12-Year-Old Porchè Brinker Was The Belle Of The Ball In Her Princess Gown At The Oscars

When The Last Repair Shop won Best Documentary Short at the Oscars on Sunday night, one 12-year-old girl absolutely stole the show. Porchè Brinker, one of the young Los Angeles Unified School District students featured in the Oscar winning short, was just about the happiest person at the Oscars. And when The Last Repair Shop won, social media users fell instantly in love with the 12-year-old in her princess gown as she took to the stage to accept her Oscar. Between the dress and the smile and the personality, how could you not?

Porchè, who is a student at Palms Middle School, was featured in the documentary about a repair shop that maintains student’s musical instruments in Los Angeles. In fact, she was invited to sit on the first floor of the Dolby Theater alongside co-directors Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers, which was a pretty big deal for the young violinist. When Porchè’s grandmother and primary caregiver Joy Biagas first found out that her granddaughter would be heading to the Oscars, the first thing she wanted to do was help the little girl get the shoes of her dreams, little white shoes with bow details on the top. And when it came to her dress, Porché was invited to go to a bridal shop by a local media outlet, who helped her choose that incredible blue princess dress. Something her grandmother let her do on her own. “I didn’t want to interfere when she picked out her dress,” Biagas told The Los Angeles Times. “I’m too money-conscious. I would have gotten in the way.”

We’re so happy she got to make her own choice, because it really was the stuff of little girls’ dreams.

When she made her way to the stage to help accept the Oscar with Proudfoot and Bowers, the co-directors knew all eyes were on her. At first, Porchè was standing behind the two men. But they made sure to bring her, and her amazing dress, out in the spotlight so she could be front and center.

Porchè, along with 17-year-old student Ismerai Calcaneo, both came to the Oscars with their beloved instruments in hand. When asked by ABC Eyewitness News why she brought her violin during a red carpet interview, this honest little queen smiled and said, “It’s for pictures! I’m going to be posing, it’s just to show that I do play and stuff.” Because come on now, we’re not asking her to play when she just needs to focus on her iconic Oscar look here.

Indeed Porchè does play the violin, thanks especially to Ben Proudfoot, who covers the cost of her private lessons these days. “At my old school when I didn’t have private lessons, there was one teacher for the whole orchestra and he didn’t know too much about violin because he plays flute,” Porché told The Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes, he would just put on a video for us to watch.”

Now she can watch a different kind of a video. Maybe a video of herself floating to the stage to accept an Oscar in her gorgeous blue princess gown. On repeat.