Nowadays, it’s the norm to see a star conduct multiple red-carpet changes (Lady Gaga had four prior to entering the 2019 Met Gala), sauna suit themselves into rare archive fashion worth millions (Kim Kardashian’s Marilyn Monroe moment at the 2022 ball), or dress in character for press tours that last weeks on end (god speed Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo for Wicked part two). But back when Lil’ Kim was nipple pastie-ing her way into the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards, and Liz Hurley wriggled into a safety-pinned dress by a brand (Versace!) that she had never heard of without so much as looking at herself in the mirror circa ’94, the red carpet was typically a more conservative affair. Here, nine shape-shifting looks that paved the way—and continue to do so—for modern-day fashion plates daring to do things differently.
Getty Images1/9Liz Hurley at the Four Weddings and a Funeral premiere in 1994
Liz Hurley was perhaps the last person to realize how much of an impact her Versace dress would have on celebrity culture. Then an ascendant actor without so much as a full-length mirror to her name, it wasn’t until she stepped onto the red carpet at the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 that reality dawned: the sight of this unknown brunette in a slashed, safety-pinned column would be splashed across tomorrow’s front covers. (It helped, of course, that she was dating Hugh Grant.) “I knew I had to have a dress and somebody said, ‘I know someone who’s got a PR firm and they might be able to help you’, so I rang and said, ‘Do you have anything’, and they said ‘We’ve got one dress’,” Hurley recalled during the third episode of In Vogue: The 90s. “So I went on the tube to get the dress, which was handed to me in a white plastic bag. I’d never heard the name ‘Versace’ before and it looked pretty precarious. I hadn’t really realized how daring a dress it was.” The look—notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page—proved that a celebrity’s relationship with fashion could inspire as much attention as their work, transforming a stranger into a household sensation, while giving rise to an entire genre of Dionysian red-carpet style. Daniel Rodgers, fashion news editor, British Vogue
Getty Images2/9Bjork in Marjan Pejoski at the Oscars, 2001
If an artist swanned up (sorry) to the Oscars red carpet in Marjan Pejoski’s swan dress today, it probably wouldn’t cause such an incredible furore (Joan Rivers’s take then: “This girl should be put into an asylum.”) We’re used to splashy statement red-carpet dressing now (this was nine years before Gaga’s meat dress, and 22 years before everyone showed up to the Met Gala as giant Choupettes). But Björk was, as always, a trailblazer (in true conceptual fashion, she also “laid” an egg on the red carpet). The dress itself is gorgeous with sumptuous, ballet-like layers, a swan’s neck hung around her neck, that creamy colour-pallette… It’s no wonder it has toured all manner of exhibitions since, from Camp: Notes on Fashion at the Met to the Design Museum’s Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion. Daisy Jones, features writer, British Vogue
Getty Images3/9Robin Williams in Issey Miyake at the Flubber premiere, 1997
The ’90s may have been a halcyon age for men’s celebrity style, but few demonstrated such a deep commitment to dressing for the red carpet as the late, great Robin Williams. From his well-documented affinity for Jean Paul Gaultier’s saucy menswear—in particular, l’enfant terrible’s chiselled torso trompe l’oeil print shirts and tailoring—to the deconstructed graphic suit he wore to the Patch Adams premiere, Williams was fashion light years ahead of his time. Among his most memorable fashion deep cuts is this rigorously constructed bomber jacket from Issey Miyake’s fall 1996 collectsion, which the actor sported with oh-so-casual tapered trousers and Converse to the premiere of the 1997 cult classic Flubber. Robin Williams walked the red carpet so that fashion’s current internet boyfriends could run. Mahoro Seward, acting fashion features editor, British Vogue
Getty Images4/9Nicole Kidman in Dior at the Oscars, 1997
“What an ugly dress!” Joan Rivers reportedly remarked of Nicole Kidman’s chartreuse Dior by John Galiano gown at the 1997 Oscars. Luckily, the vast majority of the fashion world disagreed—with the moment widely credited as the catalyst for the business of red-carpet dressing as we know it, from celebrity stylists to major endorsement deals. As John Gallino said at Vogue’s Forces of Fashion event in London, “Haute couture was introduced to Hollywood.” Thank god for Nicole. Emily Chan, senior sustainability & features editor, British Vogue
