Lace, Buckles, and Berlin: How Amanda Seyfried Rewrote the Film Festival Dress Code
If there is one truth the fashion world holds self-evident, it is this: when Amanda Seyfried steps into a room, the room rearranges itself around her. At the 76th Berlinale International Film Festival, held at Berlin’s eternally glamorous Grand Hyatt Hotel, the actress delivered what may already be the season’s most quietly devastating style moment — a photo call look for her hotly anticipated film The Testament of Ann Lee that balanced intellectual restraint with an almost mischievous undercurrent of femininity. The vehicle of choice? Miu Miu, head to toe, naturally.
Working alongside her longtime collaborator and stylist Elizabeth Stewart — the woman responsible for some of Hollywood’s most consistently refined red carpet narratives — Seyfried arrived in a fit-and-flare dress constructed entirely from black crochet lace. It was, in the most elegant sense, an act of sartorial subversion. Where recent celebrity dressing has leaned into maximalist grandeur, this look offered something far more considered: an airy, breathable silhouette that whispered rather than shouted. Ruffled sleeves lent structure and romance simultaneously, while the sheer lacework offered tantalizing glimpses of what appeared to be a white and pale blue lingerie set — or perhaps, in the most Miu Miu fashion possible, a coordinating bikini. The ambiguity, one suspects, was entirely intentional.
But it is the shoes that will occupy the fashion conversation for weeks to come. Seyfried slipped her feet into Miu Miu’s now-iconic patent leather slingbacks — a silhouette that has quietly conquered the style world with the confidence of a house that has nothing left to prove. Three delicate straps fan across the vamp, each punctuated by the daintiest of metal buckles, while a slim slingback strap secured with a secondary side buckle ensures the shoe stays precisely where it belongs. The 105mm varnished heel, leather sole, and rubber heel tip complete a shoe that is simultaneously sculptural and supremely wearable. Retailing at $1,420 and beloved by the likes of Gigi Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, these slingbacks have cemented themselves as the defining shoe of the moment — and Seyfried has now added her name to their distinguished roster of devotees.
Her beauty choices maintained the look’s refined mood: softly tousled waves, dark feathered brows, and the faintest wash of mauve blush across angular cheekbones. Nothing competed; everything elevated.
At the subsequent press conference, Seyfried discussed her transformative role — singing original hymns in a lilting Mancunian accent, leading interpretive dances, and inhabiting a self-styled “female Christ” — alongside the box office triumph of The Housemaid with co-star Sydney Sweeney. With a performance this all-encompassing, her wardrobe simply had to keep pace.
