All the way from 1870s Lancashire, England, the traditional “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue” made a red-carpet appearance at the premiere of The Drama. The movie stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as two halves of a struggling couple in the wake of their upcoming wedding.
The premiere brought out stars like Suki Waterhouse, Kehlani, Maura Higgins, and Jordyn Curet to celebrate the occasion. Red carpet appearances featured dazzling outfits in all colors, patterns, and fits, but The Drama’s bride-to-be left an impressionable statement during her walk—a nod to the old wedding adage for good luck: something old.
Back in 2015, Zendaya graced the Grammy’s 87th Academy Awards Show with a white Vivienne Westwood, off-the-shoulder satin, silk dress. The dress—designed by Zendaya’s good friend and stylist, Law Roach—is over a decade old, and made an appearance at this year’s The Drama premiere, which sparked conversation on Hollywood’s newest take on sustainable fashion.
Zendaya’s red carpet debut paired Westwood’s iconic draped, corset bodice dress with a timeless bob, diamond drop earrings, white pointed heels, and her own east-west set engagement ring and wedding band. Her timeless look brought back 2015, featuring the same dress, paired with a chunky diamond bracelet, and side-swept locks.
For Zendaya, her stylistic choice was not something she took lightly. “I was brainstorming with [stylist Law Roach] about how I would theme dress for this film, and I kind of remembered the saying ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.’ So, this is my something old. I thought I’d bring it back and give it life.”
The stylist-star duo made headlines as Hollywood enters a season of sustainability in fashion, a trend known as “outfit-repeating.” Of Hollywood’s outfit repeaters: Elizabeth Hurley in her 1999 Met Gala black Versace dress on vacation in March this year, Lily Gladstone’s Gucci gown for the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar party at the 2025 SAG awards, and Halle Berry’s 2002 Academy Awards’ Elie Saab gown with a mesh top at the 2024 at an Elie Saab show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“Outfit Repeater,” a term coined in the iconic The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), is the newest line for sustainability in fashion. The Hollywood Reporter shares that fashion is one of the leading causes of pollution, with the fashion industry handling 8 to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. The effort to coordinate elaborate red carpet looks, some with hand-embroidered diamonds, roses, patchwork from several people in the making, and efforts to transport such ensembles leaves one more footprint in surmounting global carbon emissions.
Sustainable fashion in mainstream Hollywood stars is a stepping-stone for a chain reaction throughout the industry and into micro-trends funded by overconsumption in fast fashion. It is environmentally friendly, and a way to save money.