Some celebrities dress to look good, others dress to impress, and then there are those who want to cause a cultural incident. And thank goodness for that. Imagine if everyone just dressed to blend in. There’d be hardly anything to see. It would be just an endless parade of tasteful gowns on the red carpet, and we’d all slowly fall asleep to the comments of “Oh, isn’t that elegant?”
The real fun begins when celebs want to stand out and show up dressed as a swan, a disco ball, an oversized flower arrangement, or, in the case of Lady Gaga, an actual steak dinner. Outrageous outfits like that aren’t about being the best dressed, it’s about performance, about creating a moment, or being the moment. Sometimes it’s about politics, sometimes it’s about ego, but the point is they’re all we can talk about the next day, and that’s exactly what they wanted. So let’s take a look at the stars who didn’t just wear crazy outfits, they made it part of their legacy.
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is a master of creating a moment. And before she became the polished Old Hollywood queen she is now, she was known for making the red carpet her personal performance art piece.
She’s had quite a lot of insane-looking outfits, but her most outrageous one has to be the meat dress at the 2010 MTV VMAs. I mean, it was literally made of raw plant steaks fashioned into a dress. It looked truly shocking and we don’t really want to think about how it smelled. Gaga later explained that the point of the dress was to encourage people to fight for their rights before they end up as just “the meat on the bones.”
Another memorable outfit (if we can even call it that) happened in 2014 when Gaga essentially dressed up as a huge inflatable glittery sea urchin. The inflatable spikes that protruded from her dress were so long and so big that they gave the phrase “personal space” a whole new level. But that seems to be Gaga’s fashion philosophy: to leave you outraged, shocked, amazed, or wondering how in the world she goes to the bathroom in that.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian is also very good at making her dress into a headline. What else do you expect from a reality show star. Her most famous and stylish look was probably the 2019 Met Gala nude Mugler dress that made her look like she just came out of the sea dripping in jewels. In 2021, she went the opposite way and wore a black Balenciaga outfit that covered her entirely, including her face. The fabric was so dark it looked like she was gonna absorb all the lights on that red carpet.
For the 2022 Met Gala Kim wore the Jean Louis gown. It’s the one Marilyn Monroe wore in 1962 to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. The dress is owned by Ripley’s, which bought it for $4.8 million in 2016. That is not so much “getting dressed” as “borrowing a national pop-culture artifact and hoping nothing bad happens.”
Julia Fox
Julia Fox likes her fashion choices as strange, barely practical, and potentially designed with the sole purpose of making the internet stop scrolling.
Her most controversial look has to be the time when she dressed in a pink Jackie Kennedy suit and pillbox hat in 2025. What aspects of her style are revealing or unusual? No, but it did have blood stains and a reference to the JFK assassination. Fox said it was “not as a costume, but as a statement.” Well, it definitely triggered a lot of people, including JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg.
But that’s what Julia does. She wears latex like it’s office wear, shows up to Good Morning America with a punk-inspired outfit strapped to her chest instead of wearing it, and generally enjoys pushing the limits to the point where we’re left wondering if her next look will cause some legal issues.
Lil Nas X
Lil Nas X treats red carpets like mini music videos, and honestly, more celebrities should. His whole style identity has always been colorful, theatrical, and proudly extra, going all the way back to the cowboy-glam energy of “Old Town Road.”
He wore a purple Versace pantsuit with a long, dramatic skirt for the 2021 VMA’s, proving there isn’t a silhouette he can’t rock. For the 2021 Met Gala, he wore a three-part golden outfit consisting of a dramatic cape, golden armour, and a crystal-covered bodysuit underneath. It was one of those huge spectacles reveals perfectly suited for such an event. At the 2023 Met Gala he went even further wearing silver body paint, crystals, and a barely-there metallic look. He kind of became a human disco statue for the night.
Jared Leto
Jared Leto dresses like a maximalist on steroids when it comes to red carpet events. His most famous look is probably the time he wore a royal Gucci outfit to the Met Gala and carried a creepy replica of his own head. He loves bold colours, loud patterns, and we’ve definitely seen him rock floral suits and way too many capes to justify. And of course we can’t forget that on time he came dressed as a literal cat.
Mae West
Mae West was adept at shocking the public, making her the center of attention long before the advent of social media. The star of Golden Age Hollywood knew how to work a room.
West once said her clothes should be tight enough to show she was a woman but loose enough to show she was a lady—which is possibly the most Mae West sentence ever. Her wardrobe was unapologetically theatrical and embellished. She’s worn tiaras made with 66 paste emeralds, rocked an Edith Head sequin dress with a 2-foot ostrich feather headdress, and in 1954 wore a hat decorated with diamonds. Big and cold was her style, and you can’t take that away from her.
