Awards Season Isn’t About Dresses. It’s About Confidence in Public

Jenny Slate at the 2023 Astra HCA Awards

What the red carpet reveals about belonging, composure, and having fun in rooms that can feel intimidating

Awards season looks like a parade of gowns, flashbulbs, and velvet ropes. And yes, the fashion is part of the magic. It is beautiful. It is theatrical. It is the most visible version of black tie culture we have.

But after spending time inside these rooms, I have come to believe something else is happening too.

Awards season is not really about dresses.

It is about confidence in public.

It is about walking into a room where everyone seems to know what they are doing, where the stakes feel high even if you are “just a guest,” and finding a way to settle into yourself anyway. It is about being seen, photographed, and watched, and still managing to enjoy the night. It is about belonging, whether you are a celebrity, a nominee, a critic, a seat filler, or an attendee who simply loves this world.

That is why I cover awards season. Not to rank best and worst looks, but because these nights reveal how people move through high-visibility moments, and what confidence actually looks like when it is being tested.

Not all awards categories are created equal

One of the things people do not realize from the outside is that awards season is not one uniform experience. Some awards shows are enormous productions where everyone arrives with an entourage. Others are smaller, more intimate rooms where people show up alone, sometimes for the first time, unsure of how it all works.

I will never forget sitting at a table with a nominee who quietly asked something like, “Am I in the right place? Is this the right time?”

She did not have a large team around her. She was not sweeping into the room with confidence and cameras trailing behind her. She was a talented woman who had been recognized, and she was trying to make sure she was not missing something. She was trying to orient herself in a world where the rules are never fully stated out loud.

I happened to know the producer, and I got them together. The moment she was reassured, you could see the shift. Her shoulders relaxed. Her smile softened. She was back in her body. She belonged again.

That moment stayed with me because it reminded me of how many times I have felt that way, just as an attendee. Not any pressure from being nominated, but just about being in a room where everyone else seems to have a map I did not receive.

You know the feeling.

You walk in and wonder if you are late. Or early. Or in the wrong line. Or supposed to be standing somewhere else. Everyone looks like they know exactly what is happening, and you are just trying to look natural while your brain is running logistics.

I have needed someone reassuring like me at times. Someone who says, with warmth, “Yes, you are in the right place. This is how it works. You’re fine.”

And that is one of the reasons I created Gala Girl.

Because black tie is not hard because of the rules. It is hard because the rules are often invisible. And when you do not know them, it is easy to feel like you are the only person who is uncertain.

You are not.

Confidence is not loud

The second thing awards season teaches you is that confidence does not always look like being the most dressed up person in the room. Often, it looks like ease.

I love confident nominees.

Not the ones who act like they are too cool to care. I mean the ones who are fully present, fully grateful, and fully themselves.

The nominees who tell you, “Whether I win or not, this was my best job ever, and I did the best I could have done.”

Those are the people who walk away with joy in their heart whether they win or not. They have already decided that the experience itself is meaningful. They are not waiting for the trophy to validate them.

And you can feel it.

That kind of confidence changes the entire atmosphere around a person. It makes them magnetic, not because they are performing, but because they are grounded. They are celebrating. They are in the moment.

It is also deeply instructive.

Because we tend to think of confidence as something you either have or do not have, and awards season shows you that it is often a choice. A mindset. A willingness to enjoy yourself.

The red carpet is a pressure cooker

Red carpets are one of the strangest social environments in the world.

There are cameras. There is noise. There are photographers calling names, telling you which way to turn, which way to look, fix your hair, smile. There are publicists and handlers and strangers moving quickly. There are moments where you are being watched intensely, and moments where you feel invisible.

And yet, some people manage to look peaceful.

When you watch closely, you start to realize what makes the difference.

Confidence on the red carpet is not just about wearing something beautiful. It is about how you move inside that beauty.

It looks like:

• standing tall without stiffness

• knowing what to do with your hands

• not tugging at the dress every two seconds

• smiling like you mean it

• being present, not performing panic

In other words, confidence photographs well.

It always has.

And the women who look most striking are often not the ones wearing the most dramatic dress. They are the ones who look like they belong in whatever they are wearing.

What this has to do with you

You might think, “That’s Hollywood. That’s not my life.”

But if you have ever:

• walked into a gala and wondered if you were overdressed or underdressed

• arrived at a fundraiser and felt awkward in the first 10 minutes

• worried you were not part of the “real crowd”

• felt unsure about what to do once you got there

Then you already understand the emotional core of this.

Awards season just makes it visible.

Because whether you are attending the Golden Globes, a museum gala, a charity dinner, or a formal wedding, the moment is often the same.

You are stepping into a room that asks you to be polished, social, and confident.

And the question underneath the dress is not, “Am I dressed correctly?”

It is, “Do I feel like I belong here?”

That is why I focus so much on confidence. Because the dress is not the only thing that needs to fit. You need to fit too, emotionally. You need to feel comfortable enough to enjoy the night.

And you deserve that.

The Gala Girl promise

I am grateful to be in these rooms. I am grateful to see the gowns, the craft, the beauty. But

I am even more interested in what these nights reveal about human beings.

We all want to feel at ease. We all want to feel beautiful. We all want to feel like we belong.

Gala Girl is not about rules for the sake of rules.

It is about creating options, context, and reassurance, so you can walk into your next formal event feeling more like yourself, not less.

And yes, we will talk about the dresses. We will talk about trends. We will talk about what’s repeating and what’s fading.

But we will also talk about the part that matters most.

How to show up with confidence, in public, and still have fun.

If you want to follow along with my awards season coverage, subscribe, it’s free. I will be posting throughout beginning with Critics Choice, the Astras and the Golden Globes, and I will translate what I see into real-world black tie advice you can actually use.

Stay with me. We will explore it together.

Warmly,

Edie Ellis

The Gala Girl