Emily Ratajkowski knows she looked amazing in the dress Tim Gunn once called “appallingly vulgar."
In a new interview with Harper's Bazaar, the model reflected on the "controversial” look she wore to the publication's Icons Party back in 2016. In case you've forgotten, the black cutout dress plunged all the way down to her navel, giving it the appearance of a low-rise skirt being held up by two thick straps. In fact, there's something very ‘90s about the sparkling dress that would still be relevant on today’s red carpets.
Following the event, Gunn called the Julien Macdonald dress “appallingly vulgar," per Vanity Fair. “If I saw this at a party, all I could do would be to drink. I couldn’t eat. There’s absolutely no way,” he said during an appearance on Fashion Police at the time. “This dress is so appallingly vulgar and revealing. Why wear anything? Why not just take it all off?”
Six years later, Ratajkowski stands by her daring ensemble. “I still think I look great,” Ratajkowski told Harper's Bazaar, regarding the backlash.
“[It's] probably the most controversial dress I've ever worn," Ratajkowski explained without mentioning Gunn by name. "Somebody called it 'extremely vulgar' and it became this huge controversy on the internet. I was in my 20s and just, like, hadn't registered that it was so s-xy, because there is a panel in the middle, but it looks like there isn't."
She continued, “I was basically called out for wanting attention, which I think is interesting because you go to red carpets for attention, basically.”
Emily Ratajkowski is no stranger to criticism—especially for what men consider attention-seeking behavior. It only serves to fuel her desire to live an “unfiltered" life. On her own TikTok account, Ratajkowski regularly speaks to her 1.8 million followers about everything from the “fetishization of female pain” in the latest Marilyn Monroe film, Blonde, to her anti-s-xist take on the Adam Levine cheating scandal.
“Women seeking attention is always the classic misogyny hot topic,” she said in a recent interview with Variety. “It's really what gets people going, to accuse a woman of seeking attention. Personally, I know that really well. So, yeah, I get a lot of hate. But as they say on TikTok: ‘The girls who get it, get it.’ That's my motto these days.”
