Oscar goes green: Oklahoma City native Suzi Amis Cameron and her husband try to 'save the world'
BY GENE TRIPLETT
Suzy Amis Cameron’s husband may be crowned “king of the world” for a second time on Oscar night, and for that glittering occasion, the Oklahoma City native will make a very special fashion statement when she walks the red carpet on “Avatar” director James Cameron’s arm.
Of course, every woman attending the 82nd annual Academy Award ceremonies March 7 will be dressed to the utmost nines, as always, in original creations from the most exclusive glad rag makers in the world, while Amis Cameron will be wearing a number made out of sustainable, environmentally friendly materials and designed by Jillian Granz.
And right now, fashionistas are going, What? Who?
“To give you a little bit of background, I actually started a school with my sister Rebecca Amis out here in California,” Amis Cameron said in a recent phone interview from Malibu.
“And it’s an environmental school with a very large component of global citizenry, and it’s a nonprofit, so we’re always looking at ways to raise money. And one of the ideas that we came up with last year was creating a dress contest.”
The “Red Carpet Green Dress” competition was open to entrants from all around the world, affording aspiring garment stylists the opportunity to design an environmentally conscious red-carpet dress and have it showcased in front of millions during filmdom’s most prestigious event.
“We had (entries) from all over the globe,” she said. “Italy and Australia and Spain, South America; they just came flooding in.”
As the sole judge of the contest, Amis Cameron settled on a design by Granz, an apparel and textile design senior at Michigan State University. Granz has been brought to Los Angeles to consult with Deborah Scott, who won an Academy Award for the costume designs seen in “Titanic,” Cameron’s previous blockbuster, which inspired him to proclaim himself “the king of the world” (a quote from Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the film) at the 1998 Oscar ceremonies after collecting a record-tying 11 statuettes (1959′s “Ben-Hur” and 2003′s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” each won 11, too).
“I have had my first fitting for it just to get my exact measurements, and I’ll be going back in a couple of days to have a muslin fitting,” Amis Cameron said. “So we’re in the thick of it. The thing that we’re doing right now is sourcing the fabric.”
She declined to describe the dress before its unveiling at the annual Global Green pre-Oscar party, which she’ll co-host with her husband four days before the Oscar ceremonies.
“It looks like I’m probably going to be wearing the dress twice, which is a definite fashion faux pas, but it is also, I think, the epitome of recycling,” she said.
Amis Cameron should know about fashion propriety. During her junior year at Heritage Hall High School in Oklahoma City, the slender blonde took modeling lessons from Patty Harrison-Gers and started doing local fashion shows to help pay for her passion — English-style horseback riding. This led to a job with the Eileen Ford modeling agency in New York, where her exquisitely chiseled, patrician features made her an instant success.
She managed to find the time to graduate from Heritage Hall before modeling led to an acting career and a string of films that included the Steven Spielberg-produced “Fandango” (shot in Texas and Oklahoma in 1984, with Kevin Costner), “Rocket Gibraltar” (1988, with Burt Lancaster), “Rich in Love” (1993, with Albert Finney), “Blown Away” (1994, with Jeff Bridges), “The Usual Suspects” (1995) and “Titanic” (1997), where she met Cameron.
