Monday night InStyle hosted its third annual InStyle Awards to honor the most stylish stars on the red carpet and the pros who help make the looks come together. And naturally, all the honorees and attendees pulled out all the fashion stops in standout outfits (which you can catch up on right here). And Style Star winner, Zendaya, proved she was worth of the honor, wearing a gorgeous, multicolor, tiered Schiaparelli Couture creation.

“I think we started with the ‘fro. We definitely wanted to do a ‘fro for sure,” she told PeopleStyle about how she approached her look for the Fiji Water-sponsored event alongside her close friend and stylist Law Roach. “And then [Roach] was obsessed with this dress. The dress is also a bit of a statement itself. The hair, to me, seems very simple and contained, and kind of goes with it.”

For her most recent red carpet looks, Zendaya says she’s been inspired by the  ’60s and ’70s.

“I think I’m always just very inspired by the fashion of the decades,” she explained. “When you go back in time and kind of explore those silhouettes and kind of find a modern way to do it, everything in fashion just repeats. It’s just the same thing, just repeating. So when you latch on to something from the past, it’s almost like it’s new again, because we haven’t seen it in a while. So I love exploring with different things from different decades. It’s fun.”

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And fashion isn’t only a source of fun for the star — it’s also a source of confidence. “I think for me, I really have been lucky to find, through fashion, a lot of confidence,” she said. “For me, dressing up and trying new things is a form of exploring my confidence, exploring what I like, exploring what I enjoy. When I go on carpets, for some people, some people hate this part. This is my favorite part. I can just go to a red carpet and just go home, because it’s like my favorite part is the red carpets. That’s sometimes opposite for people, but I enjoy it. It’s fun for me. I get to be these different characters. It’s like an alter ego.”

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She delivered an equally inspiring message during her acceptance speech at the award ceremony. “Fashion has given me that vehicle to not care,” she said. “Literally, the only opinion that should matter when you step outside the house or when you wear something and you put something on when you look in the mirror should be your own.”

What do you think about Zendaya’s fashion mantras? Share below!

–With reporting by Abby Stern

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