How celebrity courtroom styling became the ultimate power move

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players." When Shakespeare wrote these lines, I’m fairly certain he was talking about celebrity court appearances. Hollywood stars taking their turn on the stand have become some of the most high-profile theatrical performances of our time. Look at how, for better or worse (largely worse), we were glued to the horrific detail (and the snarling online ecosystem which began to surround it) of the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp case in 2022. It echoed the complicated intrigue, decades earlier, of the OJ Simpson trial. We cannot help but find fascination, perverse or otherwise, in a legal procedure that is, by its nature, performative. Throw a celebrity into the mix, and it is box-office gold.

The most recent production we’ve been glued to, thanks to an overflowing fountain of memeable moments and an embarrassment of zeitgeist-baiting riches is, of course, the personal injury case against Gwyneth Paltrow. The entire affair was nothing short of high-performance art, seemingly directed by The Row. For, of course, what is a performance without its costuming?

Paltrow, in court to counter-sue a man claiming that she crashed into him at a ski resort in Deer Valley, Utah, in 2016, appeared to be mounting her defence sartorially. 'I am in the right,' screamed her oversized cream knit, which caused an online meltdown over its origin (The Row, Loro Piana, or G Label by Goop?). Each outfit was the carefully curated look of an image-savvy woman who, instead of settling out of court, wanted it known that she was not at fault. To do so, she enlisted the aggrieved subtlety of head-to-toe navy Prada and the deafening chorus of tonal grey, replete with neatly-layered, Cali-chic gold necklaces, a Smythson notebook and an artfully clutched pair of tortoiseshell glasses. Paltrow’s ‘courtrobe’ was a pivotal tool in her performance. Many saw it as a neat echo of Naomi Campbell's iconic 2010 statement in The Hague ("This is a big inconvenience for me"), but in many ways it was the quiet confidence of a woman assured of both her innocence (Paltrow was acquitted and awarded the amount of $1) and the covetable chicness of her clothes.

A celebrity courtrobe is, in this way, the ultimate power move. Cardi B, accused of a violent altercation at a strip club in 2019, turned up in various power suits, fur coats and bodycon dresses, dubbing her looks 'court flow'. It prompted a flurry of internet excitement not dissimilar to how gripped we were with what Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton chose as their 'court persona' back in the day. And who could forget the beautiful audacity of Winona Ryder arriving at court in 2001 wearing Marc Jacobs, where she was accused of shoplifting from...Marc Jacobs. It was so iconic it was practically a brand campaign (which she in fact went on to star in in several of).

It was not unlike the unapologetic sartorial posturing of Anna Delvey, whose courtrobe was so iconic that it merited its own Instagram account, @annadelveycourtlooks, which amassed more than 50 thousand followers. She has since gone on record as saying that these were deliberate choices—all part of a plan to obtain what one might assume is acquittal, but what was clearly something far more strategic.

Delvey’s style plan for her trial spoke a similar language to Paltrow's. It was the unquestionable aesthetic of wealth, the quiet unfussiness of the genuinely minted; classic, muted staples from eye-watering yet un-showy brands. She decked herself out in Victoria Beckham cigarette trousers, Saint Laurent shirts and simple black shifts, all paired with her signature Celine frames. It was a defiant move to cement the identity she had been forging for years, but it also spoke to the legacy she wished to create beyond the verdict. She was ‘the moment’ and she dressed for the occasion.

Paltrow’s own trial strode almost accidentally into ‘the moment.’ Her stealth-wealth aesthetic (eye-wateringly expensive pieces that are intentionally nondescript, devoid of logos and typically come in a neutral, buttery palette) was holding our eyeballs hostage just as the fourth and final season of Succession—the standard-bearer for the look—dropped. The endlessly memed moment when Greg’s date was ‘bag shamed’ not only caused searches for that exact Burberry tote to spike, but so perfectly intersected with Paltrow’s own oversized, soft brown leather holdall, that it was almost hard to believe it wasn’t scripted.

Both were performances that had us buying in. The Succession moment had an actual commercial outcome, and Paltrow’s trial has spawned a dozen shopping articles, as well as being a walking, talking Goop advertisement. For what is Goop if not Paltrow herself? In a similar way, Delvey was not selling Celine spectacles but her own image—a contrived brand identity which, as we know, had forever been a work of fiction. She knew that she couldn’t dress herself to legal vindication, so she was instead leveraging herself as a cultural icon. Because ultimately, a courtrobe is not just a vital part of a celebrity’s performance, but a campaign for relevancy—one that far outweighs the consequences of the trial.

This piece originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar UK.