Pamela Anderson Just Out-Twirled Carrie Bradshaw in a Dreamy Tutu at the Academy Museum Gala

Some red carpet moments are just outfits. Others feel like a whole mood walking into the room. Pamela Anderson gave us the second kind on Saturday night.

The 59-year-old star showed up at the sixth annual Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles, and honestly, it took about thirty seconds for everyone to land on the same comparison: Carrie Bradshaw would be so proud. Anderson wore a crisp white button-down shirt tucked into this big, dreamy, pastel green tutu-style skirt by Carolina Herrera. Bow at the waist. Sweeping train behind her. A pale green satin clutch covered in little embellishments. And her blonde hair done up in these playful, vintage-y curls. Sweet, cheeky, completely sure of herself — all at once.

It photographed beautifully from every angle, sure. But it did something harder too. It told a story. And if you know your TV fashion history, you already know which one.

The look: a white shirt, a green cloud, and one very good bow

Okay, let’s talk about why this actually works, because a tutu skirt is a risky move. On its own it can go costume-y real fast. Wrong top and you look like you’re headed to a ballet recital. Or a fancy-dress party. Anderson dodged both traps with one really smart choice — a plain white button-down.

That shirt did all the heavy lifting. It grounded the fantasy. Tucked neat into the waistband, it turned this huge, romantic, almost-floaty skirt into something a real person could actually wear to a very glamorous dinner. The bow at the waist added a little wink of girlishness without getting precious about it. And the train? The train said, yeah, I know exactly what I’m doing.

Then there’s the color. Not bubblegum pink. Not bridal white. Not look-at-me red. This soft, pistachio-ish pastel green. The kind of shade that looks like spring wandered into October by accident. Up against the usual sea of black gowns and metallics, it stood out without shouting about it. Her hair helped — loose, bouncy, old-Hollywood curls that nodded to the past without turning into a costume. The pale green clutch pulled it all together.

But here’s the thing that really sold it. She looked like she was having fun. Not posing-through-it fun. Actually, genuinely, twirl-in-it fun. Which is harder than it looks, by the way, when you’re on a carpet where one gust of wind can ruin your whole evening.

Why everyone immediately thought of Carrie Bradshaw

The comparisons started within minutes of the photos landing. And honestly? Impossible to avoid. Anderson’s skirt looked an awful lot like the pistachio-green tutu Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw wore in the last episode of Sex and the City, “American Girl in Paris Part Deux.”

If you watched the show, you know that tutu. It’s the one Carrie wears wandering around Paris — heartbroken, hopeful, both at the same time — in a look by Sonia Rykiel. Parker has said it was her favorite outfit from the whole series. She told Entertainment Weekly she loved the tutu dress from the end of the Paris episode because it was about the image Carrie wanted to project, and how reality turned out to be something else entirely. Romantic, delicate, full of grace — an outfit that got to tell a bunch of stories at once.

Here’s the thing about the tutu in Sex and the City world. It was never just a skirt. Tulle became Carrie’s whole signature. Playful. A little impractical. Completely her. And the most famous one of all — the tutu from the opening credits — was supposedly a five-dollar bargain-bin find, put together by costume designer Patricia Field. A five-dollar skirt. It became one of the most recognizable fashion images in TV history. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, you could, but nobody would believe you.

So when Anderson turned up in her own pastel green tutu, the echo was instant. Same dreamy color family. Same floaty shape. Same feeling of a woman dressing for herself and for the sheer joy of it, not for anyone else’s approval. Maybe the nod was on purpose. Maybe it was a happy accident. Either way, it landed perfectly. Call it a Carrie Bradshaw moment with a Pamela Anderson twist. Or a Pamela Anderson moment Carrie would absolutely have stolen.

Pamela’s second act just keeps getting better

Here’s what makes this red carpet moment hit different: it’s not a comeback. Comebacks mean you went away. Anderson never really did. She just spent a few years letting the world catch up to her.

Most people first met her as C.J. Parker on Baywatch, running down the beach in that red swimsuit back in the ’90s. And for a long, long time, that was the version of her the world wouldn’t let go of. The pin-up. The punchline. The tabloid fixture. But the last few years have rewritten that story — and it feels earned, you know? Not manufactured. Earned.

