29 Famous Women Designers Refused To Dress Because Of Their Weight, Age, And Other Unfair Reasons

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Most red carpet dresses are borrowed from the designers who created them. Unless they're custom, these gowns are often "sample size," i.e. made to fit a standardized set of measurements that is also expected of models. However, this is just one of the many reasons some designers have refused to dress certain famous women.

Here are 29 famous women designers refused to dress (and why):

1. In 2024, Zendaya's stylist Law Roach told The Cutting Room Floor podcast that, when they first started working together, "I would write [to] the big five…and they would all say no. 'Try again next year,' 'She's too green,' 'She's not on our calendar.'...By the time she got to American Vogue, she still had never wore any of those designers. She still hasn't. She still has never worn Dior on a carpet. She still has never worn Chanel on a carpet. She has still never worn Gucci on a carpet — any press, any appearance, never. Never. The first time she wore Valentino in public is when she had a contract, so when I said, 'If you say no, it'll be a no forever,' that rang true for a long, long time."

Previously, in 2018, Law told The Hollywood Reporter, "She only wore Dolce [& Gabbana] when she got a Dolce [& Gabbana] campaign. We built that girl's career and my career using smaller brands and emerging designers to prove a point that it can happen! ... It's a big fuck you because we all know the [public relations] want to bring someone to you because, 'oh she can get her in Valentino,' but what I wanted to prove was that she doesn't have to be in Valentino to become a fashion girl. So now that everybody wants to dress her, I go back and say, 'Not this season!'"

2. In 2017, Danielle Brooks told Vogue, "When I first started, I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be so inclusive with my style, and it was really hard. I haven't been given an opportunity to wear these big-name designers. It has never been an option whether I had a stylist or didn't. A lot of people won't design for me, no matter how many SAG awards, Tony nominations, Grammy wins; it doesn't matter."

She also said she's been asking why they don't make clothes in a bigger size range. She said, "I think they're trying, but they can go harder, and we should not be easy on them. I don't think we should pat anybody on the back for [doing] something they should've done 30 years ago."

3. In a 2018 Instagram post, stylist Juliet Angus alleged that Meghan Markle had trouble getting designers to dress her years before marrying Prince Harry. Sharing a picture from the couple's wedding day, Juliet said, "I remember five years ago trying to help my friend, who at the time was her stylist and no big designers wanted to loan to a #meghanmarkle for her London press trip. Well done, you won't have that problem anymore. Big mistake, HUGE!"

Juliet told People that she was "simply mentioning a personal experience of how hard [it] was to get British designers she wanted to wear on her London press trip to loan to her."

4. In 2016, Dascha Polanco told Vogue, "It's funny that a lot of the brands are dressing people who are not offering anything as far as talent, they're just out there. I understand that it's business, but still, it's like, really? My industry friends, who are clear and honest with me say, 'Girl, they don't have your size, and you're not at that level yet, so you have to either move that way or just build those relationships so that later in the future maybe it happens.'"

She continued, "I had a situation with a high-end brand the other day where I had personally invested so much money purchasing their items, and I love what they do, so I had my publicist reach out to their PR team. Their response was, 'Oh, you're not the sizes we have, not right now, maybe in the future.' Now even if they want me to [wear their designs] down the road, I will not give them the pleasure. It's disappointing, but I try to work with up-and-coming designers who will make things for me and who will collaborate with me. People who love my curves and embrace them as much as I do."

5. In 2017, Anna Kendrick told The Jesse Cagle Interview that she was pressured into spending too much money on shoes for the premiere of Up in the Air, the film that earned her an Oscar nomination. She said, "I was not famous, so nobody wanted to lend me shoes, but I was broke. I got talked into spending the money I really didn't have on a pair of Louboutins. They were $1,000. I still have them. They're super-sparkly and spangly, but I will never get rid of them because I'm like, 'I spent my rent on you.'"

6. In 2022, Sheryl Lee Ralph told The Hollywood Reporter, "I really do remember a time in my career when a design house told me that I was not the body that they wanted to dress, with its vulgar in and outs. To this day, I do not wear that line every time I see their name. I will never wear their line. I'm sure they've changed since then, but that's what they said." She declined the name the designer, adding, "Why bother? The positive is that now, we have body positivity, and people are more accepting of different shapes and bodies. I look at it this way — if my body is vulgar, so [is] Kim Kardashian's, so [is] Beyoncé's, and so are many others who have curves and the ins and the outs."

7. In her Fashion Icon Award acceptance speech at the 2016 CFDA Awards Monday, Beyoncé said, "Starting out in Destiny's Child, high-end labels didn't really want to dress four Black country curvy girls, and we couldn't afford designer dresses and couture. My mother was rejected from every showroom in New York. But like my grandmother, she used her talent and her creativity to give her children their dreams. My mother and my uncle, God rest his soul, made all of our first costumes, individually sewing hundreds of crystals and pearls, putting so much passion and love into every small detail."

