Vogue magazine has found itself in hot water after Swifties took issue with its description of an outfit recently worn by the pop star.
The article at the center of the scandal is titled With Taylor Swift’s Endorsement, We’ve Officially Entered Peak Babydoll Season.
“Breaking news for all you Swifties🚨: Taylor Swift is pro-babydoll dress,” reads the first line. In the article, a short black-and-silver dress worn by the Opalite singer during a NYC outing is described as part of the babydoll trend.
Highlights
- A Vogue article about the babydoll dress trend featuring Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo did not sit well with many Swifties.
- Rodrigo was recently slammed over her babydoll dresses, with many accusing her of dressing like a toddler and s*xualizing childhood.
- Insisting that Swift’s dress wasn’t a babydoll, many netizens criticized the magazine for grouping the two singers together.
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There were two aspects of the piece that outraged Swifties. Firstly, many argued that Swift's dress was a minidress and not a babydoll, as it didn’t feature a high waist or accents such as lace, ruffles, bows, and ribbons.
But the most suspicious part of Vogue’s article, Swift fans claimed, was that it was published following the heated controversy surrounding Olivia Rodrigo’s fashion choices.
The Driver’s License hitmaker recently faced backlash for wearing a babydoll dress with bloomer shorts during her Drop Dead music video, with thousands accusing her of s*xualizing infancy.
Days after the video premiered, Rodrigo was blasted once again when she donned a pink babydoll dress while performing in Barcelona, Spain.
The Vogue article about the babydoll trend also includes Rodrigo, mentioning that she “caught some flak” for her looks.
“While Swift went the more glamorous route, Rodrigo went for a punkier look, styling her babydoll dress with knee-high Doc Martens,” author Hannah Jackson wrote.
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The article further states that the babydoll dress trend is far from new, having previously been embraced by 1990s riot grrrls like Courtney Love.
However, Taylor Swift fans insisted that her dress didn’t fall into the same category and asked Vogue not to group the two singers together.
“THAT’S NOT A BABYDOLL DRESS,” one fan wrote of Swift’s dress, while another said, “That’s not even remotely baby doll style????”
“Imagine comparing a c*nty mini dress to a dress with diaper cover set that my younger sisters used to wear to sleep,” one Swiftie commented.
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Similarly, another compared Rodrigo’s babydoll frocks to “an outfit I’ve bought for my 8 month old daughter.”
“I just know that Anna Wintour and Miranda Priestly would be so disappointed that the current fashion staff can’t see the difference between minidress and babydoll dress,” a separate critic said.
Others went as far as claiming Rodrigo’s PR team had paid Vogue to publish the article in an attempt to quiet the criticism surrounding the singer’s outfits.
Some Swifties slammed Rodrigo’s outfits, saying they look like “children’s clothing”
“From Olivia Rodrigo’s riot grrrl influences to Sabrina Carpenter’s 1960s throwbacks, and now Taylor Swift’s glitzier take (…) one thing is clear: the babydoll dress is alive and well amongst the pop star set,” the article declares.
Amid the backlash for donning what many have compared to children’s clothing while singing about adult themes, Rodrigo explained that her dainty frocks are inspired by her musical idols.
“I just remember being younger and having pictures of Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland from all these riot grrrl p*nk bands in their babydoll dresses, just owning it,” she said, as per Vogue.
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The short dress' origin is attributed to lingerie designer Sylvia Pedlar, who created it in response to fabric shortages during World War II.
The babydoll was popularized in the late 1950s by the Carroll Baker film Baby Doll, as well as by Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga. Decades later, the style experienced a revival thanks to grunge and alternative rock singers.
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Amid the outrage over Rodrigo’s fashion choices for her new musical “era,” some fans jumped to her defense and questioned the characterization of the babydoll as an item of children's clothing.
"Although its name may cause confusion, its history, design and purpose are clearly linked to women's lingerie and have nothing to do with children's clothing,” one fan noted.
A separate X user stated, "Y'all are being weird. Courtney Love was wearing similar [clothes] a decade ago. Her makeup was just smeared. Predators are the problem, not pop stars."
Citing previously documented cases of smear campaigns against celebrities, Rolling Stone suggested that some social media posts criticizing the 23-year-old may be the result of a bot-coordinated attack.
After several years in the public eye, Rodrigo is no stranger to the criticism that often comes with fame.
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In 2021, when she launched her musical career after starring in Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, she told Alanis Morissette in an interview that female artists face harsher scrutiny than male stars.
“Putting out music in the age of social media can be really daunting,” Rodrigo admitted. “I think people hold young women to an incredibly unrealistic standard.”
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