2025 Best Celebrity Red Carpet Moments From Rihanna to Alexander Skarsgård

The red carpet hasn’t been only about dressing well — and for a while now. Striving for polished and chic is the bare minimum. In 2025, the game is about garnering attention, and the stars who dominate do so by commanding conversation, sparking memes and turning every step onto the carpet into a viral moment. Style is no longer just an aesthetic, it’s a strategy. Some of this year’s most talked-about looks followed three clear rules for winning the algorithm, reshaping how the red carpet contributes to culture.

Themed Dressing That Extends the Plot

Method dressing officially evolved in 2025. No longer confined to literal costume references and solely on set, the strongest red carpet moments expanded a film’s narrative and reflected character development. Lindsay Lohan instinctively tapped into this approach while promoting “Freakier Friday,” revisiting silhouettes and styling cues from the original film and reframing them for a generation raised on TikTok nostalgia. The move felt intentional and sincere, reconnecting older audiences while introducing the franchise to a new demographic.

The “Wicked: For Good” press tour offered another masterclass in red carpet dressing. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande leaned into heightened glamour that evolved alongside their characters, favoring dramatic proportions, darker tones and theatrical craftsmanship that suggested growth rather than repetition. Alexander Skarsgård pushed the idea further by fully committing to provocative, BDSM-coded dressing while promoting “Pillion.” His looks were never about universal approval but about cultural friction, which in 2025 is the fastest way to cut through. We approve. 

Presiding over this approach remains Timothée Chalamet, who continues to treat the red carpet as grounds for fashion risk. During the “Marty Supreme” press tour, his monochromatic orange Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann look became one of the year’s most polarizing moments. Memes followed instantly, but so did impact. In an algorithm-driven ecosystem, neutrality simply does not travel.

The Red Carpet as Fashion’s Town Square

Designer debuts did not stop at Milan and Paris this year. They extended directly onto the red carpet, now fashion’s most immediate feedback loop. One of this year’s red carpet queens, Teyana Taylor, wore Matthieu Blazy’s new Chanel to the Gotham Awards, while Greta Lee and the multiple Jonathan Anderson for Dior red carpet looks enforced premieres and awards shows as real time referendums on new creative leadership, with social media acting as judge and jury.

A$AP Rocky’s appointment as a new Chanel ambassador amplified this shift. His appearances in full Chanel reignited the conversation around menswear as the house’s next frontier, proving that it’s no longer a novelty but a serious cultural proposition. Alongside him, Rihanna continued her unmatched red carpet dominance. Her approach to maternity dressing, from a head-turning Marc Jacobs look at the Met Gala to transforming a Saint Laurent gown into one of the most stylish maternity moments of the year, reframed expectations entirely. Together, Rihanna and Rocky operate less as attendees and more as cultural power players.

Demi Moore has had a decades-long winning relationship with the red carpet. Now emerging as the muse for Demna’s new Gucci era, she is firmly back at the center of the fashion conversation, a great example of this winning relationship being the custom black lace sheer Gucci dress she wore to the “Landman” Season Two premiere.

Vintage, Nostalgia and Cultural Memory

Gen Z’s obsession with vintage reached peak visibility in 2025, but the most effective moments were rooted in recognition. From Cynthia Erivo in a 1997 Givenchy silver gown by Alexander McQueen at the SAG awards, Ariana Grande in a 2007 John Galliano Dior stunner at the Governors Awards to Mikey Madison in a fall 1992 black and white Giorgio Armani look at the Critic Choice Awards and Chappell Roan in a couture Jean Paul Gaultier multitier gown from 2003, these leading women turned to the archives that carried immediate fashion memory, allowing history to do part of the storytelling.

The moment that truly cut through came at the New York premiere of “Marty Supreme,” where Apple Martin joined her mother, Gwyneth Paltrow, wearing the same black Calvin Klein Collection dress Paltrow wore to the New York premiere of “Emma” in 1996. Instantly recognizable to anyone fluent in ’90s red carpet culture, and an instant nostalgia guilty pleasure. A couple of days later, mother and daughter appeared together in the new Gap ad. What a coincidence, right?

In 2025, the red carpet didn’t just reflect culture, it helped shape it. With an ever-closer dialogue between past and present runways, certain fashion moments rose above the rest, leaving a mark on red carpet history.