There’s a particular kind of joy that comes from watching someone dress with intention, not just for the moment but for the memory behind it. Sabrina Carpenter seems to understand that fashion can be a conversation across decades, and her latest look feels like a quiet, stylish wink to the women who shaped the runway long before she ever stepped onto one.
For her appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Carpenter reached back into the archives and resurfaced a piece of French fashion history. She wore a two-toned dress from Chantal Thomass’s Fall 1994 collection, the very same design Claudia Schiffer debuted on the runway. The dress balances drama and precision: a criss-cross neckline that folds into soft pleats, a ruffled micro-mini skirt that feels both playful and controlled, and tailoring along the sides that echoes the lines of a tuxedo jacket. The sleeves curve neatly down the arm, the buttons sit like punctuation, and the whole look feels transported from a time when fashion was theatrical in the most unapologetic way.
Thomass herself was part of the wave of French designers who re-shaped fashion’s rhythm in the late ’80s and ’90s. Alongside Mugler, Rykiel, Montana and Kenzo, she helped define an era built on sensuality, exaggeration and a fierce devotion to craft. Her runways were a revolving door of supermodel icons: Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Karen Mulder, Nadja Auermann. She dressed Carla Bruni and Brigitte Bardot, sent lingerie-as-outerwear down the catwalk without apology, and built a world where seduction and structure lived comfortably side by side.
Carpenter’s relationship with Thomass’s archives isn’t new. She wore a lace LBD from Spring 1995 on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music podcast, and appeared on the cover of Time in a red corset set designed for the 1997 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, originally worn by Naomi Campbell. She’s also returned to Claudia Schiffer’s sartorial legacy before, wearing a custom Versace chainmail dress inspired by Schiffer’s iconic 2018 runway moment.
