On the Red Carpet, a New Class of Commentators Are Going Beyond 'Who Are You Wearing?'

Back in the '90s, Joan Rivers birthed a genre of entertainment with a single question. Today, a new, more diverse range of voices are taking the mic and running with it.

The question wasn't even grammatically correct. Nor was it one that anyone predicted would have the impact on fashion and pop culture that it eventually did. But in 1994, when Joan Rivers planted herself on the Golden Globes red carpet and proceeded to ask it repeatedly on live TV, a new genre of entertainment was born, as was an insatiable appetite for celebrity style:

"Who are you wearing?"

"E! had come to my mother to see if she wanted to report live, which at the time was a crazy idea," Melissa Rivers, Joan's daughter, tells Fashionista. The network first tested the concept with Joan and the late Elenore Mondale, and while it went well, producers were looking for a different dynamic to counter Joan's "outrageous personality," she says. They asked Joan if her daughter was interested.

"I guess my mom and I were arguing, because apparently she said to them, 'I have no idea. You're going to have to call her yourself, because if I tell her to do it, she's just going to say no,'" Melissa remembers. "They called and we discussed it, and I was like, 'Okay, let's give it a whirl.' It worked really well from the first show on, because I could balance my mother. No one else could say to her, 'Oh my God, you can't say that!' or roll their eyes. But I could do it because I was her daughter, which allowed her to push the envelope further."

Joan and Melissa soon became synonymous with red-carpet reporting, opining on what celebrities wore and garnering high ratings for their comedic, unfiltered banter and interviews (some so unfiltered that E! had to put them on a seven-second delay). Though Joan faced criticism for what some argued was mean and misogynistic commentary, "it was fun and it was loose, and there was an honesty to it," Melissa counters.

"My mother always said that we were saying what people sitting on their couches at home were," she says. "Nobody's at home saying, 'Everyone's wonderful and everyone's beautiful.' That's what resonated."

Plus, at the time, their access to celebrities was essentially guaranteed, making for exciting candid moments, like Jim Carey pretending to rip off his boutonniere in 1999 when Joan said she didn't like it, or Joan roasting Kevin Costner over the size of the engagement ring he bought wife Christine Baumgartner.

"It was hilarious because celebrities would walk up to my mom and say, 'Okay, tell me to my face: What do you think?,'" Melissa says. "It was pre- the publicists being so controlling."

By the time Joan and Melissa stepped down from what E! had coined "Live from the Red Carpet" in 2004, various other networks and media platforms had launched their own pre-shows and live streams, vying for the attention of a public that had come to look forward to carpets as much as (if not more than) the award shows they preceded. Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic notably picked up the E! baton, hosting through 2020 and 2021, respectively, marking an era that — while tremendous in terms of increasing the visibility of designers, stylists, hairstylists and makeup artists that were once solely behind the scenes — seemingly lost some of its luster in terms of authenticity and personal style.

"[Joan] made the stars really consider what they were wearing, and led to the birth of the uber stylist," says Zanna Roberts Rassi, a magazine veteran and Milk Makeup co-founder who began contributing to E! style segments in 2014. (She now covers the Golden Globes, Grammys, SAG Awards, Oscars and Met Gala for the network.) "Before, there were so many more risks. Cut to today, where every parting of the hair to the eyelashes to the skin to the length of the necklace to the nip at the waist… there's not one thing that's not looked upon."

The focus on fashion has fallen in and out of favor over the years. In 2015, Reese Witherspoon spearheaded a movement to discourage red carpet questions about what attendees were wearing, with the hashtag #AskHerMore. At the time, she told ABC's Robin Roberts: "This is to say we're more than just our dresses. There are 44 nominees this year that are women, and we're so happy to be here and talk about the work that we've done."

That same year, Rancic and E! became embroiled in controversy when, on an episode of "Fashion Police," the host remarked that the dreadlocks Zendaya wore to the Oscars made her look as though she smelled "like patchouli oil… or weed." The public outcry was swift and abundant; Rancic issued an apology the next day.

Then, in 2018, Golden Globes attendees wore black in solidarity with the Time's Up movement, and E! correspondents including Rancic decided not to ask celebrities who they were wearing at all.

While actors and audiences alike have demanded more substance from red-carpet reporting, there is a counter-argument to be made that interest in style and industry accomplishments are not mutually exclusive — and that what one chooses to wear on what could arguably be the biggest night of their career isn't something that should be ignored. Designers and styling teams work hard, too.

"One of our favorite questions to ask was, 'How'd you pick this one?' Melissa recalls. "And you got really honest answers: 'It made me feel pretty… I loved the color… This person has always been my favorite designer, and I couldn't believe that they were going to let me wear one of their dresses.'"

Roberts and fellow E! correspondents like Naz Perez don't shy away from fashion and beauty questions, but they're mindful about highlighting the work that goes into a red carpet look, as well as starting more personal and nuanced conversations about attendees.

"I would say that they can 100 percent co-exist, fashion and artistry," says Roberts. "People are interested in the work that goes on behind the scenes more than ever, and these dresses, gowns and suits have really interesting stories behind them."

