The punk lineage of Olivia Rodrigo’s babydoll dress

We live in a moment where pop artists increasingly define their musical chapters into visually distinct “eras,” with each album offering a corresponding aesthetic. It’s a tidy way to package reinvention: wrap-around sunglasses for the club-ready “brat,” a cottagecore cardigan for the woodsy folklorist, gogo boots for the mod coquette. For her new album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Olivia Rodrigo has embraced an adored silhouette: the humble babydoll dress. On its cover, she swings skyward in a pale pink Peter Pan collar mini, white socks, and patent Mary Jane heels. In the video for the lead single “drop dead,” Rodrigo wears a ruffly blue Chloé Pre-Fall 2026 blouse and silk tap shorts. Directed by her frequent collaborator Petra Collins, the visual captures a romanticism so pure and freewheeling that Rodrigo has forgotten her shoes; she twirls through the Louvre in pointelle knee socks.

“My Pinterest is all babydoll dresses and ’70s necklines,” Rodrigo told British Vogue of her current aesthetic. “I want it all to feel fun and laid-back.” In the same piece, Rodrigo’s stylists, sisters Chloe and Chenelle Delgadillo, described how they draw inspiration from the archives of Miu Miu and Marc Jacobs to create a style that is “effortless, feminine, with a slightly undone feel.”

But on social media, the 23-year-old has been met with criticism and accusations of inappropriate sexualization of the babydoll dress style. The outfit that has drawn the most fire is a floral puff-sleeved top embellished with ribbon and crystals by the French brand Generation78, which Rodrigo paired with peekaboo bloomer shorts and knee-high Doc Martens for a Spotify Billions Club Live performance in Barcelona. This latest round of controversy is reflective of the consistent misdirection of moral panic that tends to entangle young female artists (especially those with Disney backgrounds). The impulse to police Rodrigo’s self-presentation reads as a reflection of powerlessness in an era where those complicit in very-real violence against girls go unpunished.

This is far from the first time that the babydoll dress has caused a fuss. The style originated in the 1940s, and is often credited to lingerie designer Sylvia Pedlar, who created the ultra-short nightgown (and matching bloomers) in response to wartime fabric rationing. Soon, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy adapted the trapeze and ruffled silhouette into couture garments—but extended the hemlines back to respectable lengths. In the 1960s, the babydoll dress was the chosen uniform of a youth culture that rebelled against the previous decade’s cinched waists. As Jane Birkin, Twiggy, and Brigitte Bardot rocked their André Courrèges and Mary Quant shift dresses, the ever-shortening silhouette became emblematic of sexual liberation.

The babydoll returned with a vengeance in the 1990s as female rockers paired vintage dresses from Goodwill with loads of red lipstick, bleached blonde hair, torn stockings, plastic barrettes, and Mary Janes. Known as “kinderwhore”—a term attributed to British music journalist Everett True and Babes in Toyland’s Kat Bjelland—the aesthetic emerged from the look Bjelland and Hole’s Courtney Love originated as roommates in Portland, and functioned as a subversive gesture. It sought to pervert and reclaim the fetishization of youth by the patriarchy by turning the archetype of the innocent and fragile young girl into a wicked and powerful creature who wields an electric guitar and screams.

For designers like the New York-based Anna Sui, the aesthetic was ripe for inspiration; her spring 1994 collection was full of babydoll dresses worn with white tights, Mary Janes, and combat boots. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon later wore one of the dresses in the music video for “Bull in the Heather,” co-directed with Tamra Davis. Parts of the clip reference the 1956 film Baby Doll, which is based on a play by Tennessee Williams and follows a 19-year-old virgin who wears lingerie in the titular style and sucks her thumb. 41-year-old Gordon writhes around in a crib and performs the role of nymphet. She gazes directly into the camera, fully aware.

Rodrigo, as it turns out, was raised on a healthy diet of ’90s women-led rock bands—a vinyl copy of Babes in Toyland’s Fontanelle was once her alarm clock—so it’s only natural that these sonic influences would also inform her style. “I really love the idea of a babydoll [dress],” she recently told Vogue. “I just remember being younger and having pictures of Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland from all these riot grrrl punk bands in their babydoll dresses, just owning it.”

Rodrigo’s babydoll dresses are no more revealing than the plaid miniskirts, hot pants, and crop tops she wore during her Sour and Guts eras—perfectly appropriate attire for a 23-year-old. Her style has often mixed these harder influences with a little twee and a dash of yé-yé. Much like her music, it caters to girly sensibilities, not to a male gaze. Her fans—primarily girls and young women—can see themselves in those outfits (which they do when they attend her shows as an army of ruffles and combat boots), just as they can see themselves picking up a guitar. I wore identical outfits in a variety of pastels and garish neons when I was 23, and I am certain that I was dressing for no one other than myself.

Intentionally or otherwise, Rodrigo’s babydoll style has inflamed conservative insecurities regarding gender and agency. She rejected this cultural baggage during a performance of “all-american bitch” on SNL back in 2023. Wearing yet another babydoll dress, she stabs a knife into a heart-shaped cake and declares, “I know my age, and I act like it.” Why not take her word for it?

This article is originally from harperbazaar.com

Lead image: Getty image 

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