Scandalous Outfits We Will Never Forget

Oh, what a little skin can do.


Theda Bara, 1917: The actress Theda Bara — one of Hollywood's first ever sex symbols and femme fatales — starred in the title role of the 1917 silent film Cleopatra, wearing expensive and racy costumes that included a coiled snake bra that wrapped around her bare breasts. Censors required cuts of scenes that included Bara's "objectionable costume" and "costume exposing body." Sadly, most of the film is now lost because the last remaining prints were destroyed.

Josephine Baker in the 1920s: The dancer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker found fame in Paris in the 1920s. Her most iconic routine was the danse sauvage, in which she wore a skirt made out of artificial bananas and twerked before twerking was even a term. Audiences didn't know what to do with their feelings of attraction, fascination, and disgust. Baker's contemporary, the anthropologist Essie Robeson, called it "this ridiculously vulgar...wiggling." Ernest Hemingway remembered her as being "the most sensational woman anybody ever saw. Or ever will."

Jean Harlow, 1933: It's hard not to think of the Art Deco age and bias cut gowns without picturing this costume gown by Gilbert Adrian that Harlow wore in the film Dinner at Eight. It had a low back and beautiful criss-crossing straps in the front, and it looked like it had been poured right over Harlow's body. Fun fact: Harlow couldn't actually sit down in the dress because of the way it was cut so close to her figure.

Rita Hayworth, 1941: Rita Hayworth wasn't yet known as the "Love Goddess" when she sat for this alluring image for LIFE Magazine in 1941. It became "arguably the single most famous and most frequently reproduced American pinup image ever" (that's according to LIFE, though I'm not going to disagree). She wore a lacy silk negligee — definitely inside clothes back then — and knelt on top of a bed in the photograph by Bob Landry. It was too risqué for the cover, according to someone who worked at LIFE at the time, but it was fine to run inside the magazine. More than five million copies of the image ended up in the hands of American troops fighting in World War II.

Marilyn Monroe, 1955: Marilyn Monroe wore her most famous white halter dress (with two pairs of underwear for safety) in the film The Seven Year Itch. "Ooh, do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn't it delicious?" she asks in the scene as the pleated skirt of her dress by costume designer William Travilla blows up. The scene was first shot on location in New York City, but thousands of onlookers were making so much noise that it had to be re-shot on a set. Monroe's then-husband Joe DiMaggio was on set during filming and was reportedly so upset by it that it caused the breakdown of the marriage.

Jayne Mansfield, 1957: There's a more famous photo than this from the same party in which Sophia Loren (pictured here on the left) gives Jayne Mansfield the stankiest side eye ever captured. Why the contempt? Mansfield had arrived in a dress that stole the spotlight, which was supposed to be on Loren that night. (The move was a publicity stunt; Mansfield knew that the dress would expose her boobs.) "Look at the picture," Loren recently told EW. "Where are my eyes? I'm staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate. In my face you can see the fear. I'm so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow — BOOM! — and spill all over the table."

Marilyn Monroe, 1962: Here's a closer look at the dress, which Monroe was still wearing when she hit up the after-party with President Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. The lore is that she skipped underwear for this dress. It might explain why the president isn't looking at the actress at all but keeping his eyes on the floor. The dress later sold at auction for $1.26 million.

Cher, 1974: Cher collaborated on many indelible looks with the designer Bob Mackie, but this is one that really got people talking — and wanting a copy for themselves. She first wore this feathery naked dress to the Metropolitan Museum in 1974, then again on the cover of TIME Magazine in 1975. "When Cher was on the cover of Time, in her see-through dress, every tired old broad in Hollywood called asking me for one just like it," Mackie said in 2014. Kim Kardashian paid homage to Cher's dress when she attended the Met Gala four decades later.

Mary Tyler Moore, 1975: In the fifth season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore's character Mary Richards wears a green dress designed by a friend (a former prostitute). Upon seeing Mary in the revealing cutout dress, the live audience responded with shrieks and cheers. Mary's friend Ted Baxter says, "Get me a glass of water," because ~thirst~. Mary thinks it looks horrible, Ted thinks it looks fantastic. Whatever the case, the dress was certainly memorable.

Carrie Fisher, 1983: Carrie Fisher would become a sex symbol after she wearing this copper bikini as Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. It has had plenty of critics who say it is sexist, among other things, and "a bit of soft-core porn dropped in the middle of a kids' adventure story." Fisher herself has warned Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley against wearing any similar costumes. "You keep fighting against that slave outfit," Fisher told Ridley.

Cindy Crawford, 1991: For her first red carpet with her then-boyfriend Richard Gere, supermodel Cindy Crawford dominated the red carpet at the Academy Awards. For her all-eyes-on-me moment, she wore a scarlet Versace halter dress that featured a low cut in the front ...

Sharon Stone, 1992: In one of the most famous scenes in Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone wears a sleeveless turtleneck dress made of winter white wool crepe. Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick made a choice to clothe Stone's femme fatale in pale neutrals instead of dark, vampy colors. Stone famously crosses and uncrosses her legs in the white dress, exposing her uncovered genitalia. (The actress later claimed this happened without her knowledge.) The graphic sexual nature of the scene (and the film) led to protest and criticism.

Jennifer Lopez, 2000: Along with David Duchovny, Jennifer Lopez presented the first award at the Grammys in 2000. She wore a sheer green silk chiffon dress by Versace that had been worn previously by model Amber Valletta and Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. But nobody wore it like Lopez. You could hear someone in the audience yell out, "Oh my god!" as people cheered appreciatively. "Well, Jennifer," Duchovny said, "this is the first time in five or six years that I'm sure that nobody is looking at me."

Toni Braxton, 2001: The actor Jimmy Smits and singer Joe ogled Toni Braxton as they walked across the stage to present an award at the Grammys in 2001. "We are speechless," Smits said. The Richard Tyler dress had a panel going down the front and another going down the back, with a belt of sorts keeping the two panels together but leaving a large gap in between. "Things were up – the boobies were perkier, the cellulite was less," Braxton told People in 2014. "You got to do it when you're young. I think the funniest thing was 'Is she naked under there?' Like, what is she wearing under that?"

Gwyneth Paltrow, 2002: Gwyneth Paltrow herself called this unflattering look (but memorable precisely for this reason) a fashion faux pas. "There were a few issues; I still love the dress itself but I should have worn a bra and I should have just had simple beachy hair and less makeup. Then, it would have worked as I wanted it to – a little bit of punk at the Oscars."

Kate Middleton, 2002: According to CNN, the size 8 dress started out as a skirt, and was made with two turquoise bands at either end of a column of knitted black-and-gold silk. The designer said she created the dress with "the art of seduction" in mind. "So, in a way, if that's what she wanted, she definitely bagged her prince, so it got her what she wanted."

Bella Hadid, 2016: Bella Hadid set the temperature rising in this smoking hot Alexandre Vauthier gown as she attended 'The Unknown Girl (La Fille Inconnue)' Photocall during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2016. She showed off her toned body in this red silk gown which she paired with diamond drop earrings and braclet.

Kim Kardashian, 2016: Kim Kardashian West arrived for the Vogue 100 Festival Gala on May 23, 2016 in London in this embroidered and ultra sheer Roberto Cavalli gown. She completed her look with a huge khaki belt, nude peep-toe heels and neutral make-up.