From Lili Reinhart's rom-com homages to Michelle Obama's late-night appearance, the body-conscious style is wrapping up fresh attention.
Lili Reinhart has helped put the bandage dress back in the spotlight. During her promotional tour for *The Love Hypothesis*, the actor recreated several beloved romantic-comedy looks, including Kate Hudson's yellow gown from *How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days* and Brittany Murphy's Blumarine dress from *Uptown Girls*. Among these tributes was a *Miss Congeniality*-inspired bandage dress designed by Michelle Ochs, creative director of Hervé Léger, which marked its 40th anniversary this year.
Nostalgia fuels much of the renewed interest. Wearers are drawn to the dress's origins as an '80s and '90s bombshell staple, as well as its later association with the party-girl aesthetic of the 2000s and 2010s. At Coachella this year, Zara Larsson wore a rainbow-striped version that matched her Y2K sensibility. More elevated interpretations have also emerged, including Amal Clooney's ruched Tom Ford design at the Venice Film Festival and a softened Thom Browne version worn by Olivia Dean to the CFDA Awards. Michelle Obama appeared in a blue Hervé Léger take during an interview on *Jimmy Kimmel Live*.
The timing is notable. The bandage dress is unapologetically sexy and physically constricting, yet it returns as other once-dismissed 2010s trends—peplums and gladiator sandals among them—have quietly reappeared. Designers have been experimenting with the tightly wound silhouette for some time. Christopher Kane, who launched his career with fluorescent bandage dresses, revisited the form during his guest residency at Self-Portrait, with Lara Stone and Addison Rae wearing pieces from that collection on the red carpet.
Broader shifts in fashion have also cleared the way. From Dario Vitale's short tenure at Versace to Haider Ackermann's work at Tom Ford, revealing designs have gained traction. The widespread use of GLP-1 medications has coincided with the dominance of body-conscious cuts and cutouts. The so-called bimbocore moment has given way to full bombshell glamour, with internet nostalgia frequently circling back to the Victoria's Secret supers of the 2000s and 2010s—who often wore minidress versions of the style off-duty.
Fashion's habit of staging direct visual callbacks is accelerating the trend. Reinhart is not alone in inviting comparisons to iconic predecessors: Kaia Gerber wore a white bandage dress on the festival circuit, echoing her mother Cindy Crawford's many appearances in the style on and off the runway, including a similar look at the 1993 Oscars.
The timing of this resurgence also coincides with institutional recognition. Next month, the Legion of Honor will open a retrospective on Azzedine Alaïa, credited with inventing the bandage dress—his inspiration drawn from Egyptian mummies. The exhibition may introduce the garment's sculpting power through Lycra to a generation encountering it for the first time.