Bjork's swan dress: A reviled Oscars outfit that's now iconic

Bjork's 2001 swan dress is iconic – but did it mark the end of fun on the red carpet? Clare Thorp looks at how the singer refused to play by the rulebook.

Much about the 2001 Oscars ceremony played out as expected. Julia Roberts completed her awards sweep for Erin Brockovich, taking home the statuette for best actress. Bookmakers' favourite Gladiator won best picture, disappointing those hoping for an upset with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When Marcia Gay Harden beat out frontrunner Kate Hudson for best supporting actress, it was a rare moment of surprise.

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But the biggest shock that night, 20 years ago – and the most memorable moment of the 73rd Academy Awards – happened outside the auditorium, on the red carpet, when the Icelandic musician Björk appeared wearing a dress that resembled a swan. It was a crystal-encrusted body stocking surrounded by a puff of white tulle, with a long neck that draped around her own, the orange beak resting on her chest. Her accessories were a trail of eggs, that she "laid" as she walked down the red carpet.

Anyone familiar with Björk – nominated that year for best original song for I've Seen it All from Lars von Trier's Dancing In The Dark (in which she also starred) – would know she wasn't likely to show up in a classic black gown. A few weeks earlier at the Golden Globes, she'd worn an outfit featuring Michael Jackson's face in sequins, accessorised with an owl-shaped handbag. And yet no-one expected this – and the reactions were vicious. "The girl should be put into an asylum," sniped Joan Rivers. "Probably one of the dumbest things I've ever seen," said TV fashion pundit Steven Cojocaru.

But 20 years later, it doesn't seem such a dumb choice after all. Instead, Björk's dress – by Macedonian designer Marjan Pejoski – has gone down as one of the most iconic Oscar outfits ever, and the initial ridicule has transformed into – if not reverence – then certainly fondness. Julia Roberts' vintage Valentino might have topped the best-dressed lists in 2001 but, two decades later, it's Björk's outfit that everyone remembers.

For a while, the dress was a punchline in popular culture, inspiring endless parodies – including when Ellen DeGeneres wore a copy to host the 2001 Emmys. Fast forward to 2014, and Valentino was showing a reimagined version of the dress in a couture collection. In 2015, it was exhibited as part of MoMA's Bjork show, and in 2019 it featured in The Met's Camp: Notes On Fashion. What was once mocked is now firmly enshrined in fashion history. The dress even has its own Wikipedia page.

Björk said the look was a tribute to the Busby Berkeley musicals, as well as swimmer and actress Esther Williams. "I thought it'd be very appropriate to wear a swan. I guess they don't do those things anymore, right?," she said afterwards, trying to understand the reaction.

The dress made its public debut a few weeks before the Oscars at London Fashion Week, modelled by Alek Wek in Marjan Pejoski's autumn/winter 2001 show. "The whole narrative that season was inspired by the motion of a merry-go-round, with all these different animals. The swan was a part of that," the designer later explained. "Björk loved it."

Björk had worn Pejoksi's designs before – including a dramatic pink organza concertina-style dress to the Cannes Festival the previous year – but even he didn't know she would wear his swan design until he saw the pictures the next day. "It was a very nice surprise," he told Vogue. The eggs were all her idea. "It was fantastic of her. So rebellious, at a traditional occasion like the Oscars. I respect tradition of course, but everybody and everything deserves to be laughed at from time to time."

Michael Caulfield was working as a photographer for the Associated Press at the time. A red-carpet veteran, he thought nothing could surprise him any more – until Björk showed up. "When she first walked up, I didn't even have my camera up to my face because I was just taking in what she was wearing," he told BBC Culture. "My first reaction was: 'What is this?' I thought it was a political statement or she was promoting a movie. Then I picked up the camera and started shooting. After she walked away, that's all the photographers were talking about."

This was before celebrities posed against a clean backdrop and were instead photographed on the carpet itself. "A lot of people's heads were turned," says Caulfield. "If you look at the pictures, you can see people looking back at her and the expression on their faces. They're confused."

Björk herself was bemused by the reaction. "They wrote about it like I was trying to wear a black Armani and got it wrong, like I was trying to fit in," she told The New York Times in 2007. "Of course I wasn't trying to fit in."

Caroline Stevenson, head of cultural and historical studies at London College of Fashion, says there was a disconnect between what is expected of women on the red carpet – and what Björk gave people. "There's something about Björk not fulfilling expectations of female celebrity that made it difficult for people to comprehend or understand," she says.

This was Björk's first appearance at the ceremony – and she wasn't playing by the rulebook by wearing the most glamorous, Hollywood-esque outfit available. "I was very aware when I went to the Awards that it would probably be my first and last time. So I thought my input should really be about fertility, and I thought I'd bring some eggs," she later said in an interview. She'd put effort into her look, but for those used to couture and diamonds, it was the wrong kind.

