Starlets Bid Farewell to the ‘Naked Dress’
Baring as much as possible was once good red-carpet pub, but now it’s just a bore
Is modesty making a comeback?
The New York Post recently came to a startling conclusion, one so unexpected the tabloid rag wrote a whole story about it: Women in Hollywood have started wearing clothes to award shows. Clothes that, like, cover a woman’s private parts.
“When Jennifer Lopez showed up on (the) Golden Globes,” Post writer Anahita Moussaian said, “it was almost as if she was saying to the world, ‘Been there, shown that.’”
Lopez choose something more modest for her appearance, going back on her previous trend of wearing designer clothing that was high on price and cheap on coverage. Lopez, who acts shy when discussing her physical attributes in interviews, has made a career of staying in the media by bearing as much as legally possible at whatever red carpet gig is on the calendar.
But that has changed, with Lopez, 46, going for an elegant and dignified image — one that didn’t look like it belonged on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. This has taken some entertainment media by surprise (and disappointed a few men in the process), but after decades of shock value, the shock is gone. Long gone.
The history of the controversial Hollywood dress is a long one. As one example, Jayne Mansfield – known for her curvaceous figure — crashed a 1950s party Paramount Studios held for Sophia Loren; her mission was to get press at her rival actress’s expense. Loren was never shy about her body and often commanded the attention of cameras, but was stunned by Mansfield, who appeared wearing nothing under her dress — what little there was of it. This led to a famous photo of Loren staring at the overflowing Mansfield as the two sat at a table.
Mansfield’s one-time stunt had nothing on Cher, who made her post-Sonny Bono career by embracing modern (at the time) pop music and wearing lingerie in music videos and at award shows. “If I Could Turn Back Time” was a hit and had to be edited to air before a certain hour, not because of the overly enthusiastic sailors on board the U.S. Navy battleship where the video was filmed, but because Cher was wearing a cross between biker beach wear and — nothing.
Jennifer Lopez at the 42nd Grammy Awards on Feb. 23, 2000, in Los Angeles.
While half-nude was still in style from the early ’90s onward, Lopez made it a staple. She was a true A-list celeb as both an actress and singer, and she became a media sensation wearing a green V-shaped dress that covered nothing and looked fashioned out of seaweed on the set of “The Blue Lagoon.”
The race to out-nude other actresses and singers was on. There was more flesh on display than clothing, and topping one another meant precious TV time. It didn’t help that networks began adding new award shows by the week and social media became visually focused through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. This is the territory of shock and awe, naked dress experts and the Kardashian family — which has kept a twisted industry alive, starting with one lone sex tape over a decade ago, now passed onto barely legal sisters doing sexy smartphone selfies that are more produced than most wedding photographs.
But the Kardashians aside, last year the trend changed, and it has less to do with Lopez deciding she wants to show less of her body.
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When Jennifer Lawrence began her yearly run through the Golden Globes and Oscars, she dressed elegantly, though Lawrence (a bit of a Kentucky tomboy) had issues navigating stairs in her dresses, teetering a few times. But she showed something more interesting than her body — her personality. Lawrence dropped the canned one-liners and would joust with the press, be sarcastic and funny, and show a remarkable amount of self-deprecation and self-awareness (for a Hollywood starlet, anyway).
Lawrence may have started the death knell, but the dress ultimately did itself in. Wearing nearly nothing in front of millions on television and the Internet, as well as your peers and bosses, isn’t comfortable for anyone. If it can’t get you the publicity to help your career, the naked dress makes little sense.
Did family values play a part? With so much of the pop music industry geared toward fans in their early teens and pre-teens, maybe. Katy Perry, never reluctant to show off her body, began covering up as well so as not to anger the parents of her audience. And Taylor Swift is classic from head to toe whenever she appears, titillating, perhaps, but never overexposed.
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