Welcome to the Age of Method Dressing 

Lately I’ve been thinking about Blake Lively’s press tour for 2018’s A Simple Favor. Lively plays Emily, a mysterious, suit-wearing glamazon who befriends an eager mommy blogger (Anna Kendrick), then disappears without a trace.  Lively promoted her character  off-screen by wearing a bunch of suits around New York, from the trendy (a wide-legged neon green number), to the confounding (a blue velvet set with a mauve velvet blazer in high summer), to the Gatsby-approved (three pieces of white pinstripe). These indelible looks convinced me to watch the film (an unsung cult classic). 

Five years later, Halle Bailey is now following Lively’s lead. The 23-year-old star is currently promoting The Little Mermaid, with a wardrobe of iridescent, aquatic gowns: a Miss Sohee gown with a shell-like bodice and a beaded headpiece reminiscent of what a synchronized swimmer might wear for the London premiere; a pale blue gown with a netted skirt for a fan event; a cascading opera coat with layers of tulle resembling seafoam for this year’s Met Gala. 

My colleague André Wheeler called this “method dressing,” a chance to extend a project’s cinematic universe onto the red carpet before the movie even premieres. Many celebs have made sartorial nods to their roles: Zendaya wore multiple cobwebs while promoting Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling leaned into the ever-present Barbie-mania at Comic-Con in pink ensembles that borrowed heavily from the dolls. Anya Taylor-Joy traded her Old Hollywood gowns for a hot pink moto set at the premiere of The Super Mario Bros. Movie earlier this year, even throwing a playful punch towards the cameras on the red carpet. Jenna Ortega has also parlayed her role as Wednesday Addams into an aesthetic sensibility so inextricably linked to the moody character she plays that it’s difficult to tell where Wednesday ends and Ortega begins. 

One particularly whimsical, vintage application of method dressing was when Geena Davis wore a dress with baseball stitching at the sides to the premiere of A League of Their Own in 1992. It doesn’t even have to be so literal; Michelle Yeoh’s avant-garde attire she wore while promoting Everything Everywhere All at Once, as well as Tessa Thompson’s everything-is-not-what-it-appears wardrobe for Westworld, come to mind as examples of merely gesturing towards a show or film’s themes. 

As red carpets are heavily orchestrated events, this kind of stylization makes a lot of sense—especially if the film itself is a romp. (Cate Blanchett wisely didn’t wear a Lydia Tàr tux to the Oscars, though some fans surely would have enjoyed that sartorial synergy.) Each step on the press tour is a potentially viral moment, or at least a set of articles. And if a celebrity wears something in character, well, the headline writes itself. (I’m speaking from personal experience.) 

When Bailey wore a Cinderella and/or sea blue gown to the Oscars in March, a reminder went off in my brain: The Little Mermaid is coming out soon. And so it begins: Bailey’s high-octane, perfectly princess-y turn on the red carpet then sparks a wider trend and suddenly all the normies are dressing in Mermaidcore. 

After The Little Mermaid premiered, I received an email that Nasty Gal had found that “Pinterest searches for ‘mermaidcore’ skyrocketed 614 percent.” Between the movie, Bailey’s collection of Ariel-themed attire, and mermaidcore, The Little Mermaid release becomes a whole new world to enter. 

Barbie—the Greta Gerwig movie coming out in July—feels especially ripe for these kinds of theatrics. Enter: Barbiecore. Who wouldn’t want to dive into Barbie’s pretty pink world?  And you can! With Moda Operandi’s dedicated edit of PVC wedges and beaded magenta handbags; with dollhouse hotel rooms; with a bouncy blowout; with an NFT by Barbie and Balmain. 

If I were a betting woman, I would say that at least a third of the attendees at the Barbie premiere this July will be wearing something that could be found in one of the many shopping guides for barbiecore. And you know what? That feels appropriate for a splashy summer blockbuster.

That said, I do feel like the charm will quickly fade. Going back to Lively, her suits were a delightful aberration from her normal public persona. (She also doesn’t work with a stylist, and so it seemed like these were her kind of wacky idea). How quickly could that quirkiness feel rote? The movie or TV show premieres, the actors arrive at the premiere (and several before and after it) dressed in character, and the requisite trend reports ensue. The red carpet has become increasingly stylized over the past 30 years or so, and this feels like the final stage of evolution. Not only are the actors on the red carpet dressed to the nines, they’re dressed in theme. I guess how much you like it depends on whether you see the red carpet as a chance to glimpse the performer’s personal style, or an extension of the cinematic universe. Regardless, method dressing is here to stay—and I’ll be watching with a big tub of popcorn.