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Say you\u2019re playing a word association game and someone gives you \u201cOscars.\u201d Somewhere in the first five words you might venture\u2014statues, awards, Billy Crystal<\/strong>\u2014will be the phrase \u201cred carpet.\u201d It\u2019s such a ubiquitous element of the entertainment industry\u2019s biggest awards show that E! built an entire franchise around it. Not to give too much of a glimpse behind the curtain here at VF.com, but we know how you search for awards show fashion\u2014and there are two particular words<\/a> that get you there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet the Oscars are betting this year that a champagne<\/em> carpet might be a change worth investing in. At a ceremony outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, host Jimmy Kimmel,<\/strong> Academy CEO Bill Kramer,<\/strong> and Academy president Janet Yang<\/strong> were on hand for the rollout of the arrivals carpet, which this year will be a distinctly muted champagne\/sand\/beige shade. Kimmel was ready with a joke about the carpet that, perhaps inevitably, referenced The Slap: \u201cPeople have been asking, \u2018Is there going to be any trouble this year? Is there going to be any violence this year?\u2019 And we certainly hope not,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if there is, I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible the production team will shed more light on the change at a press conference later on Wednesday, but they\u2019re well aware of the precedent they\u2019re breaking. According to ABC<\/a>, the Oscar arrivals carpet has been red since 1961.\u00a0<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As anyone who has entered the Vanity Fair<\/em> Oscar party knows, the red carpet is a state of mind, even if said carpet is green-and-white striped<\/a> or a particularly lovely peacock blue<\/a>. Odds are you will still see a lot of TV hosts referring to the \u201cred carpet\u201d on Oscar Sunday out of force of habit, and we can only hope that anyone who was planning to wear a champagne-colored gown got some fair warning so they don\u2019t risk blending into the background.\u00a0<\/p>\n The main question this raises, though, is how many other changes are in store, as the Oscars continue their seemingly endless efforts to tweak traditions and gain new viewers. A new carpet is a much better gambit than, say, eliminating some categories<\/a> from the telecast, or inventing new categories that are awarded by bots<\/a>. Maybe the champagne carpet is a preview of potential other changes to come: subtle, classy, something you might not even notice at first.\u00a0<\/p>\n Or maybe it\u2019s just fixing something that wasn\u2019t broken in the first place\u2014another Oscar telecast tradition we may not be rid of yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Listen to<\/em> Vanity Fair\u2019s<\/em> Little Gold Men podcast now.<\/em><\/p>\nTwitter content<\/h4>\n
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