Is Tinseltown taking a step toward modesty?
If some of these new rules at one of Hollywood’s more beloved gatherings, the Cannes Film Festival in France, are a sign, then apparently, yes.
According to multiple reports, the new dress code at Cannes sparked its first wardrobe replacement during Monday festivities.
(The festival proper began Tuesday.)
The attendee asked to change outfit choice wasn’t some C-lister or a barely-famous director, either. It was a Hollywood starlet who got ensnared in this impromptu drama.
And Halle Berry was a good sport about it all.
According to The Washington Post, Berry was the first person to be asked to change her outfit at Cannes based on the festival’s newer, more restrictive guidelines.
The first guideline prohibits any sort of revealing nudity due to “reasons of decency.”
Variety noted that the second guideline seeks to restrict “excessively voluminous” outfits, ensuring nothing especially garish (like some of the outfits at the Met Gala) is worn at Cannes.
Does modern fashion make any sense to you?
Berry, apparently, ran afoul of that second guideline and officials approached her not to wear her original outfit choice to Cannes.
She explained the issue at an event with reporters:
As a result of the new #CannesFilmFestival dress code – banning red carpet nudity and long trains – Halle Berry can’t wear the frock she brought, she tells the press at the international jury conference pic.twitter.com/hwbC8kkAed
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 13, 2025
“I had an amazing dress by [Indian designer Gaurav] Gupta to wear tonight, and I cannot wear it because the train is too big,” Berry said at the festival’s opening news conference.
“So I, of course, am going to follow the rules,” she added. “So I had to make a pivot.”
Despite the minor inconvenience it caused for Berry, she generally agreed with the rule, especially when it came to “the nudity part.”
“The nudity part, I do think is probably also a good rule,” Berry added.
Her comments echo a small — but noticeable — shift in Hollywood away from its more unsavory elements of debauchery after a few rough years at the box office.
Action movie star, Henry Cavill, for one, bucked Hollywood conventions just last year when he publicly bemoaned the exhausting overuse of sex scenes in modern cinema. And that’s to say nothing of Cavill’s attempts to bring back chivalry.
Chris Pratt, meanwhile, has become a global sensation of an actor — and one who proudly wears his Christian faith on his sleeve.
Some actors, like Neal McDonough, have actually taken flak for sticking to their Christian beliefs, but that cold reception appears to be melting away to something more modest.
That’s “probably also a good” sign.
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