Precursor: 19th Costume Designers Guild Awards (2016)

A night of surprises saw the most intricate costumes lose out to commonplace ones with few of the frontrunners (and only one of the Oscar nominees) winning awards. In the period design category, Oscar nominees Florence Foster Jenkins and Jackie lost out to non-nominee Hidden Figures. In the fantasy category, non-nominee Doctor Strange beat out nominee Fantastic Beasts. The one place that wasn’t the case was in contemporary where La La Land triumphed as expected. Does this mean La La Land is going to take the award at the Oscars or does it mean the Academy members saw something different than the guild voters did? The membership in CDG is larger than the Academy membership and when competition is spread out across categories, it’s possible they see something or someone different than Oscar voters. This is also voted on by CDG members only, the Academy Awards are voted on by the entire membership, which includes non-costume designers putting in input. Since Oscar ballots were due last night, before the winners were announced, the unpredictable nature of the winners won’t have an impact on voting.