Who has never fished out a dress from the bottom of the wardrobe thinking: “Could I wear this again?”. Even actresses, stars, top models and princesses have been through it. Indeed: now that vintage fashion is experiencing its season of glory, more and more stars decide to wear their ‘old’ dress from five, ten, twenty or even fifty years ago.
Jada Pinkett Smith in the same dress from 20 years ago
The latest, in order of time, is Jada Pinkett Smith: On May 18, she walked the red carpet of the Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala in a black Alaïa dress that she first wore in 2004, at the Hollywood Film Festival’s Hollywood Awards Gala. The sinuous line, the play of slits and the sparkling details are still relevant today: probably no one, at first glance, could have dated it.
Only a few weeks ago it was Naomi Campbell’s turn: the top model wore ‘her’ dress from 28 years ago on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival. It is a Chanel Haute Couture creation that she herself presented on the catwalk in 1996.
The stars who love to ‘recycle’ looks
The record (difficult to beat) for now goes to Rita Moreno: in 2018 the actress showed up at the Oscars with a sumptuous black ball gown with golden decorations on the skirt and long black gloves. It was the dress she had worn to the same event in 1962, when she had won the coveted statuette. The viral photos give us two style lessons: investing in a quality dress means making it last, literally, half a century. Two: it’s not true that as you age you necessarily have to ‘cover up’ more: Moreno had even lowered the neckline of her dress, and it suited her perfectly.
Rita Moreno at the 2018 Oscars with the same dress as in 1962 (Photo by Dan MacMedan/WireImage)
The list is long: Cate Blanchett, for example, is often photographed wearing the same dress on different occasions, perhaps with a new styling or with some tailoring. At the 2023 Met Gala Nicole Kidman decided to pay homage to the designer Karl Lagerfeld by wearing a high fashion creation by Chanel. A personal tribute, given that he had already worn that same dress almost twenty years earlier for a famous commercial of the brand in which he ran between taxis with a long train of feathers.
Not to mention the famous Versace Jungle Dress, brought to the fore by Jennifer Lopez in 2002 and worn again (in an even sexier version) in Milan, on the occasion of the Versace Spring/Summer 2020 fashion show.
Even the royals often choose managers: Letizia of Spainfor example, in 2021 she again wore the same tweed dress she wore during her daughter Leonor’s christening in 2006. Kate Middleton, in 2021, attended a sustainability event with the same lilac Alexander McQueen from ten years earlier.
Jada Pinkett Smith on the red carpet in an Alaia dress. (Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Because stars wear the same dress again
It might seem like a counter-intuitive choice for a celebrity who has an endless choice of ever-changing clothes at her disposal. In reality, the phenomenon must be read in relation to rediscovery of archive clothes, increasingly present on red carpets and at major events. Then there is the value of heritage, the celebration of a piece of fashion history. Also, send a sustainability message: if it’s okay to put an old dress back on the red carpet, we certainly don’t need new clothes in everyday life either.
It is therefore not surprising that it is often the younger ones who look for archive items, even in the family wardrobes: Angelina Jolie’s daughters have ‘stolen’ the actress’s clothes on several occasions, while Carys Douglas she celebrated her birthday with a vintage dress from her mother Catherine Zeta-Jones. Of course, there are those who have an advantage…
