Though the broadcast itself was last night, for Basil Walter and Will Cooper, Oscar season starts in the summer. Thats when the designers for the Vanity Fair Oscar party begin planning their creative direction for the exclusive soire at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, where, as Cooper puts it, the crme de la crme of culture rub shoulders after the Academy Awards ceremony comes to a close. As a beginning, I thought about what was happening culturally, Cooper, who returned for his second year designing the event, tells AD. I posed a question to everyone, which was, Is this the dawning of the age of Aquarius?The conversation pit-style lounge area.Photo: Justin M. WeinerThe former creative director of Ashan Aquarius himselfwas thinking about the musical Hair and its certified platinum song, Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, which dominated the charts in the spring of 1969. He couldnt help but compare that period with our current era. We were coming out of a depressive moment with the Vietnam War, Cooper says, and people were tapping into the hedonism of existence, of being human beings again. Perhaps we arent quite out of our current slumpthere is an inherent what the hell is happening in the world kind of depression [happening now], Walter saysbut couldnt we fast forward to the good part, if only for a night? And so a heavy dose of escapism straight from the 70s was in order. On the mood board: Biba, Studio 54, and Soul Train.Danielle Brooks lounges on a zebra-print sectional at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, hosted by Radhika Jones.Photo: Dave Benett/VF25/WireImage for Vanity Fair/Getty ImagesThe nights best actor and actress winners, Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) and Mikey Madison (Anora), as well as an assortment of celebrities of all stripes, including John Waters, Kim Kardashian, Keke Palmer, Mick Jagger, Nancy Pelosi, Monica Lewinsky, and Serena Williams, passed through an unassuming corrugated metal faade with a storefront-esque Vanity Fair awning to enter the event space. We were looking at discotheques from the 70s and 80s [that] existed in these weird back-alley places or in warehouses outside of town, Cooper explains. Last year, if you recall, it was like walking into a grand hotel. This year, it was [like] walking into this speakeasy, nondescript thing that you just stumble into on the street.Once inside, guests walked the silver-and-gold-striped carpet and traversed mirrored passageways that pulled inspiration from Carlo Mollinos Teatro Regio and Sir John Soanes Museum in London before emerging into an entrance lounge. At its heart, a conversation pit was furnished with modular seating upholstered in sunset-hued velvet. A ginormous disco ball crowned the space, adding spatial exuberance, as Walter, who has designed for the A-list gathering since 1998, says.Chrissy Teigen and John Legend at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.Photo: by Kevin Mazur/VF25/WireImage for Vanity Fair/Getty ImagesBasil Walter (left) and Will Cooper at the lounges swanky barPhoto: Justin M. WeinerThe ceiling heightened in the next room, which was swathed in 25-foot-tall yellow curtains and centered a massive freestanding bar, before dropping down again in the adjacent dining room. So the heartbeat lives in the middle, and then you have these sexy moments on both sides, Cooper explains. The dining room, which transformed into a dance floor after dinner, was lined with curvy banquettes clad in a Pierre Frey zebra print and (of course) topped with another generously sized disco ball. Weve pulled in all of the hallmarks of that time period architecturallywith the mirror and the curvilinear shapes and the sunken living room and the disco ballswithout being too on the nose, the designer says.The ultimate goal was for the space to become a playground upon which the guestsor the characters of this evening, as Cooper calls themget to explore, creating iconic cultural moments in the process. Theres always a little bit of an unknown, Walter tells AD. We plan as much as we can, but how are people actually going to feel in the space? Is it going to make them feel relaxed and want to jump up and down and dance and talk to their friends? I think thats the measure of success, because until the moment happens, we just dont really know. In other words, you cant force the moment, like Bianca Jagger riding a white horse at Studio 54, or Flavor Flav gifting Billie Eilish a Barbie-themed clock, which happened at last years party. We cant design for it, but it just naturally happens based off of the environment, Cooper says.The dining area, complete with zebra-print seat cushions.Photo: Justin M. WeinerTall yellow drapes wrapped the partys central bar area.Photo: Justin M. WeinerThis years hedonistic direction marked a departure; last year, the partys 30th anniversary, got the classic red carpet treatment, aesthetically. It feels very primal, whereas last year it felt glamorous, Cooper says. The difference in levels, and compressions, and all this does make it feel, I dont know, naughty.