8 Outrageous Fashion Trends That Went Mainstream

French designer Coco Chanel introduced her now-iconic little black dress in 1926, but early reactions were mixed. Some critics dismissed the simple silhouette as too plain, resembling “a dress that a maid might wear,” Way says. However, the crepe de chine style (a lightweight fabric) gained momentum when American Vogue featured an illustration in its October 1926 issue.

According to Cosgrave, author of Vogue On Coco Chanel, the design had a powerful champion in Carmel Snow, the magazine’s fashion editor. Snow dubbed it “Chanel’s Ford,” favorably comparing the design to the bestselling Model T.

Though some viewed the dress as radical and others saw black as associated with mourning, Way says the design reflected women’s increasingly modern, working lives and a broader cultural shift. “It was really encompassing a lot of ideas about women that had been developing over a generation,” she adds.

Over the decades, the little black dress has proven itself a timeless wardrobe staple, from Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to its continued reinvention on red carpets and runways.

French designer Christian Dior unveiled his first collection on February 12, 1947, just as Europe was emerging from years of wartime rationing. The fashion press praised the extravagance of his sweeping, fabric‑heavy skirts, but the collection sparked public anger. “Women for so long were wearing clothes that were in tune with rations,” Cosgrave says. “So when the voluminous skirts came out, swooshing through his atelier, even knocking ashtrays off the tables, the fashion world fell in love with it. But the general public was offended by the excess of it all.”

Way says what was quickly deemed the New Look was “very political.” Though inspired by 19th-century silhouettes, it signaled a break from wartime austerity. “It was Dior’s way of signaling: ‘We are done with this war effort. We're moving on to something new.’” It also represented a push to return women to restrictive femininity as men reclaimed jobs after the war, she adds. The cinched waists and high heels implied a return to the domestic ideal of the housewife. “Some women really resented this idea of going back,” she says.

The backlash was immediate. In the U.S., protests took place. Vogue reports that a Texas woman founded the “Little Below the Knee” club to oppose the styles, calling them impractical and wasteful. Despite the controversy, Way says the New Look “was wildly popular” and helped revive the French fashion industry.

Yves Saint Laurent’s 1966 “Le Smoking” tuxedo was so provocative that it's said socialite Nan Kempner was turned away from a New York restaurant for wearing the look, recounts Cosgrave: “They said, no, you can’t come in because you’re wearing trousers...so she took the trousers off and walked to her table in just the jacket.”

The tuxedo struck a deeper cultural nerve when it came to gender roles. Way connects the backlash to resistance from critics of the growing women’s liberation movement. Women had worn pants for decades, but Saint Laurent's tuxedo challenged expectations of evening wear.

Although actress Marlene Dietrich famously wore a tuxedo in the 1930s, it was for film roles and publicity photos. Le Smoking was meant for real-life wear, Way notes, "For those not looking to see women take on new gender roles, this would have been very controversial.”

Jean Paul Gaultier’s pointed corsetry, first shown at his fall/winter 1984-1985 Paris runway show, drew from underground youth subcultures that used fashion to “question norms about dress and private lives,” Way says. 

Gaultier’s avant-garde designs featured exaggerated cone cups in an homage to the bullet bras of the 1950s. The look became a recurring design in his collections. “He continues his offensive preoccupation with clothes that look like corsets,” a 1986 New York Times review read. “Skin-tight velvet dresses, for example, have padded circular-stitched tops that look like bras. Black jackets are doffed to show vulgar-looking bras and corsets worn as play clothes.”

When Madonna wore a Gaultier-designed cone bra on her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour, critics called the look hypersexual and aggressive. The provocative look was part of a controversial performance that police in Toronto attempted to order her to change based on “complaints that Madonna’s first two shows were obscene and included acts of lewdness,” according to UPI. But, Cosgrave says, a celebrity can help “humanize” a daring look, and the pop star’s embrace of it helped push lingerie-as-outerwear into the mainstream. 

American designer Marc Jacobs’ 1992 grunge collection for Perry Ellis—filled with flannels, layered knits and thrift-store silhouettes—was so controversial that it effectively ended his tenure at the brand. While Jacobs later clarified he wasn’t technically fired for the collection, its rejection by the industry influenced his departure. “A typical outfit looks as if it were put together with the eyes closed in a very dark room,” The New York Times review stated at the time. 

“People didn’t understand why they should pay luxury prices for clothes that looked very well-worn,” Cosgrave says. 

“At the end of the day, grunge was anti-fashion,” Way adds. “It was anti-consumerism, anti-corporatization, anti-capitalism. So for Marc Jacobs to embrace even the aesthetics of that at Perry Ellis—an established American fashion house—it was like he was biting the hand that feeds the fashion industry.”

Yet within a year, the aesthetic dominated global style and Jacobs’ collection is now considered visionary.

British designer Alexander McQueen’s spring 1994 and fall 1995 shows featured ultra‑low “bumster” trousers and skirts cut so low they exposed the top of the buttocks. 

"I wanted to elongate the body, not just show the bum,” McQueen told The Guardian in 1995 in response to attacks of indecency and bad taste. “To me, that part of the body—not so much the buttocks, but the bottom of the spine—that's the most erotic part of anyone's body, man or woman.”

Way says the look “brought up a lot of ideas about the ideal female body” and reinforced narrow beauty standards. But with celebrities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton wearing it, extra-low‑rise jeans took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

The green Versace “Jungle Dress” debuted in the brand’s spring/summer 2000 collection in Milan in fall 1999. Worn by model Amber Valletta, the plunging, nearly navel-deep neckline made an impression on the runway, but it wasn’t until Jennifer Lopez wore the chiffon dress to the 42nd Grammy Awards that it caused an international frenzy. Google, in fact, says the demand for photos of the style inspired the creation of Google Image Search. 

Way says part of the intrigue came from “the possibility of exposure,” even though the dress was carefully taped. She also points to the ecosystem of celebrity and designer power: Lopez amplified Versace’s influence. 

“The media spread the image everywhere,” she says, adding that fast-fashion brands then quickly sold interpretations, copying the green color, print, diaphanous fabric and deep V-neck.

Today, the dress reads as glamorous rather than outrageous—even tame compared to today’s Grammy attire.

When Balenciaga introduced its Triple S sneaker during its fall 2017 collection, critics mocked the bulky, triple-stacked, orthopedic‑looking shoe as intentionally unattractive. “Ever since images of the Triple S surfaced online a few days ago, Twitter users have been comparing the kicks to those worn by ‘geography teachers’ rather than style dons like Wiz Khalifa and DJ Khaled,” GQ reported that year. “Some have slammed them as just downright ‘U-G-L-Y.’”

“The sneaker trend and athleisure had been circulating for a long time, and this ugly sneaker trend was a way to elevate it and create a sneaker that was different, that made you take notice, because sneakers are so ubiquitous,” she says. 

Way connects the trend to earlier anti-fashion trends like grunge. “But I think it was a broader intellectualization of fashion—thinking about what is aesthetically pleasing,” she adds. “It doesn't have to be pretty in a very traditional sense for it to be appealing, and maybe the point is not necessarily to be pretty.”

Despite the early reviews, the Triple S became a runaway commercial success even with its original $795 price tag. It sold out repeatedly in its first year, and nearly every major luxury brand, including Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Versace, quickly launched their own chunky “dad sneaker.”