Seeking the next red carpet knockout

Led by Steinfeld,Hollywoods red-carpet season last year was a veritable youth-quake,with starlets like Jennifer Lawrence,now 21,and Emma Stone,23,proving that high fashion isnt just for older femmes fatales like Nicole Kidman. And when this years ceremony is held on January 15 the starting gun for the Hollywood awards season,which climaxes with the Academy Awards on February 26 the fashion world will be scouting for the next fresh-faced ingénue to soar to its upper ranks à la Steinfeld,who since her Globes debut has graced the pages of Vogue,been chosen as the face of Miu Miu and become a fixture at events across the globe.

The jockeying for this honour has,unsurprisingly,already begun. All across Los Angeles,young actresses from this years batch of talked-about films including Felicity Jones (Like Crazy),Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo),Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)are working round-the-clock with stylists,sometimes hastily acquired,to try to come up with that one major dress, as Steinfelds fashion stylist,Karla Welch put it.

Jones is high on the list of Ones to Watch this season. Named the new face of Dolce & Gabbana cosmetics,she also appeared in Burberrys fall 2011 campaign,has been evoking Audrey Hepburn-like glamour by mixing flirty,gamine looks,like the floral Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dress she wore to the New York premiere of Like Crazy,with more modern and subdued choices.

Mara,who is 26,is playing it more daring,bringing the punk-hacker aesthetic of Lisbeth Salander,her character in David Finchers film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,off screen,in the form of severe bumper bangs,black lipstick and revealing cutout dresses.

Ariel Foxman,the editor of InStyle magazine,said actresses like Mara reflected a more assertive personal style than this years young starlets were displaying,in comparison with past seasons when a lot of actresses were perhaps doing the rather safe red-carpet presentation.

That is certainly true of Olsen,22,whos grown up surrounded by fashion,thanks to her older sisters,Mary-Kate and Ashley,the famed progenitors of the boho-chic obsession for garbage-bag-size handbags and form-swallowing peasant dresses. Though so far,the sporty blond Elizabeth has defied expectations by opting for a cleaner,more wholesome style. At the Cannes Film Festival last spring,where her film Martha Marcy May Marlene screened,she turned heads in a white,lacy,tiered dress from her sisters high-end line,the Row .

A less consistent fashion force is Shailene Woodley,20,the scrubbed,usually ponytailed star of Secret Life of the American Teenager,who plays George Clooneys rebellious daughter in the Oscar-hopeful film The Descendants. At its Los Angeles premiere,she won raves in a floral Dolce & Gabbana dress,which made her look youthful yet glamorous and vaguely Hawaiian,in keeping with the films theme. But the shapeless,gray Jeremy Laing dress worn to the New York Film Festival wrought a torrent of blogosphere snark. Is that a poncho coming out of her right arm,a mesh blanket,a fishing net?! the Web site The Insider said.

But in the end,how much does being fashionable matter to a dramatic career? Being hot in fashion keeps you on lists,keeps you out there with good buzz,but it doesnt have literal box office value, said Lynda Obst,a veteran producer.