The best Oscars dresses ever

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Hollywood's biggest night of the year took place last night, with the great and the good of the film world honoured at the 89th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

The Oscars not only celebrates the best of film, but also the best of couture. Stars were dressed to the nines on the red carpet yesterday for one of the most glamorous events in the world.

Best actress nominees Isabelle Huppert and Ruth Negga turned heads in dresses by Armani Prive and Valentino, while the category's winner – Emma Stone (pictured with Leonardo DiCaprio below) – glittered in a gold-fringed Givenchy dress.

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Viola Davis (pictured below with her husband Julius Tennon) picked up the best supporting actress award for her performance in Fences, directed by Denzel Washington, and posed happily on the red carpet in an Armani Prive vermilion red silk gown.

Meanwhile, Meryl Streep's choice of dress sparked a row between the actress and designer Karl Lagerfeld, who accused her of rejecting one of his dresses because another designer was willing to pay her.

He later said he had "misunderstood" but Streep, who received her 20th Oscar nomination this year for Florence Foster Jenkins, said she was still waiting for an apology for the "lie".

In the end, the screen legend turned up in a deep-blue gown by Elie Saab (pictured below).

Over the years, Hollywood darlings such as Hilary Swank and Jennifer Lawrence have enjoyed some of their finest red-carpet moments at the awards, helping to raise the international profile of fashion designers while earning style points. Think Nicole Kidman's chartreuse John Galliano gown in 1997, or Halle Berry in her embroidered sheer Elie Saab burgundy number in 2002.

And of course, there was best supporting actress winner Lupita Nyong'o walking the carpet in a Grecian-inspired baby-blue Prada gown two years ago. She "practically won the red carpet when she arrived", wrote Vanity Fair.

Click on the gallery above for 15 of the most iconic Oscar dresses of all time.