At the 2021 VMAs, Megan Fox proved she was ahead of the curve, rocking the red carpet with Machine Gun Kelly in a naked dress. The popular look exploded in 2022, as celebrities from Florence Pugh to Kylie Jenner and even recently Nicole Kidman rocked the naked dress look. A year has passed and the 2022 VMAs are on the way tonight, which leads me to wonder: Will there be more sheer looks at the VMAs this year?
We have to kick off with the stunning sheer look Megan Fox wore on the red carpet last year. It definitely spawned a trend that’s been running strong for an entire year, and one that even Zoë Kravitz and Bella Thorne more recently embraced with their own naked looks, but it’s certainly not the first time fashion was edgy on an MTV Video Music Awards red carpet.
In fact, Rose McGowan rocked a naked dress on the red carpet more than 20 years before Megan Fox proved that trends can come around again. The Charmed actress was dating Marilyn Manson when she brought the look to the Video Music Awards’ red carpet back in 1998. Unlike Fox’s her look was sheer and black and completely “free[d] the fucking nipple,” as Florence Pugh recently put it.
That look has stood out as one of the most notable at the awards show over the years. In 2018, Rita Ora got close to sheer with a beautiful black dress from Jean Paul Gaultier she paired with what I can only assume were some fancy undergarments. (This came after she’d skipped underwear completely for a previous VMAs ceremony, actually.)
The MTV Video Music Awards have been synonymous with edgy fashion since their inception; regardless, one year after Fox rocked the trend, my question is: Is the naked dress here to stay? Or will it fall by the wayside like Miley Cyrus’ infamous foam finger? Will tonight’s fashion highlight a new trend coming our way in the next year? Will someone outdo what Megan Fox achieved in the past year? Will Fox herself outdo what she achieved last year? Only time will tell.
However, I am interested to find out. This does seem to be a trend that has sticking power, particularly after Nicole Kidman rocked a naked dress for a recent photoshoot in The Perfect Magazine. But given the VMAs have always prided themselves on being on the cutting edge of cool when it comes to fashion, I'm interested to see if the is a trend celebs feel is still has a long shelf life, or if some other exciting look will be the talk of the town tonight.
Luckily, we don’t have too much longer to wait. The 2022 MTV VMAs air on Sunday, August 28th at 8 p.m. ET; the red carpet kick off starts earlier at 6:15 ET. Or catch what else is heading to TV soon with our full fall premiere schedule.
