For some, the message Cate Blanchett delivered on the Cannes red carpet on Monday sounded loud and clear. At first, her figure-hugging, off-the-shoulder Jean Paul Gaultier dress — designed by Colombian-born French designer Haider Ackermann — looked like a simple black dress. But when Blanchett moved, cameras captured the back of the dress, which appeared white. When she lifted her hem, they also saw the green inner lining. Against the red carpet, Blanchett looked like a walking tribute to the Palestinian flag.
It wouldn’t be strange for the Australian actor. Last November, amid a wave of silencing of Hollywood figures who spoke out against the atrocities of Israel’s war on Gaza, Blanchett called in the European Parliament for a ceasefire and support for refugees.
“I’m not from Israel or Palestine. I’m not a politician. I’m not even an expert,” she said. “But I am a witness, and after witnessing the human consequences of war, violence and persecution that refugees from all over the world visit, I cannot look away.”
Blanchett was also one of the original Hollywood players who signed Artists4Ceasefire’s open letter to Joe Biden calling for an end to the war.
So many took this dress as a sign that Blanchett was once again showing solidarity in a restrained way. “When I grow up, I want to be Cate Blanchett and I have the subtlety to think that the carpet is already red, so I can just wear a black and white dress with green lining to make such a strong point,” says Dr. Zahira Jaser, an associate professor at the University of Sussex Business School who is of Palestinian descent, wrote on X. “CATE BLANCHETT YOU ARE THE REALEST,” echoed one pop culture fan account.
Not so fast, others said.
Although the back of Blanchett’s dress appeared white in many photos, others showed the shade to be a soft pink, a color not found on the Palestinian flag. Meanwhile, Blanchett, who has been ambassador to the UN refugee agency since 2016, made no public statement about her Cannes dress (she did talk about her jewelry with Women’s Wear Daily). Her stylist Elizabeth Stewart, who has spoken about social issues, neither has Ackermann — although the designer posted a lengthy Instagram post about intersectional feminism on International Women’s Day, which also included a call for “women of Gaza.”
Was this a secret expression of support for Palestinian liberation or an optical illusion?
Blanchett styled the dress very differently for the Cannes premiere of the Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice than the original version for Jean Paul Gaultier’s couture offering. “The garment no longer looks the way it initially looked when it walked down the runway,” says Freya Drohan, a New York-based fashion writer. “The previously all-black dress is now two-tone and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Palestinian flag.”
Blanchett is also a proponent of repurposing fashion and rewearing couture pieces – a practice she says should be “completely unremarkable.” For Drohan, this means that “extra attention has been paid to what she wears and why, both by her and her team. For me, the main idea is to lift the dress to draw even more attention to the green lining.”
The dress’s possible hidden meaning reminded Wafa Ghnaim, a Palestinian-American clothing historian and researcher, of a tradition that emerged from the first Intifada, which began in 1987.
After Palestinians protested against the Israeli government through sustained actions and civil disobedience, Israeli officials banned their flag and arrested anyone carrying it. To circumvent the ban, women embroidered its colors into their dresses, as a way to reclaim their identity. (This law was lifted after the 1993 Oslo Accords, although Benjamin Netanyahu’s government again banned the use of the flag in public spaces last year.)
“Blanchett’s clothing is reminiscent of this approach that Palestinian women took during the first Intifada,” Ghnaim said. “Palestinian women used their bodies to express their stories, and this dress reminds me of that.
“Even the way Blanchett holds the train, with a snap of her fingers, she makes her message clear,” she continued.
Suzy Tamimi, a Palestinian-American fashion designer based in Brooklyn, saw Blanchett’s dress as a “smart and clear symbol of solidarity.”
Blanchett’s arguably statement dress hit the carpet at a time when some fans are reconsidering their relationship with celebrity culture. Many commentators and fashion enthusiasts were outraged by the overwhelming lack of mention of Gaza at the Met Gala earlier this month: Although stars like Billie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and Ava DuVernay wore Artists4Ceasefire pins at the Oscars, there were no visible red pins at the Met Gala, even though some attendees had signed the Artists4Ceasefire letter. (Gilded Age actor Morgan Spector wore a suit with poppy appliqués, referencing a symbol of Palestine.)
In response, some Instagram users organized a ban on celebrities attending the event to lower their status and earn power from the app, in what has been called a “digital guillotine.”
Related: ‘We are disappearing’: chef Fadi Kattan wants to keep Palestinian heritage alive through food
“Many celebrities visit the Met as guests of major fashion houses, which may prohibit them from making public statements while representing the brand,” Drohan said. “I think it is acceptable for the public to expect you to wear the pin and show your support in these very visible moments, if you have signed the letter.”
Representatives for Blanchett, Stewart, Ackermann and Jean Paul Gaultier did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week in Cannes, a survivor of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel wore a yellow dress with the hostages’ faces and a sash that read “Bring Them Home” on the red carpet. There has been little else in the way of political protest – seemingly by design. The festival chair, Iris Knobloch, told Variety that organizers were “very careful not to choose films or recipients at the festival where we knew there might be a question or situation that could lead to controversy, because our goal is always to keep cinema in the future. spotlights”. A screening of a film about the October 7 attacks that featured graphic scenes of real violence was canceled due to what organizers called a “serious security risk.”
Cannes also adheres to a strict dress code – especially when it comes to shoes. Although current rules only require guests to wear “elegant shoes, with or without heels,” a group of women told the media in 2015 that they were not allowed to attend a screening of Carol (coincidentally starring Blanchett) due to an issue with their heel height… or lack thereof. In recent years, Julia Roberts and Kristen Stewart have made it a point to walk the carpet barefoot, in defiance of this rule.
When it comes to clothes or Cannes, Blanchett usually doesn’t like subtlety. Last year she attended a party in Cannes barefoot – many assumed she would be adhering to the shoe rule as a show of support for women in Iran. While presenting an award to Iranian actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Blanchett held the trophy like a knife and said: “This is to stab all the people who stand in the way of women’s rights – up the vajayjay.” In 2018, she led 82 women to the Cannes red carpet to protest gender inequality in the film industry.
Why wouldn’t Blanchett say more about her black, green and almost white dress on the Cannes red carpet? “She understands that Cannes is a big platform that millions will see,” Tamimi said, “and to continue to be part of this big platform you have to be innovative in the way you show solidarity.”