Natalie Portman: “The First Dress I Ever Wore on a Red Carpet Was My Bat Mitzvah Dress”

Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy in the film Jackie (2016) / PR

With decades of red carpet experience behind her, usually in Dior, Natalie Portman has over time found what she considers the perfect style groove for herself. The Israeli-American Oscar-winning actress celebrated her 45th birthday this week, and the American magazine W looked back at the evolution of her looks, balancing Hollywood glow with a romantic vision.

As part of promoting outfits pulled from the archival closet, a short video resurfaced from an interview with the Black Swan and Marvel star, filmed about two years ago.

1994: In a black Betsy Johnson dress

In the clip, Portman says that the first dress she ever wore on a red carpet was her bat mitzvah dress. “My first outfit on the red carpet was a black Betsy Johnson dress that I wore to my bat mitzvah. Over it, my mother bought me a faux fur coat with a cow print. And I brushed my hair back like that, the wet look. It was very nineties, it was good in the nineties.”

That same young star, then making her red carpet debut in 1994 thanks to her first leading role in the film Léon, could not have known that it would be the look that marked the beginning of three more decades of glossier, more polished professional looks on the red carpet. Rare are the times you catch her not in Dior / GettyImages, Pascal Le Segretain