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If the Cannes Film Festival<\/a> would like to be seen as a fashion-adjacent event, then Bella Hadid<\/a> is arguably the single most important person on its red carpet. The embodiment of everything the sun-soaked Croisette has come to represent\u2014yachts, diamonds, striking beauty \u2013 she, in many ways, occupies a more symbolic role in the cultural imagination of Cannes than the actors and filmmakers the festival ostensibly honors. There is, after all, such a thing as a movie star being too beautiful, too untouchable\u2014which is where Hadid comes in: an apparition posing in a cut-out Tom Ford-era Gucci dress.<\/p>\n And yet, it is Hadid\u2019s aura that stirs the spirit. It is the equine grace with which she glides before photographers; the regal balcony waves she offers from the H\u00f4tel Martinez, recalling Sophia Loren in 1959. Consider 2024, when she arrived on the red carpet in an (almost) nude fall 2024 Saint Laurent gown before drifting down the Croisette in vintage Gianni Versace and licking ice cream on the shores of Plage du Midi in a Hushidar Mortezaie dress patchworked from keffiyeh fabric. Or the Chanel fall 1986 ball gowns and gilded Schiaparelli lungs\u2014one of the most important looks<\/a> in contemporary red-carpet history\u2014of 2021, and the thigh-slit Roberto Cavalli dresses and Jean Paul Gaultier corsets that came before.<\/p>\n Last year brought yet another headline-making Cannes chapter for Hadid. Less than 24 hours before the opening ceremony of the festival\u2019s 78th edition, organizers issued a surprise amendment to the dress code. \u201cFor decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as in any other area of the festival,\u201d read the official guidance. \u201cVoluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train, that hinder the proper flow of traffic of guests and complicate seating in the theatre are not permitted.\u201d And yet there was Hadid, stepping onto the carpet in a slit-up-to-there silk-satin gown whose cross-back construction hinted, still, at impropriety. (Proof, perhaps, that the model, and the brands she represents, might have more power than the festival itself.)<\/p>\n