"When I wore these clothes, I felt like Khaleesi. I had an extra suit of armor. It was so much deeper than any brand name. My mother actually designed my wedding dress, my prom dress, my first CFDA Award dress, my first Grammy dress, and the list goes on and on," she said.

8. In 2010, Christina Hendricks was named Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive. She told the Daily Record, "People have been saying some nice, wonderful things about me. Yet not one designer in town will loan me a dress. They only lend out a size 0 or 2. So I'm still struggling for someone to give me a darn dress. This has always been my size. I've worked on other shows with this same size, but Mad Men celebrates it, and that is nice."

The same year, she reportedly told Glamour, "It is difficult come awards season, and I need to find a gown to walk down the red carpet in, and there are only size zeros and size twos available. Then it becomes downright annoying because all these designers are saying, 'We love Mad Men, we love Christina, but we won't make her a dress.'"

9. In 2018, Gabourey Sidibe told Teen Vogue that, oftentimes, designers refused to lend her clothes because she was "too fat." When she walked her first major red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, she had to buy her own dress from Torrid.

She said, "Even though we are moving towards more visibility for plus-size people, there is a lot [of] pushback. So it's important to keep fighting [and] to keep being visible until the conversation changes and [it] is no longer about our bodies because I'm not my body. I'm a whole person."

10. In 2019, Jane Seymour told the Guardian, "I was never paid by a designer to wear anything, although nowadays not every designer will dress someone my age. I don't care whether re-wearing clothes is acceptable or not – if I'm feeling the dress and the occasion, and if it fits, then I'll wear it again."

11. In 2012, Octavia Spencer was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, but she had trouble finding a red carpet dress. Per The Hollywood Reporter, on the Palm Springs International Film Festival gala red carpet, she said, "I'm just a short, chubby girl. It's hard for me to find a dress to wear to something like this! It's a lot of pressure, I'll tell ya. No designers are coming to me! Maybe I should have sworn off peanut butter last year instead of this year. One of the best things about awards shows are you get to wear clothes you would never get to wear."

She ultimately walked the red carpet and won the Golden Globe in a gorgeous Tadashi Shoji gown that was so popular and highly requested that the designer added it to his 2012 collection.

12. In a 2019 Instagram video, Bebe Rexha said, "So I finally get nominated at the Grammys, and it's, like, the coolest thing ever. And a lot of times, artists will go and talk to designers, and they'll make them custom dresses to walk the red carpet, right? Like, you go to any big designer. So, I had my team hit up a lot of designers, and a lot of them do not want to dress me because I'm 'too big.' Literally, like, they...I'm 'too big.' And if a size 6/8 is 'too big,' then I don't know what to tell you. Then I don't wanna wear your fucking dresses, 'cause that's crazy. 'Cause you're saying that all the women in the world that are size eight and up are not beautiful and they cannot wear your dresses. So all the people that are thinking I can't wear dresses, fuck you, I don't wanna wear your fucking dresses."

In the caption, she added, "Im sorry, I had to get this off my chest. If you don’t like my fashion style or my music that’s one thing. But don’t say you can’t dress someone that isn’t a runway size. Empower women to love their bodies instead of making girls and women feel less then by their size. We are beautiful any size! Small or large! Anddddd My size 8 ass is still going to the Grammys. #LOVEYOURBODY."

She ultimately walked the Grammys red carpet in a stunning Monsoori gown.

13. Ahead of the 2016 Ghostbusters premiere, Leslie Jones tweeted, "It's so funny how there are no designers wanting to help me with a premiere dress for movie. Hmmm that will change and I remember everything."

In response, designer Christian Siriano stepped up to the plate. He tweeted, "It shouldn't be exceptional to work with brilliant people just because they're not sample size. Congrats aren't in order, a change is." Leslie accepted his offer, but she also added, "Hmm, what a difference a tweet makes...Should I name the designers that didn't look out? Put y'all ass on blast. You will not get my love later.”

14. In 2017, Cardi B told Teen Vogue, "It's been an evolution. I have been turned down by Instagram boutiques that told me that 'I'm not the It girl,' and I don't take it personally. It's just something you've got to prove to people, just like music. A lot of music people didn't want to work with me at first, and you've just got to prove yourself. You've got to prove that you're that girl and that you're worth it. I'm not going to turn down an opportunity because they don't want to let me in, or they just don't like me in their clothes, period."

"I think when brands dress artists everyone already knows, it's not a big deal because they dress hot all the time. It's like, 'Whatever, who cares?' But when it's a new person wearing something, there's more buzz. It's like, 'Look how they're changing their look, I wonder who's dressing them.' And some people just don't notice that type of opportunity, but I ain't the one to tell them," she said.

