Lupita Nyong’o brought her bold and unconventional sense of style to Sunday night’s Tony Awards, appearing at the New York ceremony in a look she described as “shameless”.
The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever actor walked the red carpet outside Manhattan’s United Palace theatre in a black tuxedo and trousers.
Underneath her jacket, however, she eschewed a traditional blouse in favour of a metallic breastplate.
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The breastplate’s details were strikingly realistic, and for good reason: Pakistani artist and designer Misha Japanwala created it by moulding it from Nyong’o’s own body.
On Instagram, Lupita said she felt “honoured, humbled, strengthened and energised” to wear the piece, noting that Misha’s work was “rooted in the rejection and deconstruction of external shame attached to one’s body”.
“In her artistic process, she creates a realistic and true record of a person’s body as an act of resistance and celebration, and an insistence on being allowed to exist freely in our bodies,” she wrote.
Lupita went on to thank Misha for “this special opportunity to BE EXACTLY HERE, IN THIS BODY NOW,” calling it a “SHAMELESS OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE”.
An Oscar winner for 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, Lupita is no stranger to the New York theatre scene.
In 2016, she received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of a Liberian orphan in Eclipsed, which made history as Broadway’s first play to have an all-Black female cast and creative team.
She’s slated to return to the big screen next year in the horror film A Quiet Place: Day One, co-starring Denis O’Hare and Joseph Quinn.
