The most daring Oscars red-carpet outfits of the last 50 years, from Prince’s hooded cape and Cher’s revealing showgirl dress, to Celine Dion’s reverse Dior tuxedo and Zendaya’s Sharon Stone tribute

However exciting (or not) you found this year’s Oscars red carpet, stars have long opted to wear some of their most daring and quirky outfits to the event, with many of them going down in fashion history. We all remember Björk’s swan dress in 2001, and Billy Porter in his tuxedo gown in 2019, right? Here are some of the most memorable from the past 50 years. 1976: Diane Keaton Diane Keaton matched a bright white suit with a striped shirt, a polka dot tie, and a giant carnation in her lapel. And while Keaton is famous for embracing menswear now, back in the 70s, this Richard Tyler design was considered unexpected. 1977: Edy Williams Edy Williams stole the show with this look that defies explanation. In 77, Williams opted for an almost entirely sheer gown with a bustier top attached with a jewel. She also wore sparkly underwear and yet another fur coat. Oh, and a dog. Red carpet recycles: 7 Hollywood stars who re-wore their designer outfits 1982: Liberace When Liberace performed at the Academy Awards, he wore a bold look covered in beads. The more you looked at it, the more intricate it became. 1985: Prince In 1985, Prince wore a hooded, bedazzled cape to accept the Oscar for Purple Rain. Thirty-six years later in 2021, H.E.R. wore a similar sparkling purple hooded outfit to the Oscars, citing the musician’s 80s look as her inspiration. 1986: Cher The year after Prince’s strong look, Cher stopped the show with a large headdress and matching black ensemble. “Remember when actor Don Ameche won an Oscar for best supporting actor in Cocoon?’” CNN wrote in 2020. “Of course not; we were too enchanted by the woman presenting him with a statuette: Cher, in a bat-crazy mash-up of witchy showgirl and Halloween Big Bird.” 1990: Kim Basinger Kim Basinger mixed menswear and red-carpet glam in this memorable gown, which she in fact designed herself. With one half resembling a white suit jacket with an embroidered golden sleeve and the other half a strapless gown with an almost shoulder-length white glove, it was all tied together with a full ball gown level skirt. Time retrospectively called it “nothing short of a white hot mess”. 1993: Whoopi Goldberg Whoopi Goldberg’s lime-green and purple look was impossible to miss at that year’s ceremony. At first glance, Goldberg appeared to be wearing a deep aubergine skirt with a green and purple paisley top and a purple jacket – but in reality, her skirt was fully open and lined with lime green, and the shirt was actually a jumpsuit. She also wore matching heels and earrings. According to The Guardian, the look was inspired by Disney. 10 most expensive royal jewellery pieces, ranked 1995: Lizzy Gardiner In 1995, Australian costume designer Lizzy Gardiner wore a dress entirely made of American Express gold cards. Gardiner created the dress for the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but it didn’t make the cut. Instead, she wore the dress for Hollywood’s biggest night and ended up taking home the Oscar for costume design. “They all had my name on them, and I joined all the cards together with wire. Full length, and [it] was split almost to the waist because there was no other way of doing it. I had gold underwear on, and off I went,” she told ABC News in 2017. 1998: Cher again At the 1998 Academy Awards, Cher opted for a completely see-through dress dripping in crystals with a matching crystal hat and choker. As Harper’s Bazaar wrote, she completely “shut down” that year’s ceremony in this revealing outfit. 1999: Celine Dion In an iconic Oscars look, Celine Dion wore a backwards white satin tuxedo with no shirt and a giant white hat. Of Dion’s John Galliano for Christian Dior tuxedo, Vogue wrote, “It was so bizarre, it was beautiful. It remains on every iteration of Oscars worst dressed lists, but almost two decades later, nobody has forgotten this act of fashion resistance. There should be one like it every year.” 2001: Björk Björk made headlines when she showed up on the red carpet with a swan around her neck. “It is precisely this outlandishness that made the look so iconic,” Marianna Cerini at CNN wrote in 2019. “The dress not only secured Björk’s place as one of the entertainment business’ most memorable personalities, it proved that even terrible dresses can make fashion history.” The Beckhams’ 5 most expensive watches, ranked 2002: Halle Berry When accepting her Academy Award, Halle Berry showed off one of the most iconic and most daring Oscars dresses in history. “Aside from her historical win, her Oscar-winning dress instantly became iconic and it arguably put designer Elie Saab on the map,” E! News wrote. 