Amy Adams' stunning silver-gray Oscars dress was inspired by a black-and-white photograph.
The Master star took photos and ideas to Oscar de la Renta for her Academy Awards dress and he was particularly taken by an old picture of a model walking into a doorway.
Miss Adams' stylist Cristina Ehrlich told People that it was a 'real "aha" moment' for the designer when he saw the image and he used it as a base to create her dramatic beaded and tulle-embellished gown.
The fashion house worked hard to get the dress exactly right and were still making changes just hours before Miss Adams, 38, walked the red carpet at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.
André Leon Talley, a former Vogue editor and front-row regular, said Miss Adams' dress got his best-dressed 'top honors'.
He wrote on Vogue.com: 'Her grand Oscar de la Renta skirt looks light and dramatic, the way a train should on a ball dress, and its powder-blue shade was the most sophisticated and subtle nuance of color on the carpet.
'Even though the dress was strapless, the frothiness of the skirt made her look original.'
Explaining the amount of detail that went into the finished design Ms Ehrlich said: 'If you zoom in [on the skirt's tiers] there are these little tiny eyelashes. Every little layer, every single eyelash was pulled by hand.
The design team also played with different types of beading on the bodice to ensure it was the perfect look.
Another important part was getting the right fit for the 5ft 4in star.
'[Amy is] very realistic that she's not a 5ft 11in runway model... There were a lot of changes that we were doing up until the very final moment,' Ms Ehrlich explained.
And the best supporting actress nominee was thrilled with the finished gown.
Ms Ehrlich said: 'The first time she put the dress, she was like sashaying through the office. You could tell that she was having that fairytale moment.'
She debuted the dress on the red carpet as her fiance Darren Le Gallo proudly watched.
Later in the evening she changed into a more manageable Oscar de la Renta dress from his pre-fall 2013 collection for the Vanity Fair Party.
The flapper-style dress featured silver fringing, which she accessorized with diamond drop earrings.