#THEDRESS

In this episode of More Than You Think! we discuss the implications behind Olivia Rodrigo's recent wardrobe choices, and why the criticisms of those choices are both relevant and valid.

More Than You Think! is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Host

Valerie Gorham

WKNC Podcast Content Creator

What is More Than You Think!?

“More Than You Think!" is a podcast that explores the deeper layers of pop culture, uncovering how today’s trends connect with the political, economic, and social climate shaping our world. Each episode dives into the ways music, media, and cultural moments reflect — and influence — the society we live in. "More Than You Think!" is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

Valerie: WASSUP! welcome, welcome back to yet another episode of More Than youn Think, which also happens to be the number one podcast in the universe.
Valerie: Did I make that up?
Valerie: Maybe.
Valerie: But who cares?
Valerie: You're listening to it.
Valerie: So I'm gonna tell you what this podcast is about.
Valerie: This is a podcast about how political, economic, and social events interact with pop culture.
Valerie: And why is it named More than you Think?
Valerie: I don't think I've actually explained this since the first episode.
Valerie: It's called More Than youn Think because pop culture matters more than you think.
Valerie: So we are going to get into today's topic.
Valerie: It has been all over Twitter and basically only on Twitter.
Valerie: I think.
Valerie: I don't really know anywhere else where I've seen this topic discussed, except for now a little bit on TikTok, because Olivia Rodrigo has responded to the criticism.
Valerie: But there has been an outburst of criticism about Olivia Rodrigo's new sort of fan fashion choices because she has a new album coming out that she is promoting called you'd Seem Pretty sad for a girl so in Love.
Valerie: And she has already released two of the songs, and the first one was called Drop Dead.
Valerie: And in the music video, she is wearing a dress that is commonly known.
Valerie: This type of dress is commonly known as a baby doll dress.
Valerie: And people were outraged about it because they were accusing her of catering to sort of like, yeah, you know what?
Valerie: Let's just say the word pedophilic beauty standards or fashion trends.
Valerie: So Olivia has already responded to this by saying that, number one, all women should be able to wear whatever we want.
Valerie: And number two, men's ideas of what makes a woman, you know, attractive, what they are attracted to, should not even be in our heads when we choose what wear.
Valerie: Which I think are two very true things.
Valerie: But I wanted to get into the sort of history of this dress, this sort of silhouette of dress, this style, the babydoll dress, and why it is really important to the criticism that she has received.
Valerie: So the dress kind of originated in 1942.
Valerie: There was a fabric shortage during World War II, and so people started cutting their nightgowns short.
Valerie: That was a trend that started then because they didn't have enough fabric to make the whole length the nightgown, which is why the dress doesn't really have a waist.
Valerie: It doesn't, like, cinch at the waist because it's based on, like, nightgowns that just sort of drape over the body.
Valerie: It is based on sleepwear, which is not meant to be like.
Valerie: This is not like any type of Sleepwear.
Valerie: It's just like, to sleep, not to do anything else.
Valerie: You crazy?
Valerie: Then in 1956, a movie called Baby Doll comes out, which was a really freaking weird movie.
Valerie: I've never seen it.
Valerie: I read the summary, and it's basically about this pedophile guy who marries a teen girl, and she sleeps in one of those nightgown dresses.
Valerie: Baby Doll nightgown.
Valerie: And that's where the name came from, the baby doll dress.
Valerie: And not only does she sleep in that dress, but I believe it said that she sleeps in, like, a crib for a baby, which is freaking weird.
Valerie: Like, that's so weird.
Valerie: Like, what.
Valerie: What.
Valerie: Who's.
Valerie: Who's fricked up mind was making that movie?
Valerie: I mean, I bet it's like, right there on Wikipedia.
Valerie: And I didn't.
Valerie: But whoever was making that movie back in the day, in 1956, y' all were fricked.
Valerie: Fricked.
Valerie: Y' all were fricked in the head.
Valerie: Yeah, I said it.
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: Excuse my language.