Heidi Klum
Heidi’s regular red carpet looks are usually elegant and stylish, but nothing to write home about. But when it comes to Halloween costumes, there’s no one quite like her. She treats Halloween like a competitive sport, and she’s always the gold medalist.
We love that she never goes for a cutesy sexy little costumes, instead she fully transforms into weird and often creepy characters that require prosthetics, body paint and a whole day of getting into the look of the night. She dressed as a skinless cadaver in 2011, transformed into a peacock in 2023 and we’re pretty sure she just became Medusa in 2025. Oh, also, remember that time she dressed up as a huge worm?
Marilyn Monroe
Marylin’s career lasted less than 20 years, yet the impact she’s had on culture and fashion is huge. Her dresses might not seem that outrageous by today’s standards, but in the 50’s and 60’s she was really pushing the envelope. After all, we all saw Kim Kardashian squeeze into her dress 60 years after she sang Happy Birthday to the JFT in it, and it was still a massive fashion moment.
Her pink dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and her white halter dress from The Seven Year Itch are burned into our memories. But perhaps her most shocking and yet funniest fashion moment happened in 1951 when she posed for a photoshoot wearing a literal potato sack and still looked like a million bucks, proving that it’s all about who’s wearing the outfit.
Cher
Cher shocked the public at the 1974 Met Gala in her feathery Mackie dress. At the time, people were debating whether it’s even fashion or if she’s just naked, safe for a few feathers. But now that look is considered a legendary fashion moment. Her 1979 Take Me Home album cover was giving disco royalty with a touch of risqué.
She didn’t stop there and wore a stunning black gown to the Oscars in 1986, which also had people clutching their pearls.
The best thing about Cher is that she wears these incredible outfits not like they’re outrageous but like it’s absolutely casual, and it’s everyone else in the room that’s underdressed. Gotta love Cher’s confidence.
Bianca Censori
Binca Censori isn’t going to make it onto a best-dressed list, but she’s regularly making headlines for her wardrobe, or lack of it. After she married Kanye West in 2022, it seems like every public outing is an opportunity to become a talking point. We all remember the 2024 Grammy’s when she showed up in a big black coat, only to take it off and reveal a barely there dress. It left nothing to the imagination.
She has also been seen in a weird rollerblading look that included nude coloured knee and elbow pads and nude lingerie, she’s walked the streets clutching a pillow, we’ve seen her in a racy outfit holding a plushy cat to cover up, and she’s been seen in a pink wig, metallic skirt and a top that looked way too small for her chest. Her whole vibe seems to be toying with public indecency.
Björk
Björk dresses like a forest spirit who got invited to fashion week and decided to bring sculpture with her.
Her most famous outfit remains the swan dress by Marjan Pejoski, worn to the 2001 Academy Awards. At the time, many critics mocked it. Years later, it is considered one of the most recognizable red carpet looks ever and was even included in the Met’s 2019 “Camp: Notes on Fashion” exhibition.
But the swan was never a one-off. Björk has continued wearing conceptual, art-like pieces on stage and in public. The original article highlights her extravagant Noir Kei Ninomiya look for Coachella 2023 and a vivid Kevin Germanier outfit paired with a James Merry mask while promoting her Cornucopia concert documentary in 2025.
Björk’s clothes often look less like outfits and more like ecosystems. That is a compliment.
Madonna
Madonna has made a career out of not caring what people think or doing something in spite of what others will think. So many of her outfits were considered upsetting to the public at first, only to be called iconic later on.
The cone bra from the 1990 Blond Ambition tour is a prime example of that. It was provocative but instantly recognizable, and we now associate it with Madonna. Her 1984 lacy dress at the VMAs made history, and her 1990’s Marie Antoinette-inspired look was very unexpected. But that’s Madonna for you. Have you seen her at Coachella 2026? The woman is 67 and is still rocking lingerie on stage with Sabrina Carpenter.
Harry Styles
We can’t credit Harry Styles with inventing flamboyant menswear (we have the 70s to thank for that), but he’s definitely popularized playful gender-fluid outfits in the modern day. His 2020 Vogue photoshoot and cover made quite a splash, but he shrugged it off with a casual “Clothing is there to have fun and experiment with.”
We’ve seen him in sequins, feathers, wearing pearls, and all sorts of theatrical costumes on stage, and we honestly can’t get enough of it. He literally wore a rainbow sequin jumpsuit to the 2022 Coachella that made him look like a human disco ball, and showed up to his 2021 Halloween concert dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Please never stop, Harry.