2003: Hilary Swank Hilary Swank went with a pink ombre gown for this red carpet, which garnered a mixed reaction from critics. “It looks like Hilary thought her pale-pink mini dress wasn’t up to the occasion, so she looked around until – aha! – she found a piece of hot pink gauze to wrap around herself,” Cosmopolitan’s Victoria Lowe wrote in 2011. 2006: Charlize Theron Charlize Theron’s gown was boldly accentuated with a large bow on her shoulder. The criss-cross stitching and confusing bottom made for a truly daring look. 2008: Marion Cotillard Marion Cotillard accepted her Academy Award in 2008 in a memorable white gown. “Marion Cotillard took home the award for best actress at the 80th Annual Academy Awards dressed like a modern day mermaid in this intricately detailed, ivory-coloured custom Jean Paul Gaultier gown,” Chrystin Bunion wrote for W magazine in 2017. 2010: Zoë Saldana Zoë Saldana’s Givenchy feathered gown clashed with the jewelled top … but in the best way. “The voluminous gown has it all: sparkle, ombré, countless floating layers of tulle, and pops of saturated colour. Among the sea of black and metallic, this show-stopper topped my best-dressed list,” wrote Elle. 9 of Pharrell Williams’ boldest looks ever, from Nike and Adidas to Hermès 2012: Sacha Baron Cohen Sacha Baron Cohen rolled up to the red carpet dressed as his character from The Dictator, complete with the “ashes” of Kim Jong-il. Who could forget when Cohen “accidentally” spilled all of the ashes on Ryan Seacrest? 2014: Lupita Nyong’o Lupita Nyong’o made her Oscars debut with a robin’s egg-blue Prada gown that became a statement for her red-carpet style in the years to come. Although we’ve seen many bold looks in this list, there’s something to be said for a simple colour choice like this one. 2016: Kate Winslet Kate Winslet quite literally shimmered on the red carpet with this silk lamé look. The strapless gown was custom-made by Ralph Lauren. 2017: Janelle Monáe Janelle Monáe made her Oscars red-carpet debut in a show-stopping number. “For Janelle Monáe’s first trip to the Academy Awards, she didn’t hold back,” Vogue wrote in 2017. “Arriving in an ornate Elie Saab Haute Couture fairy-tale gown and layers of diamonds, Monáe provided the evening with its most dramatic red-carpet moment.” 2019: Billy Porter Billy Porter broke boundaries when he wore a tuxedo top and a large velvet skirt. At the time, Christian Allaire at Vogue wrote that the Christian Siriano gown was “a play on masculinity and femininity, the look challenged the rigid Hollywood dress code and was boundary-pushing in all the right ways”. Meet Chris Appleton, hunky hairstylist to J. Lo and the Kardashians 2020: Janelle Monáe (clearly becoming an Oscars pro) Monáe returned to the Oscars in 2020 wearing a stunning bedazzled, hooded look that turned heads on the red carpet. The Ralph Lauren gown was covered in 168,000 Swarovski crystals. 2021: Andra Day Day’s daring, completely backless Vera Wang gold dress with cut-outs and a side slit made headlines the morning after the Academy Awards. “Currently: screaming at the top of my lungs because I don’t know how to handle my emotions with Andra Day looking So! Damn! Good! at the 93rd Annual Academy Awards red carpet,” Megan Uy at Cosmopolitan wrote. “The woman is serving, guys.” 2022: Zendaya Zendaya did a great job of combining red-carpet glamour with menswear at last year’s event, much to onlookers’ delight. She in fact channelled Sharon Stone’s 1998 Oscars look with this outfit, only with a little more skin. She paired a cropped silk-satin shirt with a bejewelled silver skirt, both designed by Valentino. This article originally appeared on Insider. Want more stories like this? Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.