There’s a storm brewing around Olivia Rodrigo and the singer and her babydoll dresses are at the centre of it. A few weeks ago, the internet erupted into a frenzy after the pop star was seen prancing around the Palace of Versailles wearing a frilly blue babydoll-style top, silk bloomers, and knee-high socks in the music video for her single ‘Drop Dead’. Soon after, she performed at the Billion Clubs Live concert in Barcelona in a floral frock and knee-high Doc Martens. Accusations of pandering to paedophiles and promoting a “sexy baby” aesthetic flooded her comments section but Rodrigo isn’t one to back down. The singer took a stand and finally addressed the weeks-long discourse on a New York Times podcast yesterday, saying, “You shouldn’t be responsible for some guy sexualising you in a way that was never your intention.” And to that we say amen.
The choice to wear such a sweet, frilly dress though was most likely intentional given the babydoll dress’s history in the music industry. It was an icon of anti-establishment fashion in the ’90s, when artists like Kim Gordon, Kat Bjelland, and Courtney Love—whom the 23-year-old has cited as inspirations—wore it to juxtapose its overtly feminine style with their rock music. For them, the babydoll dress was a symbol of rebellion against female infantilising. And Rodrigo isn’t the only one to rock the style recently. Laufey, Sabrina Carpenter, and even Taylor Swift have been spotted in similar dresses. On runways, the silhouette is a staple for labels like Chloe, Loewe, and Miu Miu.
Our takeaway from this fiasco is that, like it or not, a babydoll dress revival has firmly taken root, and because it’s 2026 and women should be able to wear whatever they want without being policed, it is likely here to stay. As Taylor Swift famously sang: “F*ck the patriarchy.”
Below, our edit of babydoll dresses to shop across every budget.
