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Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

In defense of the babydoll dress

Olivia Rodrigo's headline-grabbing looks are the latest chapter in a longer story of autonomy and liberation

Published June 12, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

A few weeks back, I got a late-night text from a friend that read, “Please tell me you’re going to write about this,” and linked to an Instagram post about Olivia Rodrigo, who caused a social-media kerfuffle last month in Barcelona when she performed at a Spotify event wearing a gauzy, flowered babydoll dress and matching bloomers. To anyone familiar with Rodrigo’s heavily 1990s influences, the dress made immediate sense. To everyone else, it was pandering, tasteless “pedo bait.”

True, this particular moment in the United States of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Elon Musk probably isn’t the best time for fond callbacks to an era when a rock journalist could flippantly coin the term “Kinderwhore” to describe an interviewee’s aesthetic and not raise an eyebrow. But when Rodrigo was asked to respond to the controversy on The New York Times’ Popcast, she didn’t mince words, pointing out that she’s worn more revealing outfits on stage with less pushback. The outcry, she said, “shows how we just, like, really normalize pedophilia,” adding, “You shouldn’t be responsible for some guy sexualizing you when that was never your intention.”

The babydoll dress has a long and complex history, one that’s been associated with women’s sartorial freedom as much as it’s reified their cultural........

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