In Cannes, Rules Were Always Made to Be Broken
From Madonna to Kristen Stewart, these are our favorite moments of style rebellion at the film festival
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
The Cannes Film Festival has always sold itself as the pinnacle of glamour — a red carpet where decorum is law and the dress code is enforced with the kind of seriousness usually reserved for actual laws. And yet, according to Harper's Bazaar, the most enduring images from the Croisette aren't the ones where everyone played by the rules.
The archive tells a more interesting story. Bianca Jagger alongside Helmut Berger in 1975. Madonna in Jean Paul Gaultier's iconic cone bra in 1991. Pamela Anderson at the Barb Wire premiere in 1994. Sharon Stone at Unzipped in 1995. These weren't accidents — they were declarations. Women who understood that the red carpet is, at its core, a stage, and that the most powerful move is to rewrite the script entirely.
The Barefoot Rebellion
By the 2010s, a quieter but no less pointed form of rule-breaking emerged. Uma Thurman wore flat sandals in 2011 — practically subversive by Cannes standards. Then came Julia Roberts in 2016, descending the famous steps in Armani Privé while completely barefoot. Kristen Stewart did the same in 2018, reportedly in direct response to reports that festival security had turned women away for not wearing heels. The message landed. Jennifer Lawrence showed up in 2023 in a full Dior gown paired with flip flops, which at this point felt less like a rebellion and more like a tradition.
In between, Bella Hadid delivered two of the festival's most talked-about moments — a draped Alexandre Vauthier look in 2016 that felt like sculpture, and a Saint Laurent appearance in 2024 that reminded everyone why she remains one of fashion's most precise operators. Milla Jovovich wore John Galliano to the premiere of The Fifth Element in 1997 during the designer's most electric era. Spanish actress Victoria Abril that same year arrived in a blazer so open it practically dared the dress code to say something.
What connects all of it isn't shock value — it's intentionality. These women weren't underdressed or underprepared; they were making a point about who the red carpet is actually for. The festival's rigid aesthetic expectations have always been most interesting when someone decides, very deliberately, not to meet them.
Cannes will keep issuing its dress codes, and the women worth watching will keep finding ways to make them irrelevant.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
