Elle Fanning’s naked dress has a long history

(CNN) — To some, arriving at an important event naked is the stuff of nightmares. For others, it’s a meticulously planned reality. For Elle Fanning, who showed up to Monday night’s Met Gala in a completely transparent Balmain gown, it was the latter.

Radiant, gleaming and gossamer, the actor looked like she was one false step away from shattering. According to Balmain, the frock’s organza fabric was hand-covered with four layers of resin to achieve a glass effect. The resulting garment conjured images of the precious “crystalline flowers” used to reverse the clock in JG Ballard’s 1962 short story, “The Garden of Time” (this year’s Met Gala theme).

But Fanning wasn’t the only celebrity embracing a full-frontal look. Emily Ratajkowski, Kim Kardashian, Doja Cat, Phoebe Dyvenor, Greta Lee and even Eddie Redmayne all wore sheer outfits onto the red carpet, often with nothing but strategically placed embroidery or crystal embellishing to protect their modesty. Behold: The naked dress (or in Redmayne’s case, naked suit).

Designs that hint, some more subtly than others, at the wearer’s nudity have become a mainstay on celebrity red carpets and runways. Doja Cat and Miley Cyrus both donned barely-there nude gowns at the Grammy Awards in February; while at the Oscars in March Jennifer Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Florence Pugh, Kendall Jenner, Ice Spice, Charli XCX, Charlize Theron and Iris Law reminded us of the many varieties of a naked dress — from transparent lace to crystal netting. On the Spring-Summer 2024 catwalks, too, see-through skirts were spotted at almost every show, from Prada to Erdem, Acne Studios to Dior.

But this preoccupation with sartorial teasing is not new. In 1962, Hollywood actor Carroll Baker was photographed in one of the first ever naked dresses — also designed by Balmain.

Baker’s breasts were covered (for the most part) with two embellished pasties sewn onto a sheer torso panel, while embroidered beads and sequins trimmed the sleeves, the neckline and covered the entire skirt. It was a custom look, created specifically for Baker by Pierre Balmain at his atelier in Paris. “(Baker) particularly likes muslin dresses with sparkles placed at the critical points,” wrote ELLE magazine in 1964. “She already has seven. Balmain just designed the 8th one.”

Today’s abundance of nude gowns can sometimes make the red carpet look more like a Spencer Tunick photograph. But in the early days of these peek-a-boo garments, wearers still managed to ruffle a few feathers. Particularly in Baker’s case, when she arrived one October evening at the Plaza cinema in London for the premiere of her latest film “The Carpetbaggers” (1964). Her sheer Balmain dress turned heads — and generated headlines. “Carroll goes to the show — almost topless,” wrote British tabloid the Daily Mirror. “It’s about as near as you can get to a topless dress without actually being topless.” Balmain’s “transparent” dresses, as he called them, were some of the first high-fashion naked dresses to garner widespread attention (Yves Saint Laurent didn’t create his first full-sheer look until 1966).

In the 1960s, women’s fashion in America and Europe was changing at a rapid pace thanks, in part, to the sexual liberation movement and the gradual introduction of the contraceptive pill. Mary Quant devised the scandalous mini skirt, while Edie Sedgwick rejected bottoms altogether — favoring instead an underwear and tights combo that is still referenced today.

Although, Baker’s barely-there dress may have been more than just a sign of the times. In 1964 — just a few months before her “topless” moment at London’s Plaza cinema — the New York Times called Baker “the most controversial female star in Hollywood,” namely for her perceived comfort with on-screen nudity.

Nudity was strictly censored in US films by the Production Code Administration, an independent body which relied on distributors to help enforce standards. After the Paramount Decrees in 1948 — a landmark ruling that forced companies such as Paramount, Fox, MGM and Warner Brothers to divest from theaters — cinemas were suddenly liberated from the thumb of powerful studios. By the 1960s, a nudity violation raised by the Production Code Administration meant a lot less than it did 20 years ago, as cinemas had the final decision on whether to run the film or not.

Baker, according to the New York Times, had become “a major target of heated arguments about nudity in American films.” The actor responded nonchalantly and almost prophetically, “I believe that in the next 10 years nudity will be accepted in movies… I do not think movie nudity will injure the national character.” So while the press and wider world fizzed at Baker’s on-screen state of undress, she decided to do one better, and give them a glimpse of the real thing.

While Fanning’s look was markedly less controversial than Baker’s, it proved that even after six decades, the naked dress is still as relevant as ever.

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