What’s So Wrong About a Babydoll Dress?

2 min read

In the lead-up to her new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Olivia Rodrigo has fully committed to the babydoll dress as her unofficial uniform. It’s hardly unusual for pop stars to anchor an album era around a signature aesthetic, especially one steeped in nostalgia. But the singer’s adaptation of the flouncy silhouette has captured the ire of critics who have accused the star of “dressing like a toddler” or even “infantilizing” her image.

On Saturday in Barcelona, discourse continued to swirl when Rodrigo performed at Spotify’s Billions Club in a Generation78 embellished puff sleeve top that she wore sans pants. She edged up the look with a pair of knee-high Doc Martens boots, but that didn’t stop detractors online.

Olivia Rodrigo, wearing vintage Vivienne Westwood, arrives at a Met Gala after-party on May 4, 2026.

The babydoll dress is hardly new, and Rodrigo isn’t the only music or fashion star to adopt it for its charm. Originally created in 1942 in the United States during World War II—as a response to fabric shortages—the silhouette gained traction in the late 1950s and ’60s among stars like Brigitte Bardot, Twiggy, and Jane Birkin. (In her “drop dead” video, Rodrigo wore Birkin’s very own party dress.) Even Cristóbal Balenciaga created a high-fashion lineup of babydoll dresses in 1958.

The dress continued to prosper in the ’90s, popping up on the likes of Courtney Love and Kim Gordon. It’s grunge icons like them who inspire Rodrigo today.

“I really love the idea of a babydoll dress,” Rodrigo said in May. “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.”

At its core, the babydoll dress is an act of defiance. Upon its invention, it pushed against the hyper-feminized aesthetic of the ’50s, where tea-length hemlines and cinched waists reigned supreme (think Christian Dior’s new look). In the ’90s, it took on a more subversive meaning when artists like Gordon and Love wore it to juxtapose the edge of their music with overtly feminine styling.

Like Rodrigo, these women challenged the idea that overt femininity exists only to be consumed by or catered to the male gaze.

Twiggy in 1967.

Courtney Love performs on Saturday Night Live! in 1994.

Rodrigo’s approach to the babydoll dress feels similarly tongue-in-cheek. With help from her stylists Chloe and Chenelle Delgadillo, the singer’s new era involves pairing a frilly Betsey Johnson number or a vintage Miu Miu piece with a pair of scuffed combat boots or towering Mary Janes.

Between her album’s cover art and the boho Chloé number she sported while dancing around the halls of Versailles in the “drop dead” music video, Rodrigo is telling a clear story through fashion. A story that’s her own and no one else’s.