15. Ashley Graham wore Coach for her 2016 British Vogue cover shoot. In her editor's letter, editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman wrote, "The shoot was put together fairly last-minute, and we are all very grateful to the people at Coach who, under the creative direction of Stuart Vevers, moved speedily to provide clothes for us that had to come from outside their sample range. They were enthusiastic about dressing a woman who is not a standard model, but sadly there were other houses that flatly refused to lend us their clothes."

The same year, Ashley was "on hold" for the Met Gala, but because she didn't have the time or relationships with designers to get a custom gown, she wasn't able to attend. She told The Cut, "I couldn't get a designer to dress me. You can't just show up in jeans and a t-shirt." However, she attended the event in a couture H&M gown the next year.

16. In 2014, Melissa McCarthy told Red Book, "When I go shopping, most of the time, I'm disappointed. Two Oscars ago, I couldn't find anybody to do a dress for me. I asked five or six designers — very high-level ones who make lots of dresses for people — and they all said no." The experience inspired her to create her own plus-sized clothing line. At the 2012 Oscars, Melissa — who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, — wore a ready-to-wear Marina Rinaldi gown.

17. On the 2017 Emmys red carpet, Rachel Bloom told E!, "I bought this dress, 'cause Gucci's not lending me a dress. I did buy this dress, indeed. Yeah, I love it, and I can resell it. I mean, here's the thing, is also, I can, I'm now at the place where I can afford it. So, you know, I've said in an interview before, 'Oh, sometimes it's hard to get places to lend me dresses because I'm not, like, a size 0,' but also, I can afford it, so it's okay. And again, I can always resell it on The Real Real."

18. In 2011, Jennifer Hudson told the Daily Mail, "I was doing okay before [losing weight]. But the truth is, so many more opportunities open up when you're on the other side, as I am now. I'd no idea what I was missing out on. It's like a whole other world. Suddenly, every designer wants to dress you. It's like, 'You look amazing! Please, choose a dress. Have a bag. And what about shoes?' I mean, wow!"

19. In 2016, Khloé Kardashian told Harper's Bazaar, "I definitely think the fashion industry, and people in general, look at me more now that I've lost weight. Even on shoots, I would never have options for clothing. There would always be this attention on Kourtney and Kim, but I was too much work for [stylists], or they had nothing in my size. I wasn't even that crazy big!" So, at the time, she'd only work with stylist Monica Rose. Khloé said, "At my fattest, Monica would always come with racks of clothes and make me feel special. She never told me, 'Oh, they don't have that in your size.' Other people actually said, 'I just can't work with you' — because I was too big. That always hurt my feelings, of course."

Moving forward, she refused to work with designers who previously rejected her because of her weight. She said, "I'm just like, 'Fuck you. I'm not going to reward your bad behavior.'"

20. In 2013, Kim Kardashian's then-stylist, Nicola Formichetti, told Elle that dressing her had been "a challenge." He said, "People wouldn't lend me the clothes. But that's fashion snobbery."

21. At the 2016 Golden Globes, Bryce Dallas Howard wore a Jenny Packham gown she purchased herself. On the red carpet, she told E!, "I just picked it up at Neiman's this week...I like having lots of options for a size six as opposed to maybe one option, so I always go to department stores!"

22. In a since-deleted 2019 tweet, Aidy Bryant said that having cool clothes available in all sizes "seems like a fairly basic request." In response, Eloquii made her a custom dress for the Emmys.

Aidy told People Style, "It's just been a really fun dream process. I think it's a different experience for plus size women in film and television to get clothes for events. It's just not as welcoming for us to get cool clothes that are like equal in glamour, in style to what, I am going to say, 'small size' costars get to wear. So I've had experiences on photoshoots or wherever, where there just aren't options for us. So to have this experience where they approached me, and it's not us begging them…and they've been like, 'Let's make this special.' It's been very glamorous to me in ways I maybe haven't experienced before. So it's been really, really positive…it's been such a delight."

23. On Twitter, Amber Riley pointed out that, because of the limited options available, she risked seeing other plus-size celebrities in the same outfits on the red carpet. In reply to blogger Gabi Fresh, she said, "Risking seeing other plus celebs wearing the same on the carpet throws up hands we can't win."

24. In 2018, Kristen Stewart's stylist, Tara Swennen, told The Hollywood Reporter's Stylist Roundtable, "I remember with Kristen Stewart, I called Lanvin for seven years. They said, 'Listen, our demo to sell these clothes is closer to the 30s, so she's not what we want quite yet.' Every two months, I called and said, 'Are we ready yet?' Finally, it was like the clouds opened up, and we got it, and she was like, 'Nah.'"

