Olivia Rodrigo Gives the Baby-Doll Dress Discourse a Righteous Eye Roll

Olivia Rodrigo may not be a teen pop star anymore, but she has maintained the most powerful weapon in the teenage arsenal: the eye roll. This WMA (weapon of mass annoyance) was deployed this week on Popcast against people who criticized her for wearing a baby-doll dress during her Billions Club Live performance in Barcelona. “That’s been making me so upset,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What’s really disturbing is that I have worn outfits that are revealing onstage,” she continued. “I’ve been on stage in a sparkly bra and little shorts, which is my right — that’s fun, I felt cool and comfortable in that. And that wasn’t inappropriate. But me fully covered up in a dress that people deem to be childlike was inappropriate. It shows how we normalize pedophilia.”

The “baby-doll” dress is characterized by a large silhouette without a defined waist. Rodrigo’s version was pink with small puff sleeves and a floral pattern. Though some people criticized Rodrigo for “sexualizing” a dress associated with childhood, the baby-doll dress has historically been linked to women’s liberation.

“It’s this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is, ‘Don’t wear that, because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault,’” Rodrigo said. She said that her goal was not to look “sexy” but instead to look “cool.” “I feel like I looked like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love, all these people who are my heroes,” she said, paying tribute to her rock-and-roll foremothers. “I felt cool and comfortable in it. I just feel like if we start dressing in a way that’s, ‘I don’t want some fucking freak to think I’m sexy like a baby,’ it’s losing the plot.” If there’s one thing idolizing Courtney Love will do for a young singer, it’s instill a feverish desire to say “screw ’em” when people try to control what they do.