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Meryl Streep, who planted a red-carpet kiss on Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, was one of many who chose to wear black and to bring a female activist as a date. This, along with the “reverse-Handmaiding” effect of the black dresses, applied a Bechdel-test rigour to the notion, apparently revolutionary in Hollywood, that women might have a significance beyond their status as lust objects or trophy wives. Many male attendees swapped their white shirts for black, and thrust their Time’s Up pins eagerly toward every camera. Caleb McLoughlin, 16-year-old star of Stranger Things, looked particularly dapper in a black polo neck under his tux. But this night wasn’t really about them.

Most actors chose relatively sober silhouettes. Belted and structured dresses were a theme, while froth and frills were notable by their absence, at least at leadership-level among the power players. Exaggerated thigh-high splits and ultra-low necklines were less in evidence. The post-Weinstein fallout has coloured every nuance of life in Hollywood, and red carpet interviewers found themselves gingerly side-stepping the issue of who looked sexy. The unspoken conundrum of this red carpet was whether a glitzily saucy black dress was as in-step with the dress code as, say, Gal Gadot’s tuxedo-inspired Tom Ford gown. There are complexities as to how sexiness can be safely handled. But just as everyone agrees it should still be perfectly possible for two consensual adults who fancy each other in a workplace to find their way to romance, so do we know that it should be quite straightforward for an actor who chooses to wear a sexy dress on the red carpet to do so. It’s just that we haven’t quite figured out how to unpick this stuff, yet. After all, as Oscar Wilde said, “everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

The designer Prabal Gurung, who dressed Kerry Washington and Issa Rae, told Harper’s Bazaar during the run-up to the event that fashion was “proving it can be an important factor in communicating powerful values and ideals … when future generations look back on this watershed moment, I hope they will realise that fashion served a crucial role in conveying this powerful message, and that fashion is no longer just about beauty and glamour.”

Content Courtesy Of the Guardian