25. In a 2018 Instagram post, Megan Mullally said, "yes, i will be hosting!! thanks [SAG Awards]! will i be dressed as a spanish senorita? we don’t know. looks like i will be buying my dress online though, as per my usual, even though there is literally a 100 percent chance that i will be on camera, because I'M HOSTING IT. designers do not send me dresses. i'm online scrolling through the gowns sections of various websites- which i know how to do pretty well at this point- and then i tried to order something from saks fifth avenue and they cancelled my order 😂 oh, the glamor of it all. in other news, hosting this great show honoring amazing actors is going to be cool, and i may get to meet olivia colman. please send jokes."

On the red carpet, she told Access Hollywood, "I always pick out clothes online and buy my own stuff because, first of all, I like it because I can just wear what I want to wear, but also, the major designers are not interested in sending me any dresses. Not at all. Alexander McQueen did send two dresses, but they didn't work out, but this is an Alexander McQueen dress that I bought online...I said, 'I'm literally hosting. like, there is a 100 percent chance that I will be on camera.' But people were like, 'No, no thanks.' But that's okay. I think it's funny, but I think it's interesting for people to know that because I think that everybody in the general public just thinks, 'Well everybody is getting dresses thrown at them left and right,' but that's not actually the case."

26. In a 2020 essay for Bustle, Nina Parker wrote, "When I transitioned from doing correspondent work for E! to hosting duties on Countdown to the Red Carpet earlier this year, I knew it'd call for a different type of dress — something special. Instead of being hidden in a press line, I was going to be front-and-center on camera for hours, so a custom gown was the goal. Right away, my stylist at E! began reaching out to designers. As awards season approached, though, the labels who responded ghosted us — if they got back to us at all. There's no way to know exactly why they didn't respond, but I have a pretty good guess."

She continued, "Mainstream brands creating custom plus-size pieces usually work with high-profile celebrities. I have a great career, but am I as famous as most A-listers nominated for awards? Absolutely not. While I understand designers want the most eyes on their product and extra fabric may cost more money, their silence feels like they don't see my worth. When I find myself standing on a red carpet next to people doing the same exact job as me, but they're wearing a custom look and I'm not, these feelings are only magnified."

So, at the suggestion of her stylist, Nina worked with Lynne Carter Atelier to design and create her own custom Grammys gown.

They teamed up for the Oscars, too. Sharing her look on Twitter, Nina said, "I designed and created my own Oscars dress this year due to very limited plus size options. I'll create a lane of my own. You CAN have couture AND curves!"

27. Designers refusing to dress certain celebs isn't just a Hollywood problem. Hina Khan's 2019 Cannes Film Festival debut has been credited with helping TV actors in India gain more respect. In 2020, she told Pinkvilla, "I think what I took away from it, one, is that television definitely has it all. It's just that we are given less opportunities, and if we walk [red carpets], we are criticized. We have the equal, maybe more, sometimes less...amount of confidence. You know, I walked Cannes, and then I did a lot of stuff. I did the [India Day] parade in New York and everything. I did a lot of stuff, so, you know, since then, be it any international designer, they want me to wear their stuff.

She continued, "I swear I'm not exaggerating. They want me to wear their stuff. They go through my posts, they go through my Cannes appearance and all, and they are like, 'Oh my God, she looks so beautiful, and she can carry outfits so well. [She has an] amount of confidence that is there in the pictures.'...They are like, 'Please take the stuff and wear it.' And in India...I don't wanna name the designer. Not that, now it's completely different, like, I'm doing films, and I have appearances. People can see that she can carry clothes and everything. But still, there is a difference. People, all these big designers from India, they still look down upon TV...[We don't see a TV celebrity] wearing XYZ outfit. They won't give it to you."

28. Per the Indian Express, in 2023, Avika Gor told Siddharth Kannan that Hina's comments about designers refusing to dress TV actors made her feel seen. She said, "This definitely happens. When Hina Khan spoke about big designers not giving clothes to her because she was a TV actor, I realized, 'Thank God, it's not just me.' I used to wait for the time when people will speak against this, and kudos to Hina Khan and many such actresses who spoke up about all of this. You need guts to do this."

She continued, "When I was going to the Cannes Film Festival [in 2016], I was the youngest Indian to be there. It was my second time there; it was a huge deal. But for some reason, the designers didn't see it that way. However, I figured something prettier than what they were offering. So I was happy. Then I wore a gown by a local designer, which worked."

29. And finally, per the Indian Express, in 2023, Hansika Motwani told Gulte.com, "There have been many designers, and they were like, 'Oh, no South actor, we don't want to give you clothes.' But now, they themselves come ahead, and they are like, 'Oh you have an event, you have a trailer launch, why don't you wear us?' I politely said yes. There has to be a difference between them and me. right? I was like, 'They will come back; I will work really hard.' And when the same people have come back, I am like, 'Now you want to style me, dress me, fair enough.'"

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