It started, in a way, with her taking charge of her own story. Her 2023 memoir, Love, Pamela, plus the Netflix documentary that came with it, Pamela, a Love Story, let her tell things in her own words. Messy. Funny. Painful. Hers. Then Broadway, where she played Roxie Hart in Chicago in 2022 and won over a bunch of skeptics who’d forgotten she could hold a stage. Then The Last Showgirl, Gia Coppola’s 2024 drama, where Anderson played a veteran Vegas dancer watching her show come to an end — a role that got her a Golden Globe nomination and some of the best reviews of her whole career. And then The Naked Gun in 2025, where she showed off genuinely sharp comic timing opposite Liam Neeson and reminded everybody she’d always been funnier than Hollywood gave her credit for.

And running alongside all of that, there’s been this whole stripped-back beauty era of hers. The bare-faced, barely-any-makeup red carpet appearances. Started as a personal choice, turned into a quiet statement. In an industry built on foundation and false lashes, showing up as yourself is its own kind of rebellion. It’s also, let’s be honest, a power move. When you’ve spent decades being looked at, getting to decide how you want to be seen? That’s no small thing.

Her gala look fits right into that arc. This isn’t a woman trying to prove she belongs. It’s a woman who knows she does, wearing something joyful because she felt like it. The white shirt says she’s grounded. The tutu says she’s still got mischief in her. The whole thing says she’s having a really good time — and she’s not asking anybody’s permission.

The gala itself was stacked

Now, Anderson wasn’t the only person turning heads on Saturday night. Not even close. The Academy Museum Gala has quietly turned into one of the biggest fashion nights on the Hollywood calendar. Part fundraiser, part red carpet Olympics. And this year was no exception.

Three big names got honored. Oscar winner Charlize Theron took home the Icon Award. Colman Domingo picked up the Vantage Award. And legendary filmmaker John Carpenter got the Luminary Award. The whole night raises money for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures — its exhibitions, its screenings, its education programs. So yeah, the glitz has a purpose.

Taylor Swift closed out the night with a performance, showing up in a custom icy-blue Dior gown that had its own fairytale thing going on. Demi Moore wore this dramatic two-tone gown with a billowing lilac skirt. Kate Hudson leaned all the way into old Hollywood glamour in a sparkling strapless number. Ana de Armas wore a plunging black Louis Vuitton gown. Crowded field, by any measure.

And still, Anderson’s tutu cut through all of it. That’s worth sitting with for a second. On a carpet full of couture and diamonds, the look everybody kept talking about was a white shirt and a green tulle skirt. Sometimes the most memorable fashion isn’t the priciest or the most daring. It’s the most alive.

What this look actually says

Fashion people love to overthink this stuff. Silhouettes and references and “the conversation.” But the reason Anderson’s gala look worked is way simpler than any of that. It had personality. You could picture the woman wearing it. You could picture her laughing in it, twirling in it, hugging somebody in it.

There’s something quietly satisfying, too, about Anderson and the ghost of Carrie Bradshaw sharing a fashion moment. Both women spent years being underestimated. One a fictional columnist people wrote off as frivolous. The other a real actress people wrote off as a pin-up. Both turned out tougher, smarter, and way more enduring than anybody expected. And both understood that clothes can be armor, or a joke, or a love letter — depends on the day.

Carrie’s tutu said: I’m romantic, I’m a mess, I’m still standing. Anderson’s tutu said something pretty similar, just with a few more decades of life behind it: I’ve been through it, I’m still here, and I still know how to have a good time.

And that’s the real story of Saturday night. Not just a pretty skirt, though it was very pretty. Not just a celebrity homage, though the Carrie parallel is delicious. It’s a woman in her late fifties, at the top of a hard-won second act, wearing joy on a red carpet — and making it look easy. Which, if you know anything about red carpets, is the hardest look of all to pull off.

Somewhere, Carrie Bradshaw would approve. And she’d probably ask where the skirt was from.

Source: Hello! Magazine