Helen Mirren Will Never Live Down Her Inappropriate Outfit To The 2004 Emmys

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Dame Helen Mirren usually knows how to nail red carpet fashion. She practically wrote the book on styling tips to stay chic in your 60s and beyond. So it's weird that she had such a major fashion miss at the 2004 Emmy Awards, when she wore a traditional sari in red and shimmering blue. While there's no doubt the look was gorgeous, it was a strange choice for Mirren, who has no known desi heritage.

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Mirren is British, which means she hails from the same country that ruled India as a colonizing power for almost 200 years. That adds a complicated layer of meaning to a look that already feels like cultural appropriation, which is the decontextualized use of cultural symbols by people who don't belong to that cultural group. "[Cultural appropriation] is most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways," Susan Scafidi, author of "Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law," told Jezebel.

A sari would be a respectful choice if Mirren was attending a desi wedding. But on the carpet of an awards show, it seems more like Mirren is treating it as a costume. At least she isn't a celebrity that we wish would take more fashion risks.

Dame Helen Mirren is no stranger to a bold fashion look. In fact, the star is well known for shattering the idea that women should stick to demure or even classic looks as they age. For example, she turned up to the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in a sky blue gown — and blue hair. "It was a spur of the moment thing," she told Grazia. "I sat in the chair and suddenly thought, wouldn't it be great to have blue hair to match my blue dress?" But that wasn't her only memorable look. She wore a sea green gown with enormous oversized sleeves for the 2019 Los Angeles premiere of "Catherine the Great," a pink pixie cut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, and towering platforms on the 2021 Le Defile L'Oreal runway in Paris.

Mirren is the kind of celebrity who is confronting aging with confidence. It's clear she doesn't see it as a reason to slow down. "You can be as afraid as you like, but that's not going to change anything. It's going to happen. So live with it," she told Allure in 2025, the year she turned 80. "I'm alive and I'm working, and I can drink a glass of wine, and I can wear makeup, and I can listen to music, and I can watch a beautiful sunset, and I can go to the theater, and I can watch a movie, and I can binge Netflix, and I can live life. It's a beautiful thing."