Oscar Dresses You Can Wear

You don't have to be an Oscar winner to look like one.

Affordable versions of gowns worn by Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman are just some of the red carpet fashions coming to stores near you in the next few weeks, The Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman explains.

You might think the red carpet is just the entrance to the Oscars, but for one L.A. designer, it's the start of a race.

Allen B. Schwartz says, "It's all speed. If I can make it and sketch a dress and be finished with it in three hours."

It's been just a little more than 48 hours since the Oscars and already designer Schwartz has copies of the top six gowns, for his A.B.S. label.

It started at 2:45 Sunday afternoon, and Supporting Actress winner Renee Zelleweger's white gown is one result of the work.

Schwartz says, "Ours will retail for $300 as opposed to $10,000 and we'll make this in many colors."

Jennifer Garner wore Vintage Valentino.

Schwartz says, "I actually thought Jennifer Garner had the best dress of the evening."

So what did Garner probably pay? "Ten to twenty thousand dollars," Schwartz says.

Schwartz notes, "I've never seen Sandra Bullock look more beautiful. This will go to a younger customer. It'll make a great prom dress or a bridesmaid dress."

Schwartz has been whipping out Oscar replicas for the last decade.

He says, "The Oscars unequivocally are the ultimate fashion show."

His team begins sketching the second a star sets foot on the red carpet.

Schwartz says, "It starts in the sketch form, I sketch it out. There's the picture, the sketch and he'll bring you the pattern. That's allocated to the cutter. You start cutting out and you see what the shape of it is."

It goes from the drawing, to the computer, to the pattern making, to the cutter, and then to the sewer.

The sewer keeps prices down by using rayon instead of silk, and the dresses will be mass-produced instead of one being made as a one of a kind.

Schwartz has copied Best Actress winners from the past: Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow and, of course, Julia Roberts. But surprisingly he passed on this year's winner, Charlize Theron, who wore a Gucci.

He says, "She looked great, but it wasn't a stylish dress. It was a beaded dress."

The A.B.S. dresses will be in department stores by next month. So, for a couple hundred bucks, you too could look like Julia Roberts.

Granted, we don't all have bodies like Julia, but Schwartz has made allowances for that.

He says, "We make them more forgiving. We make sure they hit in the hip in the right place, so if you're a size 14, you can still feel like Angelina Jolie."

The dresses are already on their way to department store buyers. Is Schwartz worried that his competitors are doing the same thing?

"If they are, they've all dropped out," he says. "No one can do this like me, nobody."

And perhaps nobody is as exhausted right now.

He says, "Last night, when I got home, I was paralyzed, I mean I couldn't even get off the couch to go to bed."