The dress that dressed the part
There are press tour outfits, and then there are statements. Anya Taylor-Joy chose the latter on Wednesday when she arrived at Raffles London at The OWO for the Lucky photocall in a Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann lace slip dress — a piece so perfectly pitched between glamour and intrigue it could have walked straight off the set of the show itself.
The dress, from Tom Ford's spring 2026 collection, cascaded from barely-there black leather mesh into baby blue silk wool, finished with a plunging V-cut neckline, a low-back cut and scalloped edges. Taylor-Joy paired it with black open-toe stilettos with ankle straps and an opulent array of Tiffany & Co. jewellery — the Tiffany Knot earrings, bracelet and ring, and a Bird on a Rock piece — with her trademark blonde hair worn poker-straight and a fresh white chrome manicure completing the look.
It was, in short, exactly what you'd wear if you were about to convince the world you're someone else entirely.
'It really does feel like a kind of armour'
The choice of a sultry, barely-there slip for a midday photocall might raise an eyebrow or two — but for Taylor-Joy, bold dressing has never been about spectacle for its own sake. Speaking to Harper's Bazaar, the 30-year-old revealed that leaning into daring fashion choices was originally a coping mechanism.
"The actual experience of a red carpet was so anxiety-inducing for me. I found that if I was making it about something more artful, then I just turned off a part of my brain that usually would be afraid, and that made me excited about it instead. It really does feel like a kind of armour."
That armour, it turns out, has become something of a passion.
Taylor-Joy went on to describe a genuine obsession with fashion history, and an almost compulsive approach to selecting her public looks.
"I'm very obsessive when choosing red-carpet looks; I'm not chill in that regard. It's very much part of the job for me. I see these red carpets as my bon voyage to each character I play."
Dressed for the con
The timing of all this is far from accidental. Lucky, Taylor-Joy's upcoming limited series for Apple TV+, premieres globally on 15 July and stars her as the titular Lucky — a stylish con artist forced on the run after a million-dollar heist goes badly wrong. Costume, the show suggests, is central to the character's survival.
"As Lucky is always on the move, we had to make sure that the clothes she found still had a point of view," Taylor-Joy explained of her on-screen alter ego. "She's really saying, 'Who am I going to be now? What's going to get me where I need to go?'"
In the trailer, Lucky slips between identities with ease — a pristine white jacket and a blonde bob here, a disco sequin dress with a long red wig there — a shapeshifting quality that makes the choice of a mysteriously alluring slip dress for the press tour feel less like coincidence and more like an extension of the role itself.
It's worth noting that this isn't Taylor-Joy's first outing in this particular Tom Ford design. She previously wore a longer black version of the same style at the closing ceremony of the Marrakech International Film Festival in December. Wednesday's shorter, pale blue iteration felt altogether more fitting for a London heatwave — and, as it happens, for a character who never quite shows you her full hand.
