The Oscars red carpet colour change to 'champagne' leaves Jamie Lee Curtis cringing over outfit

You know the drill. It's the Oscars. Stars descend on to a red carpet to pose in their glitz and glam before finding out who’s won some of the top awards in the business. But not this year.

The 95th annual Academy Awards tried something different for 2023, replacing the usual red carpet for such events with a cream one for the first time in over 60 years.

The academy chose a supposedly champagne-coloured carpet for the celebrities’ entrance, but not everyone is on board.

Creative consultants Lisa Love, a longtime Vogue contributor, and Raúl àvila, a creative director for the Met Gala, cited making the mid-afternoon event feel more like an evening one (in keeping with the elegant black tie dress code) as one of the reasons behind the change.

"We turned a day event into night," Love told Associated Press. "It's evening, even though it's still 3:00."

Love said they experimented with other darker colours before deciding on the champagne shade to help transition the arrivals into an evening event.

"We chose this beautiful sienna, saffron colour that evokes the sunset, because this is the sunset before the golden hour," she explained.

The famous walkway was also covered this year, partly to protect attendees and cameras from the weather.

But not everyone has got behind the change, and it's already become the butt of many jokes, including one from Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel at the Thursday unveiling ceremony, in one of many references to last year’s infamous slap.

“I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed,” he joked.

Best Supporting Actress winner Jamie Lee Curtis had the best reaction ahead of Sunday evening’s ceremony, taking to Twitter to express her opinions in a way we can all relate to.

‘Apparently, at the @TheAcademy Oscars, their carpet is going to match my drapes, she wrote, adding a ‘face palm’ emoji with it.

Elsewhere, the colour change had many people taking to social media to say that the ‘champagne’-coloured carpet was, well, beige, and others couldn’t help but point out just how dirty it looked after hours of foot traffic from LA’s well-heeled celebs.

And that’s not even taking into account the weeks-long preparation of outfits for these celebrities and their stylists, with several of the white and cream-donned stars seeming washed out against the neutral carpet.

Keep scrolling to see some of the best social media reactions to the so-called Oscars 'champagne' carpet.

Watch: Oscars 2023 best bits: Will Smith slap jokes, 'bear' bothers Malala, and Michelle Yeoh makes history – nine stand-out Oscars moments