But the more powerful hit of times past came from Gillian Anderson’s dress: it looked elegant, unremarkable, maybe a little bridal, even.
Nothing to see here, just a fine-looking woman in white. Look closer, and you’ll see it’s embroidered; closer still, that the pattern is like
nothing you’ve seen before. She called it her vagina dress, which was very on-brand, given her role as the sex therapist mum in Sex Education, yet at the same time very off-brand, because those are actually vulvas.
Anderson chose it “for so many reasons”, she told a flustered reporter on the red carpet, leaving the world to speculate on what exact combination it represented: between a defence of female reproductive autonomy, a reclamation of the yoni from the forces of patriarchal squeamishness and a giant, “well, you didn’t see that coming, did you?” It would have been less satisfying if she’d worn this in the X-Files years, because we wouldn’t have had X to post our thoughts on, and therefore would have missed out on the collective baffled delight, with the obligatory chaser of vulva/vagina pedantry that I’ll always be happy to add to. And yet it did feel very 90s in spirit, a kind of exuberant, provocative “never mind exactly what it means; suffice to say, it means I’ll wear what I like”.