How low can she go?! After what feels like a decade since the first film was released, Dakota Johnson attended the L.A. premiere of Fifty Shades Darker on Thursday, February 2, in quite the plunging ensemble.
The How to Be Single actress, 27, stunned in a blush Valentino gown with a deep V-neckline and a crisscrossed open back, accessorized with Cartier baubles. She also rocked a casually tousled, braided updo, courtesy of Dove Celebrity Stylist Mark Townsend.
“We really wanted the focus to be on Dakota’s gorgeous dress,” Townsend tells Stylish of the ‘do, which he calls “perfectly imperfect.” “We decided to keep her hair out of her face by doing a long, textured braid in the back.”
Meanwhile, Johnson’s onscreen leading man, Jamie Dornan, cut a fine figure in a blue Valentino suit, teamed with a striped tie and tan Christian Louboutin brogues. He also showed off his newly acquired buzz cut — a very different look than the one he sports as Christian Grey opposite Johnson’s Anastasia Steele.
After walking the carpet, the pair stepped into the premiere, which was set up like a masquerade ball — much like the one that takes place in the series’ steamy second installment.
“I think the second [movie is my favorite],” Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Grey’s adoptive mother, Grace, in the movies, told Us Weekly on the red carpet. “It has [Christian and Anastasia] setting boundaries, really understanding what they want. And it’s thankfully not very vanilla. It has passion, it has romance, it has sorrow. I think this middle one is the richest in my book.”