The knee-jerk reaction to the term “hooded dress” isn’t exactly one of abject desire. It can conjure up mental images of jersey-fabric hoodie dresses, grey marl, short hems, drawstrings — Boohoo A/W 2014 incarnate. The concept has the same aura as heeled Converse, which says a lot.
But the hooded dress is a dark horse. It comes in many forms, and believe it or not, chic is one of them. The hooded gown has become a red carpet staple as of late, offering up some of the sexiest looks from this season’s award shows and A-list events. Like last week, for instance, when Margot Robbie arrived at the premiere for her new film, Babylon, with her legs, abs and arms bare in a custom Alaïa cut out gown — but her head covered.
Sans cowl, the revealing dress would still have been a bold choice, though ultimately a pretty standard LBD. It was the hooded element that cemented Robbie’s status as a daring new red carpet icon, thanks to her suspected separation from longtime fashion partner Chanel.
Simone Ashley also offered up a more modest but equally sultry alternative at the British Fashion Awards red carpet earlier this month, where hooded gowns were in abundance. The Sex Education and Bridgerton actress arrived in a glittering custom 16Arlington look, covered head to toe in tiny gemstones which were embellished onto a lavender, form fitting gown.
And divisive new fashion girlie Katie Holmes was seen cloaking it up as early as September, going full funeral chic at NYFW in a black hooded Tom Ford number. But, of course, the earliest instance this year was trendsetter in chief, Ms Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty, who stepped out in an Alaïa red caped coat back in February, during her modish maternity era.
It doesn’t take a fashion historian (or… cowl expert) to know that hooded dresses have been a sexy staple in previous years, too. Grace Jones was one of the main purveyors of the awning-infused outfit, donning various caped creations as Bond girl May Day in A View To Kill in 1985 and then making history in that iconic Alaïa hooded gown on the runway in 1986, cementing the fashion house as the go-to for the cowl look.
In more recent memory there is Kylie Minogue’s covered-yet-totally-uncovered Can’t Get You Out of My Head outfit in all its draped white glory.
Yet the hooded dress hasn’t always gone down so well. In 2015, Anne Hathaway ascended the steps of the 2015 Met Gala in a silky, golden Ralph Lauren look (shawl included) and it proved weirdly controversial. The garment, which was dubbed a “hoodie dress” by many, was not universally enjoyed, to the extent that Vanity Fair even penned a piece explaining “Why Anne Hathaway Wore a Hoodie to the Met Gala”, as if she had turned up in a pair of grease-stained sweats.
So how was something so wrong then, and so right now? Well, it’s part of our thirst for newness on increasingly avant garde red carpets, says stylist Mary Fellowes: “The red carpet can often veer theatrical [...] and these hoods are theatrical if nothing else.”
Fellowes questions whether it is the time of year which has suddenly brought so many hooded gowns to the red carpet. “These celeb looks are evocative of a Grimms fairytale character in a seasonal musical,” she says. Or perhaps a response to the nearly-naked looks which have dominated red carpets of late. “Is it a reaction against the Kardashian-esque tendency to provocatively expose a lot of skin, likely with the intent of being ‘viral’?” she asks. “If this haute-modesty is the backlash, bring it on. Less is more.”
But with Margot Robbie’s Alaïa hooded look bridging the gap between hooded gown and nearly-naked dress, she hasn’t exactly rebelled against bare skin on the red carpet. What she has done is fuse the two most popular looks this season. Congrats Robbie, and get ready for a whole lot more bare bellies and covered heads, because the naked dress isn’t over — it’s just gained a cowl.
