Julia Roberts's Oscar Dress Lies in a Box Under the Bed: A 1992 Valentino, Chosen 24 Hours Before the Ceremony and Kept for Her Daughter

One of the most famous black dresses in Oscar history isn't in a museum. It isn't in a safe either. Julia Roberts, who turned 59 on 28 October, keeps it in a box under the bed and is saving it for her daughter Hazel.

On 25 March 2001 Roberts won the Oscar for Best Actress for "Erin Brockovich", up against Ellen Burstyn and Juliette Binoche. She was considered the first woman to earn 20 million dollars for a single film. A star like that was expected to wear a new, made-to-measure gown. She walked out in something almost nine years old.

The dress is Valentino, haute couture shown in July 1992: black velvet and tulle, white satin bands forming a "V" at the neckline and a two-tone train. The silhouette carries the spirit of the femmes fatales of the forties, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake. Roberts and her stylist chose it 24 hours before the ceremony at Lily et Cie, a vintage shop in Beverly Hills, the same place Penélope Cruz got her Balmain in 2009 for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona".

The strongest line about fashion that night came from the actress herself, without meaning it to: "We didn't do anything to it, it fit me perfectly." An industry that lives off a new collection every six months got a lesson from a dress nearly a decade old.

Valentino himself, who died in January 2026, said: "I have dressed many people, but Julia Roberts made my dress truly famous." Luis Javier Merino, a fashion editor, goes further: with that choice, he says, she changed the history of fashion. Exaggerated? Maybe. But after her Zendaya, Ariana Grande, Bella Hadid and Margot Robbie began bringing vintage to the red carpet, and what was a whim became a normal choice.

The rest of the story is the least Hollywood part. Hazel, born in 2004, nearly wore the dress to her prom, unaware it was part of fashion history. Her mother is keeping it to hand it down, under the bed.

Any grandmother in the Balkans would understand this without translation. A trousseau chest, a wedding dress wrapped in a sheet, a box taken out only for big days. The difference is that this box holds a whole chapter of fashion history. The logic doesn't change: you don't throw out something beautiful, you keep it for your daughter.