Do you recall when Angelina Jolie redefined the leather style by walking the red carpet in a plunging black gown for “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”?
A decade of “Brangelina” as a tabloid mainstay began when the action-romance movie debuted in June of last year in Los Angeles, just as allegations of Jolie’s actual on-set affair with co-star Brad Pitt were at an all-time high.
Jolie stepped out of a limousine and entered the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood wearing a Versace gown with a sheer black neckline accent and lining that hung from a thigh-high split. In contrast to her previous dress codes of low-slung pants, muscle tees, and gothic gowns, the star was continuing a recent trend of polished and glamorous red carpet appearances, including the previous year’s Oscars gown, which was a white silk gown reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, with her hair styled in a voluminous blow-out and her jewelry kept simple. Pitt, on the other hand, wore trousers, a brown bomber jacket, and bleached hair to the premiere.
However, the leather Versace dress, which had an open back with two crisscrossed straps and a fitted form with long vertical seams down the front, is today regarded as one of Jolie’s best looks. As Jolie transformed her look into the more carefree, minimalist look for which she is now famous, it demonstrated that she could still project an edgy, bombshell atmosphere.
The green, glittering long-sleeve gown she wore to the 2011 Golden Globes, the statuesque metal mesh dress she wore to the Rome premiere of “The Eternals” in 2021, and the velvet, high-slit silhouette she wore to the 2012 Oscars that instantly went viral on the Internet for the way she posed her right leg are all examples of her long-standing relationship with Versace.
By 2005, Jolie, who frequently attracted attention for her sex appeal and volatile personality, had made leather her signature. Both the pair she wore in 2000 for “Gone in Sixty Seconds,” when she arrived at the premiere with then-husband Billy Bob Thornton, who openly revealed their limo liaison to reporters in a now-famous clip, and the leather wide-belted low-riders she wore to the 2001 premiere of “Tomb Raider” set pulses racing.
Jolie’s wardrobe choices for “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” also appeared to be in line with her style for the “Tomb Raider” premiere, long before “method dressing” was a red carpet requirement (or perhaps it is just a reflection of Jolie’s predilection for choosing roles with a similar sense of style).
Jane Smith, a deadly assassin in the latter movie, has a closet full of slinky black gowns, including the dominatrix minidress she wears when she removes a mark. The only thing lacking from Jolie’s Versace gown that we are aware of is a concealed garter firearm, which would have suited perfectly.
Jolie has occasionally gone back to wearing leather gowns, such as a Michael Kors midi tube dress for the 2009 premiere of “Inglourious Basterds” and a Versace strapless dress adorned with micro sequins for “Maleficent” in 2014. Although Jolie wasn’t the only celebrity to use leather on the red carpet in the 1990s and 2000s (see Victoria Beckham and Lenny Kravitz), elements of her look are still prevalent today, from Dua Lipa’s stunning Versace moment at the 2024 Brit Awards to Louis Vuitton’s structured version of the leather gown, which was worn by Ayo Edebiri to the 75th Emmy Awards.
While Florence Pugh appeared to borrow Jolie’s form-fitting midi dresses for her May promotion of “Thunderbolts,” Miley Cyrus wore a crisscross cutout leather dress with a front slit similar to Jolie’s 2005 gown to the Grammy Awards earlier this year. Some celebrities have gone even farther with the BDSM-coded influences; for example, Kim Kardashian and Olivia Rodrigo have chosen to wear minidresses and leather gowns adorned with eyelets by designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin. However, Jolie’s dress is still the standard twenty years later.
