Anne Hathaway’s Style Evolution Through the Years

Anne Hathaway has been walking red carpets for a quarter of a century, and her wardrobe has moved with her career: from the sweet, uncomplicated dresses of a young studio star to Oscar-night couture and, more recently, a bolder run of archival and runway pieces. Tracing the looks year by year shows a taste that has always leaned classic, but has grown noticeably braver.

The early years: simple and youthful

At the 2001 premiere of The Princess Diaries, the film that made her famous, Hathaway wore a simple strapless mauve dress. Three years later, for the Ella Enchanted premiere, she layered a pink dress over jeans, a very early-2000s combination, and for The Princess Diaries 2 she chose boot-cut jeans with a sparkly grey wrap shirt. These were the choices of a young actress dressing like her peers rather than for the history books.

There were already hints of what was to come. At the 2003 Golden Globes she wore an empire-waist dress by Elie Saab, a designer she would return to years later.

Finding a red carpet language

After The Devil Wears Prada in 2006, her appearances became more polished and more couture-driven. At the 2007 Academy Awards she wore a strapless Valentino lace gown finished with a black embellished bow at the front; in 2008 she chose a draped one-shoulder Marchesa dress. The pattern that defined this period was clear: long, clean columns, strong single details, and very little fuss in the accessories.

Her first Oscar nomination, for Rachel Getting Married, brought a paillette-covered Armani Privé gown to the 2009 ceremony. Armani Privé also dressed her for the 2009 Golden Globes in a dark blue strapless gown with an embellished bodice, and for the 2011 Globes in a bronze dress with an open back.

Host, then winner

When she co-hosted the Oscars in 2011, Hathaway walked the carpet in a Valentino couture gown from the fall 2002 collection, an early example of her willingness to wear archive pieces long before vintage became a red carpet talking point.

Two years later she won Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables in a pale pink Prada column with a halter neck and an open back finished with a knot at the waist. She wore it with her short, cropped hair from the film and a diamond necklace worn backwards. The dress was mocked online at the time for the seaming across the bust, but it has since been reassessed by fashion writers as a minimal look ahead of its moment. That same awards season she also wore a white Chanel couture gown with a slim peplum to the Golden Globes and a Giambattista Valli couture dress with a tulle overskirt to the SAG Awards.

The Met Gala as a playground

The Met Gala has given Hathaway room to be more theatrical than a premiere allows. Some of her most talked-about appearances:

• 2010: a strapless gold Valentino dress with a full tulle skirt.
• 2015: a custom gold lamé Ralph Lauren column with a hood.
• 2018: Valentino couture topped with a sunburst halo crown.
• 2023: a white tweed Versace gown threaded with gold, its cutouts held by pearl and Medusa safety pins, designed as a meeting of Versace and Chanel codes for the Karl Lagerfeld theme and a clear nod to Elizabeth Hurley’s 1994 safety-pin dress.
• 2025: Carolina Herrera, pairing a crisp white button-up shirt with an embellished skirt.

The recent reinvention

From around 2022, working with stylist Erin Walsh, Hathaway entered what many fashion writers called a style renaissance. Highlights included a head-to-toe pink Valentino look at the house’s couture show, a custom white Armani Privé gown for her first Cannes Film Festival, worn with a Bulgari diamond and sapphire necklace, and cut-out and colourful pieces by David Koma and Christopher John Rogers. Walsh has described the approach simply: “Life’s too short not to make bold decisions. And in fashion you have nothing to lose, it’s just clothes.”

The looks since then have kept that spirit. At the 2023 Fashion Awards she wore an archival Valentino design from spring 1993, and for The Idea of You premiere in 2024 a red Versace gown. In 2026 she returned to the Oscars in a floral Valentino couture gown, and for the Seoul premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2 chose a dress by Susan Fang.

What stays constant

Across all these phases, a few habits hold. Hathaway favours long, elongating silhouettes, one strong idea per outfit and statement jewellery worn against otherwise clean lines. She also returns to the same houses, Valentino, Armani Privé and Versace above all, which gives her red carpet history a consistency that makes each risk read as an evolution rather than a costume change.