In Bloomers: Olivia Rodrigo’s Un-Grunge Dilemma

Gabrielle Minoli dissects the most American of controversies.

Art by DJ Short

A decade ago, the only dress that mattered was a lace-trimmed bandage number with a Mother of the Bride-appropriate matching shrug that was definitely black and blue. To others, white and gold. Approximately 12 couples went to counseling over this heated debate, and one even divorced (unverified tea). For a moment, though, our fractured internet was united. No one serious would flag this blip in 2015 as the start of our pandemic era, but it does seem like “The Dress” and auditory puzzle “Laurel vs. Yanny” were convenient test runs of how easily we could be herded into surface level arguments online. Rock-dumb, football-brained, All American stuff. Ketchup vs. Mustard. We’re incredible at it.

Today, we bring our Amazon Basics magnifying glass and knapsack of other people’s opinions to another divisive frock, albeit one with a little more heated debate around it. The kind of moral dilemma that makes you consider getting a flip phone, or watching that new Netflix doc about bees. At a recent Spotify Billions Club performance in Barcelona promoting her upcoming album, pop artist Olivia Rodrigo wore a floral GENERATION78 top with ruffled bloomers hidden just below the hem, giving the appearance of a “baby doll” dress. Paired with knee-high Doc Martens, the look says “grunge-lite!” Paired with a clean girl, nearly no-makeup face—mere kisses of color on the lip and cheeks—the look also whispers “…and you’re watching Disney Channel. Yes, still.”

Depending on who you ask, Rodrigo is either paying innocent homage to the 90s or, manipulated up by the industry powers that be, serving as a vessel for pedophilic lust. The discourse feels a bit like a tabloid poll: Who wore it better: Olivia Rodrigo (23) or this baby (18 mos.)? Our hypothetical baby, unbeknownst to her, is a shoo-in to win—not on style points, but because it’s an age-appropriate slay. Rodrigo, an adult, is wading her steel-toed boots into pedo-infested waters by wearing something even vaguely adjacent to toddler attire. By lifting her top to reveal the frills beneath, she’s positively splashing around in them—or so the outrage goes. We seem to have lost the rational middle ground between Puritan pearl-clutching and godless self-indulgence.

Some of the baby doll dress critique is warranted, though. In our Epstein-aware era, we know there is a broader trend of softening and infantilizing femininity—the “I’m just a girl” of it all—and intentionally dressing like a child may be worthy of a side-eye or a hard drive investigation. Perhaps you’re privy to Sam Levinson dressing Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie as a literal baby, diaper and all, in her turn as an OnlyFans model in this season of Euphoria. From milkmaid dresses to bare nails and barely-there makeup, the narrowing of what’s acceptable in terms of feminine presentation does not bode well for us standing in the shadow of Project 2025’s rifle and polyblend hood. At the same time, focusing on Rodrigo’s recent outfit choices alone isn’t fair to the music project as a whole, which is ripe for critique for other reasons. Remember music?

In the video for Babes in Toyland’s 1992 single “Bruise Violet,” guitarist and front woman Kat Bjelland rips through verses wielding “You” like a buzzsaw, landing on the gut punch of “You fucking bitch, well, I hope your insides rot!” A moment to imagine this as a trending TikTok sound. While Bjelland denies that former bandmate and fellow “Kinderwhore” style icon Courtney Love was her target here, a rumor that persists, the full package is a standalone testament to the musical potential of female rage and fearlessness—two of very few Fs given by woman-fronted rock bands of the early 90s, riot grrl acts included. Bjelland’s never-been-brushed blonde wig, baby doll dress and hair barrette—choices we’d reflexively police now—were each intentional acts of subversion. The act had teeth.

No one is asking Olivia Rodrigo to keep the dream of the ‘90s alive in Portland or elsewhere, but she has been vocal about her inspirations, and has borrowed enough grunge era glory to snag the attention of Courtney Love herself (first she was sour, now she’s sweet). In a 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Rodrigo shared, “I grew up loving rock music, but more specifically I love girl rock bands and riot grrl bands. I loved Hole, Sleater-Kinney, L7, Babes in Toyland.” The education was there, and there are some rawer moments in Rodrigo’s discography. “Vampire” finds her seething over a relationship in retrospect with a few artfully placed F-bombs. “All American Bitch” has guitars. Though highlights from 2023’s GUTS, both tracks feel just shy of letting it all hang out: the former bound by its gorgeous but torchy melody and arrangement that feel custom-made for a Kelly Clarkson cover, the latter marred by an indoor voice scream that misses feral by a country mile, plus lyrics about screaming (in case you missed it).

Fans are anticipating some new sonic territory from Rodrigo’s upcoming album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Past albums were purple, this one’s pink, and monochromatic marketing is here to stay. Why make hard what stupid simple? Watch Barbie Movie, live brat. In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, Rodrigo admits that she was “really excited to write about joy, love, and passion in a way that I had never really done” for YSPSFAGSIL, which explains the pop leanings of lead single “Drop Dead.” This same vibe is precisely what’s puzzling fans about the baby doll dressing, not only on stage, but throughout the music video.

In this four-minute slumber party for one, Rodrigo skips around the Palace of Versailles wearing a new crush glow and ethereal Chloé pre-Fall 2026 pieces that include a baby doll style chemise and bloomers. So scandaleuse. Aren’t you putting on a similar flirty, girl at home get-up when you’re bored in bed stalking someone’s socials? Unlike Rodrigo’s Barcelona performance, though, there are no PNW stompers to be found here—just tall socks slip n’ sliding around the halls of a French monarch who famously bathed only twice in his life. Less Live Through This, more “Let them eat cake.”

Musically, “Drop Dead” isn’t Rodrigo’s strongest effort, with talk-sung verses and a painfully Swiftian chorus. Power chords make a literal appearance at the video’s 2:25 mark, but the whole of it feels like a soft-toed step backward through the palace’s Hall of Mirrors: two-dimensional and acutely self-aware. In the context of this video, a baby doll dress and perma-visible bloomers do little but awkwardly reinforce the “girlhood” innocence and vulnerability of Rodrigo’s confessions. Just how infantilizing the image is as a whole remains up for debate, but there’s certainly nothing punk rock or transgressive to comment on. The blade is a butter knife.

Whether from fans, critics, or Rodrigo herself, name-checking 90s rock groups and the “Kinderwhore” aesthetic feels unearned. A cropped empire waist dress and knee-high boots do not a riot grrrl make (regardless of Rodrigo’s commendable activism), but in our trend cycle reality, they might as well. You don’t need a smudged red lip, unseemly bits, and bone-deep wrath when you can simply add a few items to cart in the name of your grunge era. It’s really “Costume-ize me, Cap’n” out here until we’ve run out of TikTok Shop items to buy and “we”s to be.

What stands to suffer most when we focus our critical attention on more surface squabbles is the art itself. When a craft no longer presents us with cognitive dissonance, when we’re no longer challenged by depth and substance, we’re left to interpret the obvious and argue amongst ourselves. If you haven’t noticed, mediocre art makes for 2-4 weeks of excruciating discourse and think pieces of varying success. It’s certainly not Rodrigo’s fault that we’re here—a famous former friend of hers paved the way, and boy, do they keep paving—but she has the talent and respect for genre-defining artists that came before her to carve out a place of her own and emerge the girl with the most cake. Eventually. Sometime past eventually, what she’s wearing will be an inconsequential aside in a Page Six Instagram caption.