Look of the Week: The surprising elegance of Renate Reinsve’s red carpet bandana

(CNN) — Bandanas have long been the crowning glory of festival looks, Instagrammable beach outfits and, more recently, the fashion week front row. Rarer is it to see the casual headscarf on the red carpet circuit — a space usually reserved for sartorial extravagance.

But on Saturday night, Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve made a convincing case for bandanas as luxurious eveningwear with a version from Calvin Klein’s Spring-Summer 2026 collection at the European Film Awards. Reinsve, who won best actress for her performance in Joachim Trier’s latest film, “Sentimental Value,” arrived on the red carpet in a stark white floor-length dress, also by Calvin Klein, held up by spaghetti straps. The gown was cut low in the back, creating a V-shape that her triangular bandana neatly corresponded to. She wore no jewelry, save for one sculptural silver ring on her index finger.

The ensemble was styled by Karla Welch, who has been working with Reinsve at least since 2022. While promoting “Sentimental Value” the pair have created a series of minimalist looks that pack a punch through surprising details. At the Golden Globes earlier this month, Reinsve made a splash with a custom Louis Vuitton silver strapless gown. But what sounds like a tired red carpet formula was elevated by long swishing strands threaded with over 800,000 bugle beads that made the actor look more like a walking glitter curtain. Most of Reinsve’s outfits follow this rhythm of familiar-with-a-twist: a gorgeous balloon-skirted gown with a one-shoulder neckline, but rendered in heavy black leather, for example; or a black velvet two-piece with the exaggerated silhouette of a Barbara Hepworth sculpture.

Historically, bandanas were workwear — used by farm laborers and workers who needed protection from sun, heat and dust. The loud paisley prints we have come to recognize as tent poles of Americana fashion were actually inspired by textile-makers in India — later embraced by 18th century European snuff-takers who appreciated the way they camouflaged tobacco stains. In the 1990s and early 2000s, celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez paved the way for red carpet bandanas, though hers — worn to the MTV Music Video Awards in 2000 — was folded and tied across her forehead like a headband.

In her second collection for Calvin Klein, Veronica Leoni, the brand’s current creative director, redesigned workwear through a modern lens. “That unadorned and very practical approach to the daily look of urban life seduced me quite a lot,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. But the blank white and black monochromatic headscarves she sent down the runway last September felt more in line with the tradition of headscarf-wearing women in Europe. A piece of starched white linen, called a skaut, was a key part of a married woman’s traditional folk costume in 19th century Norway, for example.

There was a similar humility to Reinsve’s Calvin Klein scarf, a homeliness that at first might feel incongruous on the red carpet (X largely reacted to the outfit with tongue-in-cheek jabs about the actor getting lost on the way to scrub her house). But Reinsve isn’t the first to try and reframe domesticity as something more formal. In December, Emma Corrin wore a frilly quilted Prada apron to the London premiere of “100 Nights of Hero,” and a bonnet to the 2021 Emmy Awards. The red carpet isn’t just a place for ostrich feathers and elbow gloves. There’s room for something a little quieter, too.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.