Listen to Zendaya’s British Vogue cover interview from the October 2021 issue:
When British Vogue’s October 2021 cover star Zendaya stepped onto the blue carpet at the Critics’ Choice Awards in January last year, she had no idea it would be one of the last ceremonies she would attend for a while. Lucky, then, that she pulled out all the stops for the occasion.
The Euphoria star is now well established as a red-carpet dresser to watch, but it was her fuchsia Tom Ford breastplate for the CCAs that helped to put her in that position – the look caused something of a storm on social media and among her fans (the “Z-swaggers”, as she confesses in her British Vogue video to inadvertently christening them).
Writing for Vogue.co.uk, Shonagh Marshall declared Zendaya’s look “exactly the kind of red-carpet moment we needed to kickstart 2020”. Now, with the knowledge of what lay ahead, it reads as an even more necessary jolt of vibrancy and colour. The star masterminded the outfit with the aid of super stylist – and her fashion right hand man – Law Roach, with whom she’s been working since she was just 15. Thanks to Roach, Zendaya is increasingly bold with her choices, and never afraid to take a risk (the stylist called her a “warrior woman” on Instagram after the awards).
In the video that accompanies her Vogue cover shoot, the star offered some insight into the commitment required to create that defining red-carpet look. “[The Tom Ford team] came to my house, and I stood topless in my living room while they had this machine that scanned my boobs,” she recalls.
Zendaya’s fuchsia flowing skirt with matching breastplate was a custom version of look 39 from Ford’s spring/summer 2020 showcase, originally worn by model Ajok Madel on the runway. Ahead of the awards ceremony, the “lovely” design team were tasked with moulding the breastplate to fit her frame perfectly. “It’s beautiful and I got to keep it,” she says in the video. “Thank you, Tom Ford.”
Her Vogue video also answers a question many fashion fans may have pondered upon seeing her hit the red carpet in that metal crop top: what about the sweat factor? “Here’s the thing,” Zendaya says. “Looking at it I see how you would think that. But on the inside, it was lined in some type of absorbent fabric that was really soft and lovely – so no, there were no real boob sweat issues for me. My boobs are forever immortalised in Tom Ford chrome.”
The October 2021 issue of British Vogue is on newsstands on Friday 10 September