Valerie: But anyways, after that movie comes out, 50s and 60s, that dress, actually, it started being worn outdoors.
Valerie: So instead of being sleepwear, people started wearing it on the streets.
Valerie: Particularly young women who wanted to use it to sort of rebel against, like, the rigid sort of quote unquote, classy fashion standards that were there for women.
Valerie: And it was actually meant to be sort of a rebellion against the male gaze.
Valerie: They didn't want to appeal to what men wanted them to wear.
Valerie: In fact, they wanted to wear something silly, goofy.
Valerie: That was kind of the origin of how it became streetwear, was they.
Valerie: They didn't want to look attractive.
Valerie: They just wanted to wear something a little more casual, like, you know, super short.
Valerie: These dresses are very short.
Valerie: As I said, fabric shortage.
Valerie: They could not make long dresses back then because they were.
Valerie: They didn't have any extra money to spend.
Valerie: Poor guys.
Valerie: I mean, girls.
Valerie: It was girls.
Valerie: Anyways, 1970s, the dress kind of goes back to sleepwear, but instead of being made from, like, the same fabric from before, it was more like silk and satin.
Valerie: You know, like those very shiny, soft fabrics that people say, like, get a silk pillowcase so your hair doesn't get ruined overnight.
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: So then I guess people were, like, wearing that.
Valerie: So it was a little more like, you know, this is when it.
Valerie: I think it started getting a little bit suggestive as sleepwear.
Valerie: And that's sort of more like Sabrina Carpenter's field of expertise.
Valerie: That's where she's kind of thriving.
Valerie: You'll see if you see any videos of the Short and sweet tour that she starts out with, like, a bodysuit, and then later on in the show, she wears the Babydoll dress over it.
Valerie: And I remember watching, like, the Vogue or something video about that was explaining, like, the fashion behind her tour, that with the outfits that she wears on her tour.
Valerie: And she said that in the Babydoll dress, she feels absolutely 100% confident.
Valerie: There's no lack of confidence.
Valerie: She feels super confident in that dress.
Valerie: She feels comfortable.
Valerie: She feels like she can move around, which is actually true to, like, the origins of the dress.
Valerie: And back in the 60s, 50s, when people started wearing it out on the street.
Valerie: And by people, I mean women, men weren't wearing this.
Valerie: Or were they?
Valerie: That might be a different discussion.
Valerie: Anyways, when girls started wearing this out on the streets, young ladies, it was actually also because it was more flowy and it was like, you know, you could move around.
Valerie: It wasn't, you know, restraining or restricting their movement, which was another aspect of freedom that came with this dress.
Valerie: Now, the 90s, this is actually where Olivia Rodrigo kind of comes in.
Valerie: She wasn't born yet, but you'll see what I mean.
Valerie: Kathleen Hannah, Courtney Love, and other members of the Right Girl movement were wearing baby doll dresses and pairing them with sort of harsh styling.
Valerie: They were styling it in sort of an ironic way to show that, like, this dress that was always viewed as, like, something very sweet and feminine, they were trying to, like, reimagine the dress.
Valerie: So they were wearing it with, like, Doc Martens, other boots, fishnets, messy hair, smudged lipstick, all of this stuff that made the appearance with that dress an absolute mess.
Valerie: But still, it was cool because it was grunge and it was the 90s, and they were all friends with Kurt Cobain, especially.
Valerie: Courtney Love, obviously meant to be feminist, meant to rewrite history, like reframe that aspect of women's fashion.
Valerie: Olivia Rodrigo on the popcast podcast cited Courtney Love and Kathleen Hannah as her quote, unquote heroes who she got the inspiration to wear this dress from.
Valerie: And then another thing was that she said, of course women should be able to dress how we want, which is true.
Valerie: And that men shouldn't see it as attractive for a woman to dress like a baby.
Valerie: Also true.
Valerie: And then she also was, like, saying, like, girls shouldn't be pressured or told how to dress out fear that a man is going to see it in a way that she didn't intend for it to be, which is also true.
