The 2025 Cannes Film Festival Dress Code Trades Naked Dresses for "Decency"—and Debate

Just 24 hours before the Cannes Film Festival, attendees typically relax poolside at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, knowing they're prepared to face the cameras and the red carpet dress code. This year, regulars like Bella Hadid, Elsa Hosk, and Naomi Campbell might instead speed-dial their stylists and demand new gowns ASAP.

The annual film festival's organizers released an update to the dress code on Monday, May 12, which will bring its record of skin-baring naked dresses and carpet-covering trains to a screeching halt at the start of the 2025 edition on Tuesday, May 13. "For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the Red Carpet, as well as in any other area of the Festival," the Cannes Film Festival FAQ now reads. The rules go on to cite "a little black dress, a cocktail dress, a dark-colored pantsuit, and a dressy top with black pants" as fair game for the next day's slate of Grand Théâtre Lumière gala screenings. Anyone showing up in a completely sheer piece like the Saint Laurent naked dress Hadid wore to Cannes last year, however, will be "prohibited" from walking the carpet.

Guests who typically swerve in the opposite direction, with swathes of fabric trailing behind them like a coronation-day cape, will also have to reassess their Cannes looks. "Voluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train, that hinder the proper flow of traffic of guests and complicate seating in the theater are not permitted," the updated dress code reads.

In the immediate term, these rules are poised to stifle the opulent, over-the-top aura that Cannes usually inspires. The event is as revered for its boundary-pushing fashion moments as for its slate of awards-bait films. More often than not, fashion lovers walk away with looks by Selena Gomez, Naomi Campbell, or Kendall Jenner in mind instead of a particular film screening. Styling teams go big with rare vintage pulls, peek-a-boo fabrics, and exaggerated volume (sometimes, all at once); guests return home with a best-dressed award.

Now, the dress code implies that Cannes fashion history isn't suitable for the formality of the occasion. By definition, "decency" implies an agreed-upon standard of respectability and morality. Using that phrase in the same breath as a ban on nudity suggests that naked dresses are no longer respectable in this red carpet context—despite dominating similarly formal events from award ceremonies to regional film festivals. Celebrities, as reported previously in Marie Claire, often view sheer dressing as a means of exerting power and body positivity. The Cannes dress code indicates that naked dressing is, by its organizers' standards, flat-out inappropriate. "Forget celebrating bodies," it seems to say; conceal them instead.

Powerhouse stlyist Karla Welch was one of the first to publicly criticize the new Cannes dress code and its tone on Instagram Stories. "Someone pls [sic] give me a sheer dress and I'll show Cannes what's decent," she wrote. "How BORING and PATRIARCHAL and LAME."

This isn't the first time the Cannes Film Festival dress code has incited controversy regarding women attendees' wardrobes. Until 2018, women were banned from wearing flat shoes on the red carpet—a rule that quite literally upheld high heels as the feminine standard. It wasn't until Kristen Stewart, a member of that year's judging committee, kicked off her Christian Louboutin heels mid-photo op that the rules were finally reconsidered. Now, "elegant shoes and sandals with or without a heel" are all allowed, so long as they aren't sneakers.

The adjustment might seem like a minor inconvenience to this year's Cannes attendees. When you're a celebrity with someone like Law Roach or Molly Dickson dressing you, how stressful can it be to find a backup dress?

In reality, there are long-tail effects that can reshape the state of the red carpet. Naked dresses are de rigueur from the Academy Awards to the Met Gala. However, if one major event bans exposed nipples and belly buttons, others could follow suit. Designers will eventually respond by tweaking their own red carpet formulas and phasing out transparency in their fabric choices. (Never mind that an artfully exposed form or a flash of an open back can sometimes be more elegant than an opaque ballgown, as past Cannes looks from Zoë Kravitz and Elle Fanning have shown.)

Sometimes, constraints on design can lead to creativity. Without skin as the shortcut to shock and awe, styling teams will have to reconsider new fabrics, shapes, and references. There's a fine line, however, between fatigue with the naked dress trend and telling women they can't wear it if they so choose.

Ultimately, the new Cannes rules have an outdated undertone that's impossible to ignore. In 2025, "decent" should be in the eye of the woman who's getting dressed.