“Though I had been to Cannes to accept the Trophée Chopard, this year was my first real Cannes as an actress with a film in the festival. We were there for Troy, and this dress was the first time I ever got to wear anything like that. Karl Lagerfeld made it for me. Karl very famously, in the beginning at least, was very much against celebrity dressing. He didn’t want to design evening gowns so celebrities could wear them on the red carpet. He hated that culture for a long time. They didn’t have anything in their recent collection for me, so I remember going to their office to meet with him. I was so young and so impressed by all of it. He literally asked me, ‘What do you want to wear? I’ll make you anything.’ I told him that I loved camellias and the color light blue. He designed it right in front of me. He started over three times and I still have the sketch of the original design. It was a fairytale moment. That was a very special day.”

“Funny enough, Karl Lagerfeld had never been to Cannes. I was hosting the ceremony, and my film was the closing night film of the festival that year. In the film [Days of Darkness by Denys Arcand], I play a movie star. Chanel had agreed to give me all the clothes that my character wears in the movie. Karl was very much in this film so I had this idea to ask him to be my date for the festival. He’d never been, and he made the dress for me that night. He was really excited to be there, actually, and it was fun. He’d been to a million events in his life, and so it was surprising to me that he’d never attended. He was laughing the whole time, telling the funniest stories and commenting on everybody’s outfits and what he thought. It was a very special night.”

“This is Nina Ricci, and the designer at the time, Peter Copping, designed this for me. The dress arrived the day before I was supposed to wear it. Fun fact about this dress is that because it has cutouts and lace, you can see skin underneath so it appeared completely sheer when I tried it on. It was a huge panic, and I had to find a seamstress in Cannes at 7 p.m., and ask her to line it for me because you could literally see my underwear. It was a crazy last-minute fix but it worked.”

“I was a jury member, which requires a marathon of looks to pull. It’s insanity. I had to get an extra hotel room just for all the gowns. I went to Dior in Paris to look for dresses, and I pulled this from the archives. At first, they didn’t want to give it to me because it was an archival piece and then we wanted to alter it because it was too long for me and that was an issue. But once I tried it on, the said, ‘OK, that’s your dress.’ But the night I wore it, it was pouring rain in Cannes. The jury members had a short walk from the Palais to the red carpet steps and by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was soaked. I’m sure it was ruined but there was nothing I could do.”

“This was Giambattista Valli, and it came in as a sketch last minute. I wasn’t 100 percent sure that it was going to work but then when we had the fitting, the color was just incredible and it worked. A little bit of magic happened on the red carpet because there was a lot of wind that day and the dress was billowing everywhere. The picture doesn’t quite do it justice but it was so magical and it made for a perfect shot at sunset. I love the dress and the color. It’s a very memorable dress for me.”

“I love this dress. It’s funny because I would’ve never pulled it for myself. My friend, who was helping me to pull dresses in Los Angeles, threw this in. It’s an off-the-rack Vivienne Westwood, and it fit like a glove. I don’t necessarily wear dresses like that very often but I loved it. I remember that night because the movie, Amour, was so great. I was on the jury and we ended up giving that movie the Palme d’Or.”

“I wore this for a photo call for my movie, Disorder, and we were in competition. I thought it was a perfect, light blue dress for a photo call. I love the color for Cannes and I love that movie as well. I thought it was a fresh choice for the occasion.”

“This was a Chanel dress that I wore for amfAR, a short one so nobody would step on the train. I love Chanel and was very good friends with Karl Lagerfeld so it was always an easy pull for me because he was my friend and would literally give me anything I wanted.”

“This Prada was also a last minute pick. I was filming in South Africa at the time, and I came in late to the festival. I had a dress with me that I didn’t love so I went to Prada’s suite to see if there was anything more exciting than what I had. There were two dresses and they put them together for me overnight. It was super duper heavy to wear, and it’s probably one of my favorite dresses that I’ve ever worn.”

“This dress was made by my friend, Jason Wu, who had his 10-year anniversary that same year. I went to the runway show and there was a short version of this dress as part of the collection. Given the theme of my movie, In the Fade, I thought black or something more muted would be a right choice rather than a big gown. It was very comfortable but I was incredibly nervous walking up the steps that night. I remember Jason flew into Cannes to hand deliver me the dress. It looks sheer but they made a lining that was a perfect match to my skin.”

“I wanted something really whimsical and romantic and this dress was in the Dior collection that year. When they first delivered it, it didn’t have any of the embroidery and it looked a little plain. I asked if they wouldn’t mind adding something to it. They took it back and made this for me, and it took another hundred hours or so to add all the details to it and it turned out beautiful.”

“You don’t know if your movie will win anything but I was invited to attend the closing ceremony that year. I had put this dress into my luggage as a backup to have something to wear. It didn’t really fit 100 percent, and it was kind of falling off. But I’m glad that I picked it because wearing a black dress was a good choice as you don’t want something too over the top to overshadow the moment. [Kruger won best actress for Fatih Akin’s In the Fade.] Our movie screened Friday night, and we worked doing press all day Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I got the call that I needed to stay, and it was a special night with this beautiful award. I love it.”

“This was special because it was the first time Norman came with me to the festival. Sophie Marceau was definitely the inspiration here. I had never done a red dress before and I worked with Karla Otto as a stylist because I was filming a movie in the South of France then and I didn’t have any time to really look for dresses or do any fittings. She pulled this Oscar de la Renta dress for me for a special night that was a tribute to all the past winners of the Palme d’Or and I was invited to be part of that group. I loved it, it was so beautiful though not an easy dress to navigate because it was such a huge gown.”

“This is one of my favorite dresses ever. I had never really worn Versace on the red carpet and this was a fully designed gown for me. It was really a dream. The futuristic elements felt right for a [David] Cronenberg film, [The Shrouds]. I found a reference from a Versace show in the early 1990s, and I was really adamant about this electric blue color. They made it as an iconic Versace chain mail dress so it felt like armor. When I went for the final fitting, it was kind of a light blue and I was a little disappointed. But apparently electric blue is hard to get on rhinestones with all of that mesh metal so they spray painted it the day before the red carpet.”

“This was something suggested for me, which can be what happens when you work with a great fashion house. I never would’ve picked it for myself because I don’t wear suiting very often, weirdly, even though I really like it. When I pull stuff, it’s not what I think about for myself at first. I tried it on the day before the event and I just fell in love with the weird shape. It felt so modern and so right for that party. Sometimes I get gown fatigue in Cannes because there’s so much of it. This was a nice break.”

“Prabal Gurung is a personal friend, and I thought this suit was perfect for the occasion (Breaking Through the Lens) because I was speaking about the cause, which was empowering women and minorities in film and acting as an advocate for the kinds of stories we need to tell. The suit felt powerful yet girl at the same time with all of the sequins. I felt like the look sent a strong message for that particular event.”

“I love this because of the color and the material. The crinkly material was almost like a metal so you could mold it any way or shape that you wanted to. It’s Prada and I was actually supposed to wear something different that night but when I walked into their fitting suite in Cannes, the dress was just hanging there waiting for me. It was a spontaneous, spontaneous pick. And those are Chopard emerald and diamond earrings. I’ve worked a lot with Chopard, and as you know, they have a big presence in Cannes. They’re great to work with. Literally anything you could ever want in your entire life they have in a vault, and it’s so special.”