With its warmer weather, lighter evenings and cacophony of blooms, you’d have to be a curmudgeon not to love May; a plan-hatching, spritz-drinking fizz of a month that finds most people revelling in joie de vivre.
But not everyone. On the Cannes Film Festival red carpet things aren’t exactly heating up.
In its 78th year, it’s not the incipient showers that have put a dampener on one of the world’s most glamorous events, but the dress code. Hours before the two-week festival was due to kick off, organisers sent guests into a tailspin – and monumental wardrobe crisis – by issuing a surprise caveat.
‘For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as in any other areas of the festival,’ it decreed, with the added warning that Cannes’ ‘welcoming teams’ would prohibit access to anyone disregarding the rules.
If this was the festival’s way of dissuading Bianca Censori, wife of rapper Kanye West, from rocking up in a variant of the ‘naked’ dress she wore to the Grammys, it was unnecessarily heavy-handed. Wouldn’t a couple of bouncers have sufficed? Or was it a publicity stunt?
While the Cannes dress code may have commanded attention, it’s fair to say that the gowns themselves have not. If the goal was to make this year’s event the classiest yet, it’s scored an own goal.
No guest felt this kick to the stomach quite so keenly as Bella Hadid, the 28-year-old model and influencer whose style is so revered that 61.1 million Instagram followers hang on her every wardrobe choice.
Two hours before the 78th Cannes Film Festival was set to start, organisers issued a surprise caveat. ‘For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as in any other areas of the festival,’ it decreed (Pictured: Irina Shayk on the Red Carpet in feathered Elle Saab)
Angelina Jolie’s strapless Brunello Cucinelli gown was nude of hue, though categorically not of fabric
No guest felt this kick to the stomach quite so keenly as Bella Hadid (pictured in the UK on May 18), the 28-year-old model and influencer whose style is so revered that 61.1 million Instagram followers hang on her every wardrobe choice
If this was the festival’s way of dissuading Bianca Censori (pictured), wife of rapper Kanye West , from rocking up in a variant of the ‘naked’ dress she wore to the Grammys , it was unnecessarily heavy-handed
Over in Cannes, to paraphrase Shania Twain, that don’t impress them much. According to one newspaper, a memo was sent round featuring a photo of Hadid, braless in a transparent chiffon Saint Laurent dress, as an illustration of precisely what not to wear.
Some would call this ‘slut-shaming’. Coming from an event so allegedly keen to uphold high moral standards, it felt particularly unchivalrous. Ever the professional, Hadid appeared on the red carpet at this year’s opening ceremony dressed in a black satin gown with a relatively high neckline – although the outfit, by Saint Laurent, still contrived to stick two fingers up at the rules thanks to its high thigh split and daringly low back.
While it may have been chaste by last year’s standards, it was still one of the most alluring dresses of the week.
Admittedly, the bar this year is very low. Terrified, perhaps, to have an accidental ‘nip slip’ and risk the wrath of the organisers, most female guests are playing it safe – some might say too safe – in strapless gowns that look classic or characterless, depending on your view.
Amal Clooney (in John Galliano), Julianne Moore (custom Bottega Veneta) and Daisy Edgar-Jones (custom Gucci) looked elegant if interchangeable in funereal black, while Angelina Jolie’s strapless Brunello Cucinelli gown was nude of hue, though categorically not of fabric.
Obviously, it’s a woman’s choice as to how much she reveals on the red carpet. Few would take the naked dress trend as far as Censori, whose outfits are so extreme it’s hard to believe she wears them of her own free will. But Cannes’ new dress code seems as opaque as the gowns it has bullied its guests into wearing.
Does a sheer dress constitute nudity? How nude is ‘too nude’? If nipples are banned, what about side boob? Next year, will the cleavage fashion police have a measuring tape?
Daisy Edgar-Jones (custom Gucci) looked elegant if interchangeable in funereal black (pictured)
Pictured: Amal Clooney in John Galliano
Julianne Moore also debuted an all-black outfit on the red carpet at the annual Cannes Film Festival
As those who remember Cannes’ 2015 ban on flat shoes will attest, enforced sex appeal is a far more dubious proposition than enforced piety.
When it comes to the policing of bodies, it’s always women who seem to fall foul of the law. I don’t recall any male guests being banned for wearing flat shoes in 2015. Nor were any inconvenienced by this year’s rule change – though if any man does find himself with a transparent tux surplus to requirements, they have my sympathies.
As does Halle Berry, who, after learning of the nudity ban, was forced to ditch the dress she’d planned to wear to the opening ceremony, replacing it with a black-and-white gown whose eye-searing stripes commanded attention for all the wrong reasons.
But you don’t have to grace the red carpet at Cannes to know that event dressing is a fraught affair for women. It’s infantilising to be told that your gown is too big (another new rule – no ‘voluminous outfits’ that hinder the flow of traffic or the seating arrangements) or that your bodice is too sheer.
After learning of the nudity ban, Halle Berry (pictured) was forced to ditch the dress she’d planned to wear to the opening ceremony, replacing it with a black-and-white gown whose eye-searing stripes commanded attention for all the wrong reasons
Many would agree that the naked dress trend has gone too far. Few would have imagined it would be the French, of all nations, who’d try to censor it.
The festival has no rules governing the amount of nudity on screen, nor did it seem to mind when Jane Birkin wore a slashed-to-the-thigh gown in 1974, or the Italian porn star Cicciolina turned up in a transparent dress in 1988. It’s a strange sort of progress that Hadid should be censured, almost 40 years later, for wearing transparent Saint Laurent. Conservatism, it seems, is alive and well and coming for our wardrobes.
But only if we let it. While she may not have had freedom on the red carpet, Hadid voted with her feet – leaving at what appeared the earliest opportunity. Rather than launching her new scent at Cannes, as might have been expected, she jetted to London, and threw a party at Selfridges. What was the dress code? There wasn’t one. And if Cannes has any sense, it will follow suit next year.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .