Red carpet

Striding onstage in 1954, her “deceptively simple lace organdie dress combined the feminine with the modern, the doeeyed debutante with the rising regal ingenue,” Mulhearn writes. One added benefit: The flowing skirt hid the big feet Hepburn was so self-conscious about.

Other stars couldn’t be contained — like Elizabeth Taylor, an annual paparazzi-friendly, cleavage-baring sensation. In 1960, mocking her homewrecker reputation for winning Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, she wore virginal white. Ten years later, with Richard Burton on her arm and a 68-carat diamond around her neck, she switched to pale blue, chosen to match Burton’s startling eyes.

Taylor’s choices always made a statement, and as the times changed, so did the messages stars wanted to send.

The ‘60s promised new freedoms, and while real change took a while, fashion led the charge. In 1966,

Julie Christie, a symbol of swinging London, ignored the obligatory gowns and wore a pants suit. Time magazine called her more influential than “the tenbest dressed women combined.” She topped that the next year, when she slipped past the backstage censors and picked up her Oscar for “Darling” wearing a mini-dress.

“Oh my God,” an appalled Edith Head exclaimed.

The revolution had arrived, at least on stage. In 1969, “Funny Girl” winner Barbra Streisand wore strategically transparent “party pajamas”; in 1971, Sally Kellerman, a Best Actress nominee for “M*A*S*H” wore a buglebead gown with a plunging V-neck. “She may not have won the Oscar,” Mulhearn writes, “but her outfit ensured she was the hot topic on everyone’s lips.”

Few stars ever gained more attention on the red carpet than Cher, who, working with Bob Mackie, slid into gowns that looked more like costumes. None grabbed more stares than her 1986 outfit, which included a feathered headdress, jet crystals, and just enough velvet, Lycra, satin, and cashmere to keep the censors at bay.

“Too much?” Mackie worried at one point. Not at all, countered Cher. She wanted a dress that made her “impossible to ignore.” It did.

Also impossible to ignore: the singer Bjork, who sported the swan dress in 2001 — which came complete with an egg the performer dropped on the carpet. Granted, this was absurd, as far as gowns go, but it was memorable.

As always, some celebrities pushed back against rituals, using their clothes to make political points.

Robert De Niro may have begun the trend in 1981 when he wore a small green ribbon in his lapel to memorialize the ongoing child murders in Atlanta. Soon other bits of colored fabric began appearing, each linked to a cause. Outraged at the lack of female nominees for director, Natalie Portman went even further in 2020 and had the names of eight snubbed women filmmakers embroidered on her Dior cape.

Still, it comes down to celebrities, their clothes, and designers, as the red carpet has become America’s

fashion runway. The days when skilled seamstresses like Joanne Woodward would buy $100 worth of green taffeta and whip up their own homemade gowns were gone. These became the nights of Valentino, Armani, and Chanel.

Everyone wanted to dress the top stars, knowing the fame would rub off on them.

The hashtag might have been #AngiesRightLeg, but the picture the Twitterati was raving over in 2012 was of Angelina Jolie’s long limb peeking out of a deeply slit gown from Atelier Versace.

Occasionally, the stars would push back, going vintage or off-the-rack (like Sharon Stone’s GAP T-shirt) or proudly bragging they were recycling an expensive gown worn before. Clothes distract from causes, they insist, which is why there was briefly a move to query stars on serious issues, too. #AskHerMore became the activist hashtag, and it gained some traction.

But very soon, the old question returned and will probably safely remain forever: “Who are you wearing?”