For the first time in the history of the SAG Awards, Sunday night’s ceremony came with a red carpet dress code. Coinciding with the show’s rebrand to the Actor Awards, the powers that be issued a sartorial brief: “Reimagining Hollywood Glamour from the ’20s and ’30s.” But as guests shuffled onto the red carpet, a question emerged: Was the theme really necessary?
The Actors Awards’ dress code wasn’t completely without precedent. For the 40th Academy Awards in 1968, in an effort to prevent starlets from showing up in modish miniskirts, legendary costume designer Edith Head issued an edict: “Actresses are requested to wear formal evening gowns either Maxi or floor length, preferably pastel shades since the setting is very formal and done entirely in white and gold,” she wrote. “The Academy feels that the dignity of this traditional affair on our 40th Anniversary deserves formal dress.”
In 2021, ahead of the first in-person Oscars since the pandemic, the Academy issued a similar, albeit less elegant request. Producers Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher, and Jesse Collins wrote to attendees: “We’re aiming for a fusion of Inspirational and Aspirational, which in actual words means formal is totally cool if you want to go there, but casual is really not.”
The logic behind the dress code for the 2026 SAG Actor Awards was sound: at awards ceremonies other than the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, and Tonys, stars are more inclined to experiment, and the overall result can seem disjointed. A unifying theme makes sense; this one just didn’t land.
For one thing, “’20s and ’30s Hollywood Glamour” is both hyper-specific and a bit too broad. Those two decades, spanning the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the prelude to World War II, represent extremely disparate moments in fashion history. Where at the beginning of the period, the boyish, figure-obscuring flapper dress was the au courant silhouette, by the end, fashion was shifting toward the more body-conscious bias cut.
Unsurprisingly, people took vastly different approaches to the theme. Some attendees preferred more purist interpretations, like Jasmine Savoy Brown and host Kristen Bell, who wore gilded, glamorous gowns from Zuhair Murad and Georges Hobeika, respectively. Others opted for more abstract takes on the period. Bridgerton star Yerin Ha, for instance, chose a fringed Balenciaga top that nodded to flapper dresses without going literal.
Perhaps a better alternative would have been instating a more general Old Hollywood dress code, rather than pointing to two specific, but very different, decades. Sarah Catherine Hook found a solid middle ground; her vibrant purple Balenciaga gown and dusty blue evening gloves nodded to bygone glamour while retaining a modern point of view. The same was true of Chase Infiniti, who paired her Josephine Baker-inspired headpiece with a Louis Vuitton mermaid dress.
The dress code also puts a burden on the actors, stylists, and brands. Where they could play in the black-tie sandbox before, a specific dress code is something of an albatross. An actor’s brand deal far outweighs their obligation to the dress code—and some brands won’t play ball with a ’20s and ’30s glamour brief. And for those who don’t have brands banging down their doors to dress them, it’s just another hurdle to finding a suitable look for the night. In the end, be it personal preference or external influences, plenty of people ignored the theme altogether.
But really, is there any need for a dress code at all? It’s more or less assumed that awards shows in the film and television arena are black-tie. Nobody—besides Adam Sandler—is showing up to an awards show in shorts. Sure, the rote floor-length dresses and tuxedos can get old, but enforcing a fashion mandate isn’t the path to innovation.
