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Tag: Madonna Sabrina Carpenter

  • The Poetic Sartorial Moment of Addison Rae Wearing Gypsy Rose Lee’s Dress

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    Four years ago, Addison Rae was “just” a TikTok phenomenon with a brand-new single called “Obsessed” and the hope that it might parlay her way into being a pop star. And while she might have been invited to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon even “back then,” it didn’t do much to change the mostly negative reviews of her first musical effort, both critically and at the “average listener” level. Such eviscerating comments also extended to her appearance on Jimmy Fallon in 2021. This included such YouTube replies to the performance as, “The worst part about this ‘influencer’ thing is that they’re [spelled in the original comment as ‘their’] handed EVERYTHING but they all act like it’s the hardest job in the world, literally sit down, like please,” “The fact she isn’t trained and isn’t out of breath and isn’t even wearing an earpiece or A MIC PACK IS SO INSANE TO ME!!! Lip syncing shouldn’t be this obvious!” and “The dancers saved this. lmao imagine if it was just her on the stage.”

    As of now, during her post-Addison release era, there’s no need to imagine it. For, almost as if seeing that specific comment, Addison did appear alone onstage for her October 2, 2025 performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. More to the point, she chose to appear in one of Gypsy Rose Lee’s original dresses. And yes, that’s a pop culture reference that few in her typical audience would know “offhand.” But since Addison Rae is lately all about reminding people (namely, Zane Lowe) that her “taste” is primo (which is part of what’s helped her hone her craft and aesthetic for a pop music pivot), she chose this highly specific piece to sing (not lip sync) “Diet Pepsi” for the first time on TV. And while she’s had other singles come out since this one (namely, “Aquamarine,” “High Fashion,” “Headphones On,” “Fame Is a Gun” and “Times Like These”), which was released back in August of 2024, “Diet Pepsi” remains something of her “signature.” Not only that, but it’s also her most “accessible” song on Addison, readily “appealable” to what Jay Leno would call (at least in Pam & Tommy) “Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie in Duluth.” Such a demographic might even appreciate her “modest” look while on the show. Having no awareness that Lee was entirely responsible for it—since strippers a.k.a. burlesque dancers during her “heyday” (though she performed her act from the 1930s to the 1950s) dressed much more conservatively.

    While some subpar celebrities with no talent other than “influencer” cachet have worn iconic dresses before (*cough cough* Kim Kardashian pillaging Marilyn Monroe’s Jean Louis gown), there generally hasn’t been a “poetic” or “full circle” kind of angle to it. More often than not, the famous ilk wear such pieces solely because it’s “iconic,” de facto, they think they’re also going to soak up some that iconicness by wearing the garment. And not because it correlates in any real way to what they’re “about” (and even Sabrina Carpenter was kind of pushing it by wearing a replica of Madonna’s 1991 Oscars dress). Instead, it’s done as an attempt at seeming “knowledgeable” or “with it” vis-à-vis the past and all the women who paved the way for the current crop to have it slightly less shitty than they did. Particularly with regard to being able to expose their flesh so freely.

    Incidentally, it was Lee who said of her act, “Bare flesh bores men.” Hence, wearing the type of fare that the audience saw Addison Rae sporting while singing “Diet Pepsi” on Fallon. That Rae is more known for her flesh-baring tendencies than her covering up ones also added to the “intention” behind the frock. Something she reiterated when, after the show, she posted a quote from Lee’s memoir, Gypsy (which would go on to birth the famed musical of the same name), to her Instagram. The one that goes, “I could be a star without any talent at all!” (in the musical, that’s paraphrased as, “I’ll get famous with no talent”). An extremely prescient statement for a woman who made her stage debut in 1929. Long before Kim Kardashian would goadingly pronounce of her financial success, “Not bad for a girl with no talent.” But Addison Rae actually did start out with a specific talent: dancing. It’s only because of the medium that she became a “star” on—TikTok—that said talent has often been called into question, with her influencer status still frequently outshining her potential clout as a pop star.