Roberts' research begins weeks before an awards show takes place, and entails staying in constant communication with stylists and hair and makeup artists as they finalize a celebrity's look.

"I think I have a whole album of headless celebrity-fitting pictures in my phone," she says.

"Zanna and I do massive deep dives into how we can bring a lot of color to our coverage and make people at home really excited," Perez adds. "I'll make flashcards on every single person — why they were nominated, how their career got started — and for two weeks, I'll really study those things and commit them to memory. I pride myself on not only sharing why someone is there, but a little bit of their story."

Perez set her sights on red carpet reporting as a broadcast journalism major at the University of Central Florida. "One day, I saw Giuliana Rancic's 'True Hollywood Story' in my dorm, and I was like, 'That's what I want to do,'" she says.

Her first job out of college was an internship at the "Ellen DeGeneres Show," which she left to take on a short-term contract with E! in 2013. "I ended up being Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic's production assistant on 'E! Live from the Red Carpet.' It was an amazing three-month experience, but you worked the Globes, the Grammys, the SAGs and the Oscars, and then it's over. The day after the Oscars, I didn't have a job."

A lifelong sports fan, Perez started blogging about athlete style and secured her first on-air gig covering the ESPY red carpet for the Style Network. When the network was dissolved just weeks later, she went back to producing — at E! and for "The Bachelor" — and later began making video content for YouTube, Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes.

"I remember crying and just being like, 'I'm never going to have my dream,'" she says. But following a successful turn producing behind the scenes for the 2019 Met Gala, she was tapped to report on-camera for what's now known as "Live from E!"

Perez is one of the newer faces of the red carpet who, in addition to bringing her own production-minded and research-backed approach to reporting, is also diversifying a space once lacking in minority representation. Danielle Young, who has covered carpets for Essence, The Root, Hollywood Life and other outlets — and is known for an exuberant interview style that often results in viral moments — is another.

Early in her career, when she was "broke as hell and living in New York," Young says, the New York Daily News sent her on an unpaid assignment to cover the red carpet for "Black Girls Rock."

"I was all the way out of my comfort zone and hella green," she says, "but I knew that I needed to get some interviews, so I just tried to hustle."

That hustle, she explains, becomes even more essential when you're a Black reporter working for Black media outlets that are rarely prioritized by celebrity publicists.

"Sometimes you get a good spot on the carpet," Young explains, "but for the most part, you're grouped with the rest of the Black media towards the end. So, on top of the carpet being a scrappy place in general, you learn to be even scrappier." The hierarchy can be disheartening.

"I remember early on, [publicists] would think that they were throwing us a bone, but as we were clustered as Black media at the end of the carpet, they would want us to put all of our mics up into the celebrity's face at the same time and get one question that we all share," she says. "That's happened on multiple occasions, and no one else had to do that."

This marginalization, however, has been no match for Young's strong presence: She famously prompted Denzel Washington to rap the lyrics to Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow" and scored an interview with Oprah (along with a selfie that was photobombed by Tyler Perry).

At the 2019 Emmys, Young shared a particularly endearing moment with Taraji P. Henson.

"My dress had a velvet top with sleeves, and it was so hot," she says. "I was melting, and before we started the interview [for Essence], Taraji was like, 'No, sis — let me get you right.' She had a portable fan that she cranked all the way up for me, and she was blotting my face. She was like, 'We've got to look out for our sisters.' I thought that was a really dope moment."

Today, Roberts and Perez agree: Red carpet reporting is less about what the correspondents think and more about the messages being communicated.

"Nobody needs my opinion," Roberts says. "No one needs to hear, 'Oh, blue is a great color on her' — that doesn't help anyone. What can be interesting is shining a light on the story [of a look] and the people behind it and how it came to be."

Incessant talk about bodies — especially comments pertaining to weight — has also taken a backseat. "It still happens, [but] I personally do not like commenting on people's bodies," Perez says. "It makes me feel icky."

If anything is trending right now, Roberts argues it's "radical self expression."

After years of red carpets that, in Melissa's opinion, "were on life support" — too micromanaged by publicists and dictated by a fear that questions deemed unserious would incite backlash — "we're finally starting to be allowed to have fun again." Laverne Cox in particular has been instrumental in this shift, according to Rivers: "God bless her for bringing some fun back."

As the current host of "Live from E!" Cox — along with newer faces like Young and Perez — is amplifying diversity and intersectionality on the red carpet. And they don't take that lightly.

Last year, Perez was named to ¡Hola! magazine's Latina Power Makers list, alongside luminaries like Eva Longoria and Christina Aguilera. The accolade, she says, made her keenly aware of the dearth of Latinx representation in entertainment, but also "humbly in awe" of how far she's come in her career.

"Visibility is really important for me when it comes to this," Young echoes. "We're getting a chance to be relatable to people so that they can see, 'Oh my gosh, that's something that I could actually do as a job.' It's really awesome to be the tangible version of what is possible."

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