As with every ceremony in recent memory, the 2026 Oscars fuction was a convention of old-school movie stardom. And so, it tracks that so many attendees at this year’s event took their cues from one of the silver screen’s most loaded symbols of exaggerated bombshell glamour: Jessica Rabbit. The sultry chanteuse from 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit—modeled on the 1950s pin-up Vikki Dougan—has long stood as both a paean to, and a critique of, Hollywood femininity: her fluttery come-hither eyes and abundant curves poured into a now-canonic liquid-red, bodycon dress.
It was Kylie Jenner who offered the most faithful interpretation of the 2026 Oscars evening, arriving through the back door of the Dolby Theatre with her almost cartoon-perfect silhouette clad in a lustrous, scarlet Schiaparelli gown with a keyhole opening at the chest. “Jessica, who?” she captioned an Instagram video (uploaded at roughly the same time her boyfriend, Timothée Chalamet, stepped onto the red carpet in an all-white Givenchy suit by Sarah Burton), a knowing nod, perhaps, to their shared attributes. First conceived as a parody of the hyper-real sex symbol, this plump-pouted avatar has found its Instagram-era descendant in Jenner. It’s worth noting, too, that this exact style of dress was worn previously by Jenner, but in a shimmering black.
There were shades of the nightclub-dwelling cartoon, too, in Mikey Madison’s slit-up-to-there scarlet velvet Dior gown—styled with the requisite Veronica Lake waves and peep-toe sandals—and in Li Jun Li’s corseted, thigh-split Gaurav Gupta look. Renate Reinsve, however, offered the most subversive—or progressive, depending on your view—interpretation: a graphic, true-red Louis Vuitton dress constructed from a single piece of fabric, its asymmetric hemline slicing from hip to heel. If Jessica Rabbit was built on an architecture of excess—more lips, more breasts, more curve—Reinsve’s cold, clean minimalism proved that less can be just as alluring.