"There is this convention of female glamour and female celebrity and desire that gets played out through the red carpet and through these beautiful gowns," says Stevenson. "But Björk was literally dressed like a swan and she laid these eggs, and there was something in there about femininity and ideas of nurture, nature and fertility. I think people did not want to associate that with the red carpet."

If the fashion critics thought the outfit was a mistake, Björk showed no regrets. She wore the dress on the cover of her album Vespertine later that year, and it became part of her tour costume. In 2005 she auctioned the original off in aid of Oxfam, raising $9,500 (£6,805). But if criticism of her dress was water off a duck's – or swan's – back, other celebrities dreaded ending up on the worst-dressed list.

While some cite Björk's outfit as setting the tone for later red carpet looks, like Lady Gaga's meat dress at the 2010 VMAs, or arrival at the 2011 Grammy Awards in an egg – at the Oscars, it felt more like the end of something.

In the decades leading up to that, there had been plenty of other memorable Oscar fashion moments: Demi Moore turning up in lace-trimmed cycling shorts in 1989; Sharon Stone wearing her husband's white Gap shirt tucked into a Vera Wang skirt in 1998; Celine Dion's back-to-front white tuxedo in 1999. And, of course, Cher's incredible Bob Mackie designs throughout the 1970s and 80s (including a 2ft-high feather headpiece in 1986, and her diamond encrusted "naked" dress in 1988).

Post Björk's appearance though, the 21st-Century Oscar red carpet provided few surprises. With the pre-show becoming as important as the ceremony itself, and critics and viewers ready to rate each outfit, no one wanted to stand out for the wrong reasons. The Oscars red carpet was also morphing into a place that was as much for commerce as it was for fashion, with luxury brands paying big sums for celebrities to wear their designs. With the financial stakes so high, the red carpet was no longer a place for rebellion. Angelina Jolie sticking her right leg out of her Atelier Versace gown in 2012 was about as shocking as it got.

More recently though, a handful of celebrities have taken it upon themselves to bring some drama back to the red carpet – most notably, Pose star Billy Porter. The actor has become known for his elaborate red-carpet get-ups – such as a bejewelled catsuit with 10ft-high wings at the Met Gala (where he was carried in by six shirtless men). At the 2019 Oscars, he grabbed attention with a full-skirted Christian Siriano tuxedo gown and, last year, a bespoke gold and printed Giles Deacon creation inspired by Kensington Palace.

If Billy Porter's theatrical looks recall the spirit of Björk's egg-laying Oscar appearance, it's no coincidence – his stylist, Sam Ratelle, cites the swan dress as a huge influence. "It's one of the first fashion moments that I ever experienced that left a mark in me," he tells BBC Culture. "I grew up in a religious cult called Branhamism, and I wasn't allowed to watch television or have any sort of media. No internet, no cell phone, no tabloids or magazines. But I did go to public school, and I just remember everybody at school freaking out about the dress."

Though it would be many years before he was working in fashion himself, Ratelle says the dress taught him a valuable lesson about the importance of first impressions. "If you're going to go to a massive event like that, the best way to get attention and have people talking about you is by saying something with what you're wearing. It also really taught me that the people that break barriers and don't go with what everybody else is doing, they are the ones that are iconic."

Due to Covid, the past year has seen awards ceremonies – and the red carpet – largely played out virtually. Some celebrities have taken this as a cue to dress down – see Jodie Foster in her pyjamas for  the Golden Globes. But others, perhaps due to a pent-up desire for glamour, have taken a few more fashion risks than they might usually. For the Golden Globes, Rosamund Pike donned a red Molly Goddard dress with combat boots. The Crown's Emma Corrin wore a Pierrot clown-inspired gown by Miu Miu. For the SAG awards, Leslie Odom Jr wore a technicolour Berluti suit while Kerry Washington posed in a pool in a custom Etro dress and matching sparkling swimming cap.

For this weekend's Oscars, which will have a real-life, socially-distanced red carpet, organisers have made it clear that sweatpants are not an option, telling 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."

So will celebrities indulge us and show us something a little more creative? "I think we all just really need a break from monotony, so it would be good to have something that's a little bit more fun and playful," says Stevenson.

Ratelle thinks we're seeing a shift towards celebrities wanting to "exude personality" – and that in itself is seeing them take a few more risks. "I think one of the things that's dying is the fear of needing to be liked."

Björk's dress continues to be an inspiration to him – not least for the fact that, 20 years on, we're still talking about it; something he hopes will happen with his own work. "For me, if the garment isn't being talked about, then what's the point?"

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