Angelina Jolie’s Red Carpet Style and Fashion Influence

Angelina Jolie’s red carpet style has never depended on trends. Over more than 20 years her most influential looks have been simple: a dark or pale palette, long clean lines and a single striking detail. Several of those dresses are among the most referenced in Oscars history.

2004: the white Marc Bouwer gown

At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she was a presenter, Jolie wore a white silk satin gown by Marc Bouwer. It had a plunging neckline, a draped waist, an open back and fabric that wrapped around the wrists. The dress had appeared on the designer’s Fall 2004 runway in New York only weeks earlier. She kept her hair half up and wore H. Stern diamonds.

It still appears regularly on lists of the best Oscars dresses. It is also one of the few red carpet gowns to be reworn by another star decades later: Sydney Sweeney wore the same dress to the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2024.

2012: the Versace leg

Jolie’s best-known look arrived at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012. She wore a strapless black velvet Atelier Versace gown with a thigh-high slit, and she posed with a hand on her hip and her right leg thrust forward. She repeated the pose on stage when presenting the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The photographs became an internet meme almost at once, and the pose was widely parodied. Publications from The Hollywood Reporter to CNN have since treated it as a defining red carpet moment. The dress itself was very plain: black, strapless, no print or embellishment to speak of. Almost all of its impact came from the slit and the way she stood in it.

2014: Elie Saab

For the 2014 Academy Awards Jolie wore Elie Saab. The gown came back into the headlines seven years later, when her daughter Zahara wore the same dress to the Los Angeles premiere of Eternals in October 2021. W magazine and other outlets pointed to it as an example of the family reworking and rewearing clothes.

2021: Eternals

At that same Eternals premiere Jolie wore a strapless Balmain dress with vintage Tiffany & Co. jewelry and a gold lip cuff. The shape was her usual clean column. The lip cuff, an unusual accessory for a major premiere, provided the one unexpected note. Several of her children also wore reworked or vintage pieces that night.

2025: the pose, revisited

At the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025, promoting the film Couture, Jolie wore a floor-length brown double-breasted coat with a thigh-high slit. People reported that she struck a pose recalling the 2012 Oscars. It was the same idea, a long dark line with the leg showing through, turned into tailoring.

What defines Angelina Jolie’s red carpet style

• A narrow palette. Her most famous looks are black, white or deep neutrals, which keep attention on the cut.
• One dramatic element. A thigh-high slit, a plunging neckline or a sculptural accessory, and nothing competing with it.
• Long, unbroken lines. Column gowns and floor-length coats make her silhouette look even longer.
• Posture as part of the look. The 2012 Versace dress shows that how a dress is worn can matter as much as the dress.

Jolie’s influence comes from that consistency. She has seldom chased the season’s trends, so her key looks have aged well, and other stars have borrowed them directly, from Sweeney rewearing the Marc Bouwer gown to Jolie repeating her own 2012 pose.