Valerie: The issue here, and Olivia used this term, losing the plot, is that none of the criticism would have come if she was just wearing the dress the same way as Kathleen, Hannah, Courtney Love, or any of the other participants of the Right Gro movement.
Valerie: As I said, the history of the dress is a mix between sort of pedophilia and feminism.
Valerie: It just depends on how you style it.
Valerie: Fashion, of course, is a pillar of pop culture and it is directly, obviously affected by economics.
Valerie: I already told you about the fabric shortage and of course, social change.
Valerie: And of course this dress, the meaning behind it has changed with the times.
Valerie: So when you wear it and how you wear it are important because the way that you style it can be the difference between grunge feminist riot girl or trying to look like a baby.
Valerie: And the issue with Olivia Rodrigo and how she has been wearing it specifically was not really the dress at all.
Valerie: It was the shorts that she had underneath.
Valerie: Now, as you know, these dresses are very short.
Valerie: So any sort of upward movement of the arms is going to lift the skirt of the dress up to where you can see what shorts she's wearing.
Valerie: Shorts.
Valerie: You know, you have to pick out some cute shorts to wear with the dress.
Valerie: Olivia Rodrigo wore like these puffy white shorts in multiple appearances with these dresses.
Valerie: And so people were saying, why does it look like she's wearing a diaper?
Valerie: And that was the problem.
Valerie: The styling of the dress with the shorts, that was the problem.
Valerie: Now, white shorts, not a big deal.
Valerie: Puffy white shorts, not a big deal.
Valerie: Puffy white shorts that look like baby girl sleepwear paired with baby doll dress.
Valerie: Dress, that might be a bit of a problem to some people.
Valerie: And the criticism she received was not from men.
Valerie: It wasn't, oh, she's wearing this to get our attention.
Valerie: It was from women.
Valerie: It was from women who were concerned about the time and place of this dress and the shorts.
Valerie: Because as you know, as we all know, we're living in a post Epstein world, a post Diddy party freak off world, where it has been brought to the public's attention that millionaires and billionaires, a lot of them are straight up pedophiles.
Valerie: People in power are pedophiles.
Valerie: And most importantly, I mean, I think I mentioned this guy every single episode.
Valerie: But like the president, it's, you know, it's been pretty much decided by the public that he, he's a pedophile.
Valerie: So, yeah, I laughed, but it's.
Valerie: I'm laughing, but it's not funny.
Valerie: What is that TikTok sound?
Valerie: I'm laughing, but it ain't funny.
Valerie: Now, a lot of people say, well, Sabrina does the same thing.
Valerie: Sabrina also, like, tries to look like a little girl.
Valerie: Yes, yes.
Valerie: Honestly, she's worse.
Valerie: But the thing with Olivia, here's what I think probably happened.
Valerie: Olivia is a feminist.
Valerie: She's a rock star.
Valerie: She had good intentions.
Valerie: She thought she looked cute in the outfit.
Valerie: And she.
Valerie: She does.
Valerie: She does.
Valerie: She looks cute because, you know, she's a pretty girl.
Valerie: And here's the thing.
Valerie: I feel like she probably just didn't really put too much thought into it.
Valerie: And she probably never even was like, oh, this is like a feminist outfit.
Valerie: She probably just thought, oh, I look cute.
Valerie: I'm going to make this sort of my aesthetic for the.
Valerie: For the next album, for the next era.
Valerie: And then when she got called out, then, of course, she had to come up with answer.
Valerie: That's why she didn't address the shorts, the bloomers, whatever that was that she was.
Valerie: That she had as shorts that looked like a diaper.
Valerie: That's why she didn't talk about it, because she just didn't put much thought into the outfit.
Valerie: That's what I think happened.
Valerie: I think she just didn't really care about the outfit.
Valerie: And then someone was like, you look like you're trying to look like a baby.
Valerie: She was like, crap.
Valerie: Crap.
Valerie: Oh, my gosh.
Valerie: I wasn't trying to do that at all.
Valerie: I don't think she was trying to do that at all.
Valerie: I believe her.
Valerie: Hopefully she can make some changes to the shorts.
Valerie: The shorts are the problem.
Valerie: And this just goes to show how important it is to understand the context of the fashion that you're wearing or whatever it is that you're doing so that you can be sure, especially if you're someone like Olivia Rodrigo, who.
