Before “House of Gucci” she was a Hugo Boss girl.
Salma Hayek reflected on her decades-long career in a new interview with W on Tuesday, and although she frequently wows in glittering gowns on the red carpet these days, it turns out her first premiere was decidedly less glam.
“I didn’t have any connections,” the 56-year-old “Frida” actress told the magazine when asked what she remembered about her first red carpet event, which was the 1996 premiere of “The Birdcage.”
“The only connection I had was to somebody I knew at Hugo Boss, so I wore a man’s suit because no one else gave me anything to wear,” she explained.
Hayek also previously reflected on the experience in a 2021 interview with Vogue India, telling the magazine that she struggled with fashion when she started out in Hollywood.
“I’m Mexican. I’m also very short, which doesn’t help with the weight and doesn’t help with the design,” the “House of Gucci” actress said. “But you know, I was ingenious. I took chances.”
Fast forward to 2023, and while she still loves a trouser suit, Hayek often makes the best-dressed lists at events like the Oscars and BAFTAs — and she even let her teenage daughter, Valentina, borrow a red gown she wore to a 1997 event for this year’s Academy Awards.
Along with her suited-up red carpet moment, the actress also shared a hilarious beauty hack gone wrong with W.
When asked about her first kiss, Hayek said it took place “in Coatzacoalcos, my little town in Mexico” and was “very memorable,” but for all the wrong reasons.
“I wanted to taste good, so I kept putting honey on my lips,” she told the mag. “And then I said, ‘What did it taste like?’ And he said, ‘Like honey,’ but it’s the cliché—that’s what they say.”
Encouraged by her beau’s response, she continued her sweet trick, but that’s when things went south.
“And so I kept putting honey in my lips, and I had an infestation of ants in my bedroom,” she said, adding, “I burnt my mouth. Something that started real romantic turned out to be kind of disastrous.”
