It’s not every day you walk your first Emmys red carpet with a nomination—much less in a custom, one-of-a-kind gown created by designer Brandon Blackwood. But that’s exactly what Sheryl Lee Ralph did tonight.
The Abbott Elementary actor wore a body-hugging strapless gown with an orange inner lining that featured a daring high slit. The star, who’s up for best supporting actress in a comedy series, paired the dress with one of Blackwood’s signature trunk bags covered in dazzling heat-stamped orange crystals. The bling didn’t stop there, though. Ralph incorporated cascading crystals in her braid and on sparkling tennis bracelets. They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and after this look, I see why.
“I flew straight from Tokyo to LA to meet Sheryl with the dresses,” Blackwood exclusively tells Glamour. The look took four days to make. “We did two sketches and ended up making two dresses. The dress is black velvet lined with duchesse satin. It’s our first gown ever.” The designer’s handbags have been a hit among his A-list clientele, including rapper and certified icy girl Saweetie and RuPaul’s Drag Race star Naomi Smalls. If his bags are any indication of the clothing that may be to come, it’s going to be nothing short of spectacular.
“Black is anything but basic. It is classic. It is chic. It is timeless,” Sheryl Lee Ralph told red-carpet reporters.
Ralph was previously a Glamour College Woman of the Year—an honor she’s proud of to this day. During a luncheon hosted by Glamour, Glamour editor in chief Samantha Barry presented the actor with a nostalgic memento—a framed issue of Ralph’s article inside the 1975 issue.
“I was a sophomore at Rutgers College, and when I found out that I won, it was a big deal because Rutgers was a historically male college, so I was in the first class of women,” Ralph told the other guests. “And winning this made all the men on campus wonder, ‘What the hell is going on?’ The president of the university invited me down and he said, ‘For the first class of women, for you to make a global statement, we are so proud that we made the right choice.’”
