DRAGON: Scarlett Johansson / Seeing Scarlett

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Scarlett Johansson / Seeing Scarlett

Arresting even at the age of 16, Scarlett was a quick study when it came to dressing smartly, with a keen eye for cool and some age-appropriate quirk. “There’s no reason to dumb things down just because you’re working with kids,” she once said, discussing roles that required her to act beyond her age. The actress’s first professional gig was in the Off Broadway play Sophistry, with Ethan Hawke. She was eight. In strapless black Prada at the 2000 Vanity Fair Oscar party, she had just begun filming Ghost World.

Scarlett Johansson

Seeing Scarlett

You may think of Scarlett Johansson as a classic Nordic nymph, but over the years she’s channeled many kinds of women. At one premiere, she can look like she walked straight off the set of La Dolce Vita. On another red carpet, she’s a sci-fi space queen. Famous since she was a pre-teen, Scarlett has had plenty of time to fine-tune her style. As she tells Peter Biskind in the December cover story of Vanity Fair, “I know my best angles.” See a collection of her best looks.

A Marilyn tribute can trip up even the most well-meaning starlet, but Scarlett nailed it (albeit subtly) with a white halter at a New York charity event in 2003. Isn’t it delicious?

Lost in Translation (2003) solidified Scarlett asserious, with attendant italics, which meant suiting up for a New York premiere in plunging cream Dolce & Gabbana.

At the 2004 Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Ball, the theme was Dangerous Liaisons,and Scarlett was classic in custom canary Calvin.

A verdant vixen in Alberta Ferretti in 2004.

In Cannes, Scarlett played the muse in custom Imitation of Christ (the N.Y. fashion label for which she briefly consulted) with Match Point director Woody Allen in 2005. “It’s very hard to be extra witty around a sexually overwhelming, beautiful young woman who is wittier than you are,” Woody said. “Anytime I say anything amusing, Scarlett tops me.”

Scarlett turned into a 50s siren (courtesy of head-turning Roland Mouret gown) at the Golden Globes in 2005. “I love Marilyn. I think she was incredibly beautiful and a very underrated actress. I am a curvy woman who is blonde, and perhaps we are both comfortable in our femininity, but I think that is as far as the comparison goes.”

She wore Roland Mouret again at the Vanity FairOscar party in 2005.

This red Valentino proved irresistible to red-carpet interviewer Isaac Mizrahi, who got famously fresh with the Match Point nominee during a 2006 interview that became the fashion story of the night. Oggling may be unavoidable, but hands to yourself!

This snug Marchesa cocktail dress, which she wore to the London premiere of The Island in 2005, is completely plain on the front. Not that she needs help getting attention from any angle.

In 2008, Scarlett floated up the steps to the Met Ball in an ethereal custom Dolce & Gabbana. In the coming seasons, she would be the face for the designers’ fragrance, lingerie, and makeup campaigns. A match made in Madison Avenue heaven.

Here the downtown blonde played a Park Avenue brunette in Oscar de la Renta at the premiere ofHe’s Just Not That into You, in 2009.

Scarlett gave fans some extra-special effects in galactic Armani Privé at the London premiere ofIron Man 2, in 2010. Johansson played brainy legal aide Natalie Rushman and her alter ego, undercover spy Natalia Romanoff.

At the Dolce & Gabbana Spring/Summer 2012 show earlier this year, she was every bit the Dolce Vita dame. For a Swedish gal, she has no trouble channeling a Sicilian sexpot.