    To that point, this “Diet Pepsi” performance was all about putting such tongue-wagging to rest. In addition to learning from the mistakes she made the first time she appeared on the show. Indeed, during the singing portion of her performance, AR was much less “choreo-heavy” than she was the first time around, instead devoting the first part of the song to actually singing, and the second part, around the two-minute, twenty-six-second mark, to bursting into the kind of choreography that Lee herself would most definitely commend (obviously, Addison Rae must have studied some of her moves). And as lights strobe around her, elements of the first track on her album, “New York,” play as she does everything in her power to channel the burlesque stylings of Lee.

    This is in no small part thanks to the dress, bedecked in all those tassels and shimmering sequins, beads and rhinestones, which helped her easily “do the trick.” Courtesy of every celebrity’s favorite place to roundaboutly unearth such a piece: The Way We Wore. In fact, AR’s stylist, Dara (that’s right, just Dara), pointed out to Vogue that she and Addison have been in possession of the dress for almost a full year, having reached out to The Way We Wore founder Doris Raymond before the making of the “High Fashion” video, during which AR appears in the dress for the first few scenes (eating a powdery confection in it, no less). Dara had requested a gold beaded dress for the scene, and Raymond came up with this kismet offer, which she herself had bought thirty-five years ago at auction.

    Upon passing it along to AR, Dara immediately realized that “it felt like it was made for her” (though Dita Von Teese, who owns another “sister” dress in the trio, might beg to differ). And also made for this particular show-stopping performance, which just so happened to coincide with Taylor Swift releasing The Life of a Showgirl the day after. Which was probably a good thing since Addison had more to reveal in the way of being a showgirl than that album does.

    What’s more, the connection between AR and Gypsy is clear. Lee was often called an “intelligent stripper”—like this combination couldn’t possibly go hand in hand. By the same token, so, too, could AR be called an “intelligent influencer”—and now, an “intelligent pop star.” Wielding her taste and penchant for carefully-curated references to her semiotic advantage at every turn.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s Influence Once Again Makes Itself Known in the Work of Sabrina Carpenter—This Time Via Her 2025 VMA Performance

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    Just when you think Sabrina Carpenter might be taking a break from her busy schedule of making Madonna references (whether doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn for Vogue [after already doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn from the 1991 Oscars] or infusing “Like A Virgin” aesthetics into a “Bed Chem” BRIT Awards performance), she goes and does something like her live debut of “Tears” for the MTV VMAs. And while most pop culture connoisseurs were quick to make the connection between Carpenter’s “Tears” performance and the rain-soaked “…Baby One More Time” performance from Britney Spears’ 2001-2002 Dream Within a Dream Tour, the overall Madonna-ness of what was happening onstage couldn’t be denied. Starting, perhaps first and foremost, with the set design taking its inspiration from late 70s NYC.

    This blip was, of course, not only one of the heights of the city’s “creativity bursts,” but also the very era when Madonna herself blew into town to become part of that vibrant creative scene flourishing amidst the urban decay. Because, yes, the mid- and late 70s were also the peak of New York’s financial crisis—hence, the infamous New York Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead” when ol’ Gerald refused, initially, to give a bailout to NY when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. A reality that became glaring in its ever-crumbling buildings and infrastructure. Accordingly, the town devolved into a crime-ridden horror show, the stuff of nightmares. To the point where law enforcement actually distributed a now notorious pamphlet at the airport called “Welcome to Fear City,” designed to warn visitors about all the various perils that would meet them should they dare to set foot inside the cesspool.

    Despite all the warnings to people about visiting this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, let alone living there, dreamers and “free spirits” (so often “code” intended to refer to people in the LGBQTIA+ community) couldn’t be dissuaded. The arrival of these “brave souls” who chose to set up shop in the city at a time when it wasn’t just affordable, but actually dirt cheap resulted not only in a hotbed of experimental creativity, but also a hotbed of sexuality—oozing out of everyone’s…apertures. Even after the AIDS epidemic cast a dark pall over everything as soon as the 80s arrived. Almost like a swift punishment for all those unmitigated, orgiastic good times in the 70s.

