EDITOR’S NOTE: Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the last seven days.
When Jennifer Lawrence walked the red carpet at the Rome Film Festival this week, she did so while wearing a two-toned V-neck sweater and a lightweight tiered white skirt. Her cozy knit pullover was weather-appropriate for a fall October evening, but formal wear puritans might question whether it was red carpet-appropriate.
Sweaters are not often associated with glamorous event arrivals, at least not in recent memory. For the last 15 or so years, celebrities have been, in general, more trussed up, as red carpets have become a heightened economic prospective for stars and designers alike. These days, it’s not unusual for an ornate gown to come with a sculptural headpiece, or be completed by a train that reaches beyond several meters. Earlier this year the Cannes Film Festival organizers even went as far as banning “voluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train,” in their red carpet dress code after the “flow of traffic of guests” was being disrupted by too many larger-than-life frocks. Of course, no one really listened.
Lawrence’s ensemble still fit the bill (it was from Jonathan Anderson’s debut womenswear collection for Dior, after all). But it still ran counter to the impulse to do the most, refusing the popular strategy of wearing the biggest, boldest gown — or, lately, the most transparent dress. There’s a reason nostalgic photos of 1990s film premieres are constantly recirculated on the internet: Red carpets looked more fun three decades ago.
In a world before stylists and social media, celebrities had room to dress according to their mood and personal taste — not to mention the freedom to experiment away from the pitchforks of an Instagram comment section. Despite Lawrence’s outfit being straight from the runway, her easy-breezy, slouchy sweater called back to another era of Hollywood dressing. It also seemed to ask: Can red carpet fashion loosen up a bit?
Lawrence’s style choices have posed that question before, for example when she paired a Dior red princess gown with a pair of black flip flops at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. But she isn’t the only one challenging expectations. Last month, comedian and actor Megan Stalter made headlines for defying red carpet tradition by wearing a pair of blue Levi’s jeans and a white T-shirt to the 2025 Emmys.
“I think people need to bring back jeans on the red carpet,” Stalter told Variety. “They were in the ‘90s… there’s no rules. You’re allowed to do what you want.”
There have been other rumblings of a red carpet resistance: Taylor Russell dressed in vintage Levi’s and a Gucci white fur bolero for the Fashion Awards in 2022, and Kristen Stewart’s sweater dress (albeit sequinned and Chanel) at the Toronto Film Festival in 2018. But A-listers looking to really disrupt the sartorial status quo must make bigger statements — by being decidedly more understated.
