress,' I cut it out of InStyle magazine and saved the clipping."
Tonight, the dress returned for a modern revival. "They sent us her original dress and we made slight alterations to how we wanted them to make it, but we basically remade that dress in custom fabric," Cloud explained.
The story is fitting considering now 33 years old, a first-time SAG Award nominee and more than 20 years into her Hollywood career, the This Is Us star is on a fresh page of her newest professional chapter and her gown is a stylish signal of that. As Cloud acknowledged, the dress is symbolic "of her kind of rebirth that she's had over the past year."
Of course, before Moore could set foot on the red carpet in her custom creation, there were choices to be made and prep to be done. Cloud swears by multiple fittings to avoid any potential mishaps on the day of the main event. "I've had a time where someone's gone out the door and a seam split and they walked back in the door and I had to take it off and sew it myself and then send them on their way, so you just kind of have to be prepared for anything," she recalled.
Cloud, who styled both Moore and Downsizing nominee Hong Chau—a standout in a whimsical canary yellow Rodarte creation—for Sunday's show, has seemingly mastered the art of being prepared for anything. As such, there are a few tricks she's picked up along the way. For example, she rubs Lord Jones CBD lotion on Moore's feet to soothe the pain of high heels. For an emergency last-minute fix, she tucks some Topstick double-sided tape into her clients' clutches. And yes, she's a fan of a good pair of Spanx.
As she revealed, "I am a huge fan of the thin high-waisted Spanx because they just make them so thin now and they just really are nice smoothing and the same with the Commando high-wasted slip."
Aren't we all!