Valerie: Who everyone knows who you are, you have to be sure that what you're taking your inspiration from is really appropriate to take inspiration from, because art is always political.
Valerie: As Damon Alburn more or less said once in pop music, you're just trying to rip off other artists as best as you can.
Valerie: Now, that's not really true.
Valerie: I mean, ironically, Olivia has been accused of this repeatedly.
Valerie: But that's not the point.
Valerie: In pop, everything is inspired by someone or something in the past, and then the artist takes it and slightly transforms it.
Valerie: So you have to understand the context of the original so that you can know if it still means the same thing now.
Valerie: And you have to understand if what it means is okay to use now, because right now is not an okay time to be carelessly messing with fashion that has history with pedophiles.
Valerie: Because right now, pedophilia is a huge talking point because of Epstein, because of Trump.
Valerie: So it's just important that she fixes it and moves on.
Valerie: But, yes, it is very important to think of these things ahead of time.
Valerie: To be honest with you guys, the second I saw her running around in that dress, she was wearing those freaking diaper shorts.
Valerie: And I knew.
Valerie: I knew in that instant, I knew that there was going to be a problem.
Valerie: I knew that people were going to notice the same thing as me.
Valerie: I knew.
Valerie: And if I had been her stylist, I would have said, girl, you better think twice.
Valerie: You better think twice about wearing those freaking shorts, because, honey, people on Twitter are gonna think that you're a freaking weirdo.
Valerie: Okay?
Valerie: And now this actually brings up a question in my head.
Valerie: How did nobody on her team think of it?
Valerie: How was I able to see it and nobody on her team thought of it?
Valerie: Because I am not an expert.
Valerie: Or am I?
Valerie: Maybe I am.
Valerie: I'm an expert on how people are gonna react on the Internet.
Valerie: And I know that her fan base is young women who are pretty liberal, who most likely spend a good amount of time online and know about Epstein and Trump's connections to Epstein and, you know, all of the millionaires and billionaires and people in power who are connected to that.
Valerie: And so I knew instantly, like, people are going to make this connection to, like, this weird outfit and, like, the current state of our country and sort of how insensitive it is to even insinuate, even on accident, that you are trying to cater to, like, pedophiles.
Valerie: I knew that the second I saw that music video, and I didn't even watch the whole music video.
Valerie: I just saw a clip on Twitter, and I was like, okay, I know what's going to happen.
Valerie: And I was waiting for it to happen.
Valerie: The second I saw that tweet.
Valerie: It was a tweet that said, quote, maybe I'm too woke.
Valerie: And it showed a video of her in the dress with the shorts.
Valerie: The second I saw that tweet, I knew I was right.
Valerie: I was like.
Valerie: I knew that people were going to think of that.
Valerie: So how did nobody on her team of social media experts, fashion experts, pop experts, pop culture experts, how did these people not see it?
Valerie: And I did.
Valerie: So then it's like, okay, maybe she didn't think too much into it, but she has a whole team of people behind her who should have thought of that before her.
Valerie: Oh, God, it's.
Valerie: It's hard to say, but, you know, what?
Valerie: Hopefully she just takes the advice and moves on, fixes it does better in the future because I feel like.
Valerie: I feel like she has good intentions, you know?
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: But that's kind of it for today.
Valerie: That's kind of my message for today is that, like, if you're an artist, be careful.
Valerie: Just be careful.
Valerie: Do your research.
Valerie: Make sure that you're not bringing back any sort of weird themes.
Valerie: All right.
Valerie: This has been more than you think.
Valerie: I have been Valerie.
Valerie: Did I say my name at the beginning?
Valerie: I have to edit it in anyways.
Valerie: More than you think.
Valerie: Thank you so much for listening to me yap for 18 and a half minutes.
Valerie: I will see you in the next.
Valerie: Well, you will hear me in the next episode.
Valerie: Okay.
Valerie: Have a great week or weekend.
Valerie: Until next time.
Valerie: Love you.
Valerie: Bye.