The Evolution of Red Carpet Fashion

The Evolution of Red Carpet Fashion

Event style sure has come a long way. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’ll be looking at The Evolution of Red Carpet Fashion.

In this video, we’ll be examining the ways that celebrity fashion for major events has changed over the decades.

Did you know that the tradition of important people walking on crimson-hued carpets goes back to the written 5th century BC? In the play “Agamemnon”, which was penned by Greek tragedy writer Aeschylus, the story’s hero comes back from Troy and his wife Clytemnestra offers him a “crimson path” to walk on. He responds that such a luxury is only for the gods. Throughout history, red carpets were used for important occasions, but the trend kicked off in Hollywood with the premiere of “Robin Hood” in 1922 at the Egyptian Theatre when Sid Grauman had the stars walk on one.

What we think of as the “The Golden Era” of red carpet fashion came about two decades later, in the 1940s and ‘50s. During this time, the red carpet was one of the only places you could catch a glimpse of your favorite stars outside of their actual movie roles because of course we didn’t have a full behind-the-scenes view courtesy of social media or reality TV. This is when starlets started going all out with their outfits, sporting glamorous dresses and dramatic furs to garner attention. At the 1940 premiere of “Gone with the Wind”, Norma Shearer wore an embellished gown paired with a floor-length fur coat that certainly turned heads and confirmed that performers were there to distract and idealize during the nation’s trying time. Some of the other prime examples from the era come from Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow.

Though the Academy Awards had been around since 1929, their first actual red carpet was installed in 1961- though of course at the time viewers couldn’t tell that it was red on their black and white TV sets. The importance of Oscars style started even earlier than that though, with one notable example being worn by Audrey Hepburn in 1954 when she won the award for Best Actress for her role in “Roman Holiday”. She wore a white gown by Hubert de Givenchy, which has been deemed “the most iconic Oscar dress of all time” by Time Magazine. The following year, when Grace Kelly took home the same award for her role in “The Country Girl,” she wore a design by Edith Head in a bright minty green. In 1964, more attention was given to the red carpet arrivals, with the emcee that year saying, “Much of the excitement of every Academy Award presentation is generated by the prominent arriving guests.” This kicked off a trend that would eventually become an hours long broadcast decades later.

One of the earliest examples of a red carpet “wardrobe malfunction” happened at the 1969 Academy Awards ceremony. That night, Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand would memorably tie for the award of Best Actress, but perhaps even more notable was the Arnold Scaasi ensemble that Streisand wore while accepting it. The sparkling pant suit was made from a material that appeared almost completely sheer under the bright TV lights, a fact Streisand asserted that she wasn’t aware of before choosing it. Was this great PR or an actual mistake? We may never know.

It was after this point that the stars started to get more creative with their red carpet outfits. Gone were the days of formulaic floor length gowns. The ‘70s ushered in an era where the celebrities wanted their looks to be talked about so they strayed from what was expected and made bolder and bolder choices. 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal memorably wore a menswear style suit in 1974 rather than the frilly dress that may have been expected of her. At this time, celebrities largely made their own outfits choices without the help of stylists or teams of public relations experts. Because of this, we got to see stars’ personalities shine as well as a greater amount of diversity in the styles.

The next big change came in the early to mid-1990s when reporters on the red carpet actually began having conversations with the stars walking it. Joan and Melissa Rivers were the ones to revolutionize this format by asking the now ubiquitous question: “who are you wearing?” From this point on, asking actresses to name the designers of every piece they were sporting was de rigueur. In 1995, Uma Thurman wore a Prada dress that garnered nearly as much attention as anything else to take place at the Oscars ceremony that night. What this brought forth was a period that would last for decades, where fashion designers became the kings of the red carpet. Vogue called Giorgio Armani “the original red-carpet dresser, styling celebrities for their big night even before the word ‘stylist’ came into popular usage” after he began focusing his efforts on outfitting stars for major events. Other brands quickly caught on to how much publicity this could offer them.

By the late ‘90s, wearing couture on the red carpet became more popular, with one of the most notable examples being Nicole Kidman’s 1997 Dior gown. Though interestingly at this time, the harsh critiques that commentators made on women’s outfits simultaneously scared many into dressing more conservatively rather than taking sartorial risks. So-called “retro glamour” came back into vogue, with many stars channeling old Hollywood with their looks.

There were of course some exceptions. Who can forget Bjork’s infamous swan dress from 2001? There were always celebrities willing to think outside the box in terms of their style. The following year, when Halle Berry won the award for Best Actress, she wore a visually compelling dress by Elie Saab that certainly broke the mold.

A few years later, things had changed again with a new trend: using a stylist. Though they were already in use at the turn of the century, it became standard by the mid-aughts to hire someone with a capital S to dress you for a major event. In other words, celebrity stylists became stars in their own right. People like Rachel Zoe were given nearly as much attention as some of the actresses who they dressed.

So where have we come to today? The question “who are you wearing?” has largely been pushed aside for being rote and possibly sexist, and stars are not shy to get political on the red carpet. At the 2018 Golden Globes, the majority of the stars on the red carpet dressed in black in support of the #MeToo movement. But perhaps the thing that has influenced today’s red carpet style more than anything else is social media. Because of the oversaturation of content people see every day, it takes a lot to stand out. That means celebrities have to work hard to one up one another so that their images are the ones being seen that day. With events like the Met Gala, the idea of what constitutes red carpet fashion has broadened to include more show-stopping styles. We’ve also seen changes in who gets attention on the red carpet, with more diversity in terms of race, gender and sexuality being represented. In an industry that is ever changing, we’re always eager to see what comes next.