(CNN) — The scene: it was the year 2001 at the Academy Awards. Julia Roberts won the best actress award for her role as Erin Brockovich and celebrated with her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt. “Gladiator,” “Traffic” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” were honored with multiple awards throughout the night. Björk, for her part, wore a dress with a white swan hanging from her neck.
The extravagant swan gown may have dominated the red carpet coverage that year, but there’s another iconic ensemble of the era: Gillian Anderson, at the height of “X Files” fame, turned up at the Vanity Oscars party. Fair in a navy blue backless dress with a daring detail. When she turned around, her thong was fully visible, peeking out of Eduardo Lucero’s ultra-low neckline jersey dress.
Gillian Anderson’s fashion choices for the 2001 Vanity Fair Oscar party have become an iconic moment of the early 2000s. Credit: William Conran/PA Images/Getty Images
The “Sex Education” and “The Crown” actress wasn’t the first to sport a visible thong during awards season, a 2000s style that has made a comeback of late, but stars like Rose McGowan and Halle Berry had already done so. made at the MTV Video Music Awards and the MTV Movie Awards of previous years, in which sensuality and exaggeration reigned.
Anderson’s ensemble, which included oval sunglasses, contrasted with the evening’s Oscars outfits, including Roberts’ black-and-white Valentino gown and Jennifer Lopez’s voluminous taupe Chanel couture gown. .
Since then, Anderson’s jaunty style decision has become iconic, but it’s also been misunderstood. The thong has been confused with part of the dress or with an intentional decision to demonstrate its power. At a FanX conference panel in 2016, Anderson revealed the truth: It was a last-minute decision to prevent a wardrobe malfunction.
Anderson said on a panel in 2016 that the thong was a last-minute decision, not a planned style choice. Credit: J. Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images
“I don’t remember how that dress came into my life, and I’m not even sure I tried it on the night before I put it on. But when I put it on, my pubic hairs were poking through the dress,” Anderson told the moderator and the audience between shrill laughter. “And there were two solutions… I chose solution number two, which was to put on a thong.”
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The new millennium began much like the post-Sisqó era, when the R&B singer called for more thongs in 1999 and fashion responded in turn with ornate underwear as accessories. Now, there’s been a generational shift as Paris Hilton’s hipsters and visible thongs have given way to updated versions of Bella Hadid, while Anderson’s style has been re-worn by the likes of Alexa Demie, who She arrived at the 2019 premiere of “Euphoria” wearing a snakeskin halter-neck dress and a Swarovski crystal-embellished thong.
Alexa Demie wore the backless dress and thong combo at the “Euphoria” premiere in 2019. Credit: Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic/Getty Images
There’s also the case of Hailey Bieber, who arrived at the 2019 Met Gala in a bright pink Alexander Wang gown with a gem-encrusted thong detail. On that occasion Anderson took to Twitter to compare the look with yours.
“Another example of necessity being the mother of invention,” he captioned the two images side by side.
As for the fate of Eduardo Lucero’s dress, Anderson donated it to a charity auction (sans thong) to benefit research into the genetic disorder Neurofibromatosis, according to his website.
In another buzzy pinnacle of the Y2K era, she discussed the dress and the auction in two different Yahoo! where he answered questions about her and her charity work in a chat.
In one of the chats, just days after the Oscars, the user “angiescully” asked him about his style. “I love the dresses you’ve worn to recent award shows etc. Do you choose your own dresses? Because if you do, stick with the backless ones!”
Anderson replied that he recently discovered Lucero, “whom I love!” she wrote her. “She just makes some really pretty backless dresses!”
