Fashion & Beauty

How Zac Posen got his groove back

At the turn of this decade, designer Zac Posen was practically passé.

The Soho-reared boy wonder who’d been generating buzz since even before launching his label in 2001 was, by 2009, laying off employees and forging a sour reputation.

“Zac was always ridiculous,” a stylist who worked on Posen’s runway shows told Page Six magazine in 2011. “But then he became a parody of himself. People around him have a head for business and try to rein him in, but he’s never had to work from the bottom up, and he’s too used to everyone flapping around him to notice that his name doesn’t mean what it used to.” In the same feature, a magazine editor put it another way: “Zac Posen is like a ‘Zoolander’ character.”

After burning bridges and taking his poorly-received fall 2010 runway show from New York to Paris, it seemed Posen would play victim to a clichéd, hubris-laden, Icarus-type downfall. But, like Scarlett O’Hara hell-bent on rebuilding Tara, the designer quietly repositioned himself in fashion one well-constructed curtain at a time. The industry, ever-so-fickle but also forgiving, has reinvited him to the ball.

In fact, this year the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly inaugurated Anna Wintour Costume Center themed its annual extravaganza around midcentury couturier Charles James, one of Posen’s biggest influences. Subsequently, practically everyone not wearing Posen on the gala’s ill-fated red carpet looked a little subpar.

Just call it the Zac Posen zeitgeist, which should come as no surprise. In a world of normcore, couture sneakers and gender-bending minimalism, folks are clearly starved for some good old-fashioned glamour.

Click through to see the celebs kindling Posen’s riveting revival.

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Idina Menzel
At the Tony Awards on Sunday, Idina Menzel hit her highest style note to date in Posen’s form-flattering creation.Invision/AP
Broadway darling Celia Keenan-Bolger went with a bold pop of orange for her turn at the Tonys.EPA
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Lena Hall
Lena Hall, who won the Tony for her role in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” brought all the drama to life in this strapless structured gown.Reuters
Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig . . . or Garbo? The indie actress looked an Old Hollywood dream at the CFDA Awards on June 2.Splash News
Bella Thorne
Budding starlet Bella Thorne looked all grown-up in a blush gown at the “Blended” LA premiere in May.Startraks
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Dita Von Teese and Zac Posen are two peas in a retro pod, so it only makes sense the burlesque star stole the show at May’s Met Gala.Startraks
Liu Wen
Top model Liu Wen made an even bigger statement in Posen’s teal folds.Getty Images
Katie Holmes
For a rare red carpet appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, Katie Holmes kicked it in an expertly-cut dress that turned heads.Startraks
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Jane Krakowski
Who knew Jenna could actually be convincing? Back in February, Jane Krakowski wowed like never before at the amFAR Gala in this emerald green number.Invision/AP
Sarah Hyland
Sarah Hyland vamped it up Posen-style at the “Vampire Academy” LA premiere in February.Startraks
Sofia Vergara
At the Golden Globes in January, Sofia Vergara used Posen’s statement-making design as a stage for an even-bigger-statement-making turquoise necklace.Getty Images
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Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham ditched flannels for glamour in Posen’s canary yellow gown inspired by John Singer-Sargent’s “Madame X.” “People wouldn’t expect me to care about things like fit, but when you’re a curvier woman, you especially notice it,” she told the New York Times about working with Posen.WireImage
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