Many celebrities have custom designer gowns made for the Oscars, but actresses Rita Moreno and Tiffany Haddish decided to think outside the box and venture inside their own closets for Sunday night’s red carpet.
All eyes were on Moreno — one of only 12 people to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award. She rocked the same black and gold kimono-inspired dress she wore to the 1962 Academy Awards, where she won best supporting actress in “West Side Story,” Vulture reported. Fifty-six years later, that dress is still as stunning as ever.
Haddish also turned heads at the awards ceremony by wearing her white Alexander McQueen dress for the third time — a serious fashion faux pas, at least by traditional Hollywood standards. She wore it for the first time at the red carpet premiere of her movie Girls Trip last summer and then again to host Saturday Night Live in November.
When Haddish announced her plan to rewear her white dress on SNL, her co-stars tried to talk her out of it. But Haddish didn’t care about making a “taboo” fashion statement. The $4,000 investment is a “testament to her hard work,” Emmie Martin writes in CNBC.
“I don’t give a dang about no taboo,” Haddish said on SNL. “I spent a lot of money on this dress! This dress cost way more than my mortgage. This a Alexander McQueen, okay?”
Haddish joked that she intends to wear the dress over and over again, to formal events like church services, bar mitzvahs and future weddings, according to The Chicago Tribune. “I should be able to wear what I want, when I want, however many times I want, as long as I’ve Febreezed it,” she said.
Thrive Global founder and CEO Arianna Huffington has been a long-time advocate for repeating outfits, as well. Women already pay a higher price than men in terms of sleep deprivation and burnout, she explained, so why is it more acceptable for men to recycle outfits than it is for women?
“As women, we’ve collectively broken many glass ceilings, but still seem to be laboring under the cotton-silk-rayon-makeup-and-heels ceiling,” she wrote.
Further proving her passion for repeats, Huffington said she loves recycling her favorite black dress. She pulls out her simple Nanette Lepore dress on a number of different occasions, ranging from casual get-togethers to a Christmas Party at the White House.
Huffington strives to redefine conventions so women feel professional and confident in any form of clothing. She blames social media for exacerbating a culture that already pressures women into feeling like they always have to have a fresh new look. It’s time we “reclaim all the time and energy lost” to picking a new outfit for every occasion, she said.
There was a time when rewearing a dress on the red carpet meant fashion suicide, but now it seems the view has changed. So if you find an outfit that speaks to you, that makes you feel confident and powerful, don’t be afraid to wear it again and again.