    The kind of times that Madonna conveys so well in her work—revisiting it often in her visuals and sounds. Case in point, her performance of “Deeper and Deeper” during 1993’s The Girlie Show. Awash in sweltering, rhythmic writhing, Madonna and her dancers, all outfitted in 70s, nightclub-ready attire, turn the stage into one giant, festering pore of sexuality (a look and theme also revisited in the video for and live performances of 2005’s “Hung Up”—another very 70s number, and not just because it samples from ABBA). Carpenter attempted a tamer version of that for “Tears” during the VMAs (but then, the entire ceremony was decidedly tame this year, with Carpenter’s appearance standing out as the most “salacious” of all—and mainly because it was the queerest). Because, although there might have been plenty of flamboyant gays to go around, it didn’t mean things weren’t going to remain “family friendly” (since so many pearl-clutchers make the correlation that to be gay is to be “unfriendly” toward the proverbial family). After all, the show was being broadcast for the first time ever on CBS. The type of network that generally reaches an older demographic than MTV was once accustomed to.

    That said, many viewers likely had no idea what Sabrina and co. were talking about with all their mention of “dolls” on the protest signage being paraded around the stage. A stage that looked almost as fraught and filled with queerness as the segment in The Girlie Show that begins with “Express Yourself” and segues into “Deeper and Deeper” (itself a 70s-themed video). Emphasis, of course, on “almost” for Carpenter and her dancers’ performance. For while it might be intentionally visually chaotic, there is nothing sexually fraught about it, with Carpenter using words (through the abovementioned protest signs) instead of physicality to get her pro-LGBTQIA+ message across.

    Madonna, in contrast, was never afraid to get visceral—“uncomfortably” sexual—when it came to showcasing queer love. This done at a time when it was considered especially “disgusting” by conservatives (and “liberals” alike) as a result of AIDS. But rather than recoiling from the idea of showing physical touch among her queer dancers, Madonna leaned into it all the more, in both the Blond Ambition Tour and The Girlie Show, which both toured the world at a time when the AIDS scare was still at a peak. For, as she puts it during her The Girlie Show rendition of “Deeper and Deeper,” “Sometimes you gotta tell the world the way you feel. Even when they don’t wanna hear about it.”

    While Carpenter is “noble” for addressing a topic that “the world” doesn’t want to hear about and for being the only musical act during the 2025 VMAs to say something even remotely political (shit, even Lady Gaga couldn’t be counted on for it this time around), she still didn’t go as “all the way” as Madonna surely would have. And it isn’t just the 70s stylings of this segment in The Girlie Show that draws easy comparisons to Carpenter’s “Tears” performance. There’s also her 2019 “God Control” video, during which she, once again, returns to the 70s for a night out at the disco where gun violence breaks out within the erstwhile “safe space” for queer people.

    The song, like “Tears,” also has 70s-infused musical backing, produced in the spirit of disco. Yet another reason why the “Deeper and Deeper” connection was made to “God Control” (with both videos sharing a club setting, albeit the latter with a far more macabre tone). And as Madonna dances all devil-may-care in the moments before an armed white male enters to shoot up the place, the contrast between what the viewer sees and the chirpy sound of her voice singing, “This is your wake-up call/We don’t have to fall/A new democracy/God and pornography” is of a breed of irony and sardonic humor that Carpenter has yet to master.

    In her own 70s-infused way, Carpenter is also saying “this is your wake-up call” to those who don’t understand that the loss of trans rights is the loss of human rights. And that when one sect of humanity is degraded in this way, no one else is safe from such harm either. She just happened to present it in a less “in your face” manner than Madonna would have, opting to incorporate a random Britney reference as well. One that seemed to be done mostly for the sake of looking “hot” while being political. Something Madonna has also frequently done without being quite so random about her allusions. In any case, one modern hetero blonde pop star advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community is better than none.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Sabrina Carpenter Does Dress Homage Right—By Not Wearing the Original

    Sabrina Carpenter Does Dress Homage Right—By Not Wearing the Original

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    Despite the numerous reports that, for her red carpet appearance at this year’s MTV VMAs, Sabrina Carpenter wore the original Bob Mackie dress famously showcased by Madonna at the 1991 Oscars (where her ensemble was complemented by a white stole and an almost white Michael Jackson), it was actually an identical sample gown from the Mackie archive. Which is just the first step in how to succeed in the art of “paying respect” to an iconic look without offending. Unlike Kim Kardashian, who remains the “gold standard” for how to decimate the integrity of a dress originally worn by someone far more legendary.

