Gillian Anderson faced a dilemma on the night of the 2001 Vanity Fair Oscar’s After Party. She had to rethink going commando when she noticed her pubic hair poked through her gown. So, although the low back of the design would inevitably reveal her underwear she opted for a thong. Little did she know that this inconspicuous thong would send her outfit straight to the history books. A thong poking out of an otherwise elegant red carpet dress? How punk, and also, whether she knew it or not, bang on trend. It was the early noughties when thongs became visible on all sorts of Hollywood starlettes. Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Halle Berry all tried these low wasted looks, and it was Tom Ford who had introduced a thong strap to the runway a few years before in his Gucci 1998 spring collection.
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00:00I'm sure many haute couture designers have wished they came up with the remarkable piece of engineering that was Gillian Anderson's visible thong.
00:08It was the night of the 2001 Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty that Gillian Anderson, who had been sent an Eduardo Lucero dress, which she hadn't yet tried on, was facing a dilemma.
00:18My pubic hair has poked through the dress.
00:22And there were two solutions.
00:24And at that time, I wasn't particularly into the one solution, and so I chose solution number two, which was a thong.
00:41That's my story.
00:44Don't wear a jersey without underwear.
00:51Unless you have some pretty strong tape in the house.
00:56Nicknamed the I don't give a f*** world tale, it was nonchalant right down to the fact you can still see her label.
01:02She was entering an era where the idea of thongs were evolving from our most invisible undergarment to a statement accessory.
01:10Before Gillian's thong, Tom Ford showed us a visible thong strap for his Gucci 1998 spring collection.
01:16We saw many more thongs in the early noughties, poking out of trousers that belonged to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera and Halle Berry.
01:24But there was something about a thong making itself known underneath a red carpet gown that added that extra bit of panache.
01:31And people can't forget her outfit that night.
01:33Twenty years later, Hayley Bieber honoured Gillian Anderson's look in an Alexander Wang dress for the Met Gala Camp Notes on Fashion,
01:40while Alexa Demi tried the look for the Euphoria premiere in 2019.
01:44But the best imitation has to be this one.
01:47That looks pretty f***ing cool.