Getty Images5/9Jennifer Lopez in Versace at the Grammys, 2000
When Jennifer taped herself into Donatella Versace’s sheer jungle-print chiffon almost 25 years ago, she didn’t just shake up the red carpet, she transformed the internet – specifically a nascent search engine called Google. “At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed back in 2015 of Lopez’s sensational Grammys look. “But we had no sure-fire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.” In a sense, every Instagram fashion account you follow can trace its origins back to the ripple effect of that night. Kerry McDermott, digital director, British Vogue
Getty Images6/9Lady Gaga in Hussein Chalayan at the Grammys, 2011
“I was in the egg for three days,” said Lady Gaga of the Hussein Chalayan orb she came encased in at the 2011 Grammys. “It’s representative of my devotion to my craft; I really wanted to be with myself.” While her outfit—not a receptacle!—helped to ground Gaga, the looks of the people tasked with carrying the pop diva proved far more complex. The night prior to the awards, she decided, “the fashion is wrong!”, and requested a complete do-over, but this time in Latex. The catch? Back then, sex shops were the only places that readily stocked fetishistic fabric—with the exception of one handy US bus company that preferred wipe-clean seating. Forget the meat dress—“thrilling to wear”—or her fire bra—“we decided it was safer to shoot sparks” – Gaga’s levitating ovum raised the age-old question of whether fashion is art and cackled in the face of anyone who thought they’d suffered to serve a look by cinching themselves into a Kardashian-esque corset. Alice Newbold, executive fashion news and features editor, British Vogue
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images7/9Rihanna in Guo Pei at the Met Gala, 2015
Rihanna won the Met Gala 2015 (and arguably the entire year in style), by nailing the China: Through the Looking Glass theme in an “omelette” cape-gown hybrid by Chinese couturier Guo Pei, which weighed in at 25kg and took more than two years to create. The Pei-RiRi partnership has since become the modern benchmark for how a designer, little known outside her home country, can become a worldwide Vogue sensation before the sun has set on the first Monday in May. KM
Trevor Gillespie8/9Lil’ Kim in Misa Hylton at the MTV Video Music Awards, 1999
“I just love the fact that she left the house like this,” quips Edward Enninful in the fifth episode of In Vogue: The 90s, which explores the explosion of hip-hop style. “[Lil’ Kim] brought her world to the MTV [1999 Video Music Awards] stage—ghetto fabulous had arrived!” The look: a lavender sequin, one-shoulder bodysuit crafted from Indian bridal lace and draped to reveal one bare breast covered with a sparkly nipple pastie stuck on with eyelash glue—which, dear reader, stayed on even after Diana Ross brushed Kim’s breast on stage. “I knew that it was risqué, but I just wanted to create this look,” says the performer’s stylist, Misa Hylton, who recalls her mother ringing her the next day to tell her “Kim owned the night” and that everyone—literally everyone—was talking about that flirtatious get-up. A popstar would never be able to pull this off now, opines friend Missy Elliott, as social media would simply shut it down. Lil’ Kim made space for all those naked dresses to come. AN
Getty Images9/9Bella Hadid in Schiaparelli at Cannes, 2021
You can’t talk about the current state of red-carpet dressing without mentioning one man in particular: Daniel Roseberry, the incumbent creative director of Schiaparelli. In his almost six years at its helm, the Texan couturier has breathed new life into the house that Elsa built, with his gong-worthy haute couture, in particular, winning over the hearts of a new generation of fashion acolytes. A key moment that proved that the making of fashion history isn’t consigned to, well, distant history came in Cannes in 2021, when Bella Hadid filed down the red carpet for the Tre Piani premiere in a slinky black wool dress, cut with a plunging neckline that swooped below the bust. As scandalous as that sounds, her modesty was scantily preserved by a gilded chain necklace, from which hung a hefty pendant in the shape of fanning bronchi. A key moment in cementing Roseberry’s riffs on Schiaparelli’s codes of trompe l’oeil and elevated camp in the contemporary fashion imaginary, the supermodel’s look will no doubt be remembered as one for the ages. MS
