Iconic Fashion Moments: Angelina Jolie’s 2012 Oscars Dress

I am introducing a new series to What She Really: Iconic Fashion Moments. I got the idea from one of my favorite channels on youtube: Modern Gurlz, so full credits to them for this idea. Now, onto the topic of today's post, the iconic fashion moment that was Angelia Jolie’s 2012 Oscars Dress. 

The dress, essentially, is another LBD (little (in this case long) black dress.) The LBD is deemed something that everyone should have in their closet, a basic per-say, scooped in with the likes of white tee-shirts and a good pair of jeans. You can read my list of closet essentials here, my list does not include an LBD but I digress. 

But unlike all of the other black dresses worn to award shows in 2012, or even just at the Oscars, Jolie's gown made waves. Everybody was talking about it. When researching for this post I googled “Angelina Jolie 2012” to see what movies and things she was up to that year, but instead I was bombarded with more iconic red carpet photos of Jolie in her iconic dress doing the iconic pose. In short, it's no stretch deeming this fashion moment iconic. 

This dress defined the carpet that year and was one of the most memorable, if not most memorable red carpet moments of the year 2012, and definitely would make a top 25 or even top 10 list of the most memorable red carpet moments of the decade. The dress, and specifically Jolies pose in the dress, was on every Oscars rundown the morning after. 

The dress was an Atelier Versace, which is notable for more than one reason. First: Donatella is the culprit behind MANY iconic fashion moments including JLO'S green dress, which you can hear all about on Modern Gurlz. The dress was styled with open-toed Salvatore Ferragamo heels, a red lip, and diamond jewelry. 

The year prior Jolie also wore a sleeveless Atelier Versace black dress with a high leg slit to Cannes. I actually like this dress more than I like the dress she wore to the 2012 Oscars. I don’t know if it’s because it looks like it might be a little more of a chocolatey brown in this lighting, or the bow right on the hip. But in general I think it’s just a more interesting dress.

There are many other leg slit dresses in Jolie's fashion archive and Donatella also designed her wedding gown in 2015, so her 2012 dress was nothing that was out of the ordinary for Jolie. 

Natalie Portman

Dior

Viola Davis

Vera Wang

Cameron Diaz

Gucci

Strapless gowns were also ALL OVER the carpet that year, and sleeveless dresses were very on-trend. You can see some examples above. But something about the combination of the styling of the dress and the way Jolie wore the dress caused it to be at the top of every best-dressed list, further proving that it's not the clothes, it's how you wear them. (The gown is gorgeous on its own, but Jolie's confidence in it is what made it stand out.)

At the event, and when Jolie was presenting an award, the dress made an impact due to her pose and specifically, her right leg. You can watch the infamous mimicking moment that took place while she presented the award for best screenplay here. But essentially what happened is she was posing the way the dress intended for her too, with an extension of her right leg, to emphasize the slit and the winners of the award that she was presenting took time out of their speech allotment to mimic Angelina's pose and essentially make fun of her. When watching this moment I immediately related it to the infamous Taylor Swift - Kanye West moment, when if Taylor Swift was anyone else, Kanye would not have done that to her. And although this moment was much less severe than what happened with Taylor and Kanye, I strongly doubt that the Descendants team would have mimicked a man's pose when they got on the stage. But that is just an inference. 

Now, onto the effects that the dress had. First, the dress was used as ammo to pitt (get it pitt, like Brad Pitt, anyways) Jennifer Aniston and Jolie against each other. With dozens of side by side comparisons popping up comparing a dress that Jennifer Aniston had worn to the Golden Globes a few years before Jolies Oscars gown. The dress was also viewed as meme gold. Now, whenever someone wears a leg-baring dress, without a doubt some connection will be drawn to Jolies 2012 gown. I would say that this is one of the most talked-about dresses to date because even though it isn't directly on the level of the Revenge Dress (which I will 1,000 percent be doing a post on in the future) it still is easily one of the most iconic black dresses in history. 

Thank you all for reading this post and nerding out about some fashion with me! Let me know in the messages box on the main page of this blog what other iconic fashion moments you want to hear about!