54 Scandalous Dresses That Made People Lose Their Sh*t

What's Hollywood without the hotness? Over the years—over many years, actually—stars have shown major skin. The best part? It doesn't matter whether they're hitting a red carpet, starring in a movie, or simply going about their daily life. Some particularly revealing looks have been so ~culturally groundbreaking~ that they caused scandals still talked about to this day. To celebrate all the sexiness, take a look back at some of the dresses celebrities wore that made people lose their minds.

Theda Bara, 1917

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Actress Theda Bara—one of Hollywood's first ever femme fatal sex symbols—starred in the title role of 1917 silent film Cleopatra, wearing expensive and racy costumes that included a coiled snake bra.

Josephine Baker, 1920s

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Dancer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker found fame in Paris during the 1920s. Her most iconic routine was the danse sauvage, in which she wore a skirt made out of artificial bananas and twerked before twerking was even a thing.

Jean Harlow, 1932

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Jean Harlow was hugely popular in Old Hollywood, and liked to do this thing where she wore really clingy dresses without a bra (the horror!). Here she is with Clark Gable, her co-star in Red Dust.

Jean Harlow, 1933

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It's hard not to think of the Art Deco age and bias-cut gowns without picturing this costume by Gilbert Adrian that Jean wore in the film Dinner at Eight. With its low back and beautiful crisscrossing straps in the front, it looked like it'd been poured right over Jean's body.

Rita Hayworth, 1941

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Rita Hayworth wasn't yet known as the "Love Goddess" when she sat for this alluring LIFE magazine image in 1941, which became "arguably the single most famous and most frequently reproduced American pinup image ever" (according to LIFE, though I'm not going to disagree). She wore a lacy silk negligee—definitely inside clothes back then—and knelt atop a bed in the Bob Landry photograph. Too risqué for the cover, per a LIFE staffer who worked there at the time, more than 5 million copies of the image ended up in the hands of American troops fighting in World War II.

Marilyn Monroe, 1955

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Marilyn Monroe wore her world-famous white halter dress in the film The Seven Year Itch. The subway grate scene was first shot on location in New York City, but thousands of onlookers made so much noise that it had to be reshot on a set. Marilyn's then-husband Joe DiMaggio was reportedly so upset by it that it contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

Jayne Mansfield, 1957

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If Sophia Loren looks like she's giving Jayne Mansfield some side eye, that's because she is. Sophia later told Entertainment Weekly she was worried Jayne's nipples were going to fall out of her dress."In my face you can see the fear. I'm so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow — BOOM! — and spill all over the table."

Carroll Baker, 1964

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Pictured here at the London premieres of her 1964 film The Carpetbaggers, Carroll Baker shows off the provocative transparent top of her dress.