    And we’re not just talking about Marilyn Monroe’s scandalous Jean Louis number (made more scandalous by seductively singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to JFK while wearing it), but also the very Marilyn-inspired gown that Madonna paraded in ’91. Because, yes, Kardashian additionally sought to ruin not only said Mackie dress in AHS: Delicate (by going on about a dress that looks nothing like it to her character’s client, Anna Victoria Alcott [Emma Roberts]), but also the song Madonna performed at that Oscars ceremony, “Sooner or Later” (which won the Academy Award that night in the category of Best Original Song). This by repeatedly singing it with Anna as the two look at themselves in the mirror and fantasize about Anna’s eventual big Oscar win.

    As for Marilyn being patently more “icon” than Kim, Madonna, too, is more legendary and influential than Carpenter ever will be. Even if the duo has occasionally been aesthetically compared to one another—with Madonna’s “curtain bangs” look at the LadyLand 2024 event for NYC Pride getting her linked to Carpenter more than the other way around. And yet, the VMAs is hardly the first time that Carpenter has paid tribute (sartorial or otherwise) to the Queen of Pop. For she also stepped out earlier this year (at Vogue World in Paris) in another dress that Madonna wore for the purposes of gracing Glamour’s cover in December of 1990. Specifically, a Michael Kors (that’s right, Madonna “High Fashion” Ciccone once deigned to wear Kors) beaded rhinestone slip dress.

    Indeed, it seems that Carpenter has a certain fondness for M’s early 90s (but pre-Erotica) fashion era. Perhaps because M herself was heavily embodying the look of Marilyn Monroe at that time (again, without fucking up one of the icon’s dresses like the abovementioned Kardashian did). And yes, obviously Carpenter is tapping into both women for her “effortless pastiche” purposes (something that also extended to emulating Britney Spears while she performed a medley at the 2024 VMAs).

    However, Carpenter was also deft in her tribute because for two key reasons: 1) she didn’t try to exactly replicate it with the same jewelry, pearl-studded handbag, fur stole and satin heels and 2) it was sanctioned by none other than the original wearer herself. Even if, like Blake Lively donning Britney’s Versace butterfly dress from 2002, the gown was reportedly acquired through Tab Vintage. According to Carpenter’s stylist, Jared Ellner, “Madonna still has the custom gown Bob Mackie made for her in her archive, but the other sample piece is the [dress] I believe we have.” And, for those wondering how the dress managed to “fit” Carpenter, whose height is notoriously short (“five feet, to be exact”), a closer look at where the gown falls shows it pooling around her ankles, bolstered by extremely high platform heels (in white, of course).

    Though, to be fair, Madonna isn’t much taller, with her average height being cited at around five-foot-three or five-foot-four. Which is precisely why she once said, “I’ve always wanted to be taller. I feel like a shrimp, but that’s the way it goes. I’m five-foot four-and-a-half-inches—that’s actually average. Everything about me is average.” This sentiment, in turn, also prompting her to declare, “My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre.” To be sure, if Madonna wasn’t a much “bitterer” person than Carpenter, she might have called one of her own albums Short n’ Sweet long before the former Disney star decided to. But no, Madonna’s not really bitter, once quipping during her 1993 The Girlie Show tour, “Life’s too short to be bitter…I’m too short to be bitter!” And besides, how could she be when considering the ongoing, far-reaching influence she still so clearly has on each new generation of pop stars?

    For, yes, despite Carpenter’s inherent Gen Z limitations in terms of having good pop culture taste, she still understands the meaning of Madonna. That much was made apparent when she performed a cover of “Like A Virgin” during several dates on her Emails I Can’t Send Tour. In a June 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Carpenter would also mention Madonna as an essential lesson for any “Intro to Pop” class she might teach, commenting, “Those were some of the first pop songs I ever heard and they raised me when I was five and helped me find my own version of that. This would be a really long course. I should never teach a course.”

    But, actually, maybe she should. Not only Intro to Pop for the daft Gen Z ilk, but also Intro to How to Properly Pay Tribute in Someone Else’s Iconic Dress. Kardashian really could have used that class before the Met Gala in 2022. Or even before she decided to dress like Madonna at the ’91 Oscars herself for one of her many Halloween costumes in 2017.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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