Image via Complex Original
Narrowing down Rihanna’s best music video fashion moments was no easy task, because, as everyone knows, every single one of Rihanna’s fashion moments is memorable and perfect and amazing. This is a woman who could wear literally anything, even the proverbial, albeit sparkled up, trash bag (see: “This Is What You Came For” video), and still look better than I will on my wedding day. Her looks tend to go in the direction of sexy takes on existing tropes (sort of like what sorority girls do on Halloween, but way less lame, because it’s f*cking Rihanna). Some examples include: Sexy Member of Black Panther Party (“Run This Town”), Sexy Clockwork Orange (“You Da One”), and Sexy Naked In Bathtub Person (“Stay”). I couldn’t break down every single outfit (also it should be noted I left out “FourFiveSeconds” on the technicality that it is a TERRIBLE song). But, in honor of her Video Vanguard Award at this year’s VMA’s—and after several Sophie’s Choices and pouring out some beer for all the looks I left behind (So many hats! So much mesh!)—here are ten of RiRi’s most memorable video looks.
Pon de Replay
17-year-old Rihanna shoulder-shook onto the scene with her very first music video for “Pon De Replay” in 2005, clad in a tiny gold sequined top, sneakers, and the type of gigantic baggy jeans that I probably also wore to a sketchy rave in a remote warehouse 10 years earlier (except I accessorized with fat shoelaces, a mini leather backpack, and acne). This outfit was flashy yet innocent, just like the hot pink underwear peeking out of her JNCOS. And though Ri was a total newcomer, that face (and those abs) caught our attention and foretold a future of superstardom.
Umbrella
This is the video in which RiRi sets out to establish definitively that she is now a “good girl gone bad” (we know this because Jay Z says it emphatically several times throughout the song).With an impressive early mastery of latex and silver body paint, she succeeds. I know that I’m supposed to say that the best outfit in this video is that latex ballerina outfit with pointe shoes situation, but truth be told, my favorite look is her black and white vintage-looking playsuit, which she pairs with fishnets, black opera gloves, and a sassy attitude that gives me old time-y musical realness—especially with all the umbrella twirling. On an unrelated note, Google led me to a neat blog post proclaiming that this entire video is a thinly veiled homage to sodomy. Do with that what you will.
Shut Up and Drive
Teenage Rihanna displayed a strong affinity for calf-length pants, and this video was no exception. It’s a look that can maybe best be described as “flirty mechanic,” if your mechanic wears lime green pedal pushers, leopard stilettos, giant gold door knocker earrings, a single red half glove (for oil changes, I assume). She also had a towel hanging from her back pocket, but I think mechanics generally do have towels hanging from their back pockets, so kudos on that detail.
Hard
Again, there are so many looks in the clip for "Hard" that are worth mentioning, and they can best be summed up as: Sexy Private Benjamin, Sexy Mad Max, and Sexy GWAR (A+ for creativity on that one). But the #1, WTF, burned-into-the-memory forever look is definitely Rihanna resplendent in Mickey Mouse helmet, bullet bra, teeny-tiny black cut offs, and combat boots, standing gloriously, defiantly, and dare I say, patriotically, upon a hot pink tank. Which she later grinds on. Because she’s awesome.
Rude Boy
I feel like the style inspiration for "Rude Boy" was ‘80s Whitney Houston, a trip to Jamaica, repeated viewings of Jumanji, and several acid trips. Maybe all four of these things were combined into one extremely fun day. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. What I do know is that at one point Rihanna is riding a zebra while wearing a black and white, head-to-toe bodysuit, and that’s not even the greatest look in the whole video. The very best outfit has RiRi in tons of gold chains, thigh-high, lace-up, leopard print boots, and Rasta-colored tassel underwear that mesmerizes with each shimmy and shake. Honorable mention? The rainbow sequined newsboy that appears later in the song, and probably again in those aforementioned acid trips.
S&M
I’m about to blow your mind. While the newsprint dress Rihanna wears in the “S&M” video looks fairly similar to the John Galliano one Carrie dons in Sex And The City, it’s actually quite different, in that it is covered with fake headlines essentially questioning RiRi’s purity—including the words “Daddy Issues?” and “SLUT.” Yes, this is Rihanna’s Kathleen Hanna moment, questioning the system, damning the man, and asserting and owning her sexuality, ball-gagged press be damned. She is raging against the machine from behind a plastic sheet, refusing to be anybody’s role model while miraculously pulling off Ronald McDonald’s exact hair color. She is an actual hero.
We Found Love
Each and every single outfit in "We Found Love" is perfect. I wish I could write a 50 page dissertation called “Good Girl Gone Rude” in homage to them all. There are creepers, there are suspenders, there are thigh-highs, there are oversized bomber jackets, there are combat boots. 12 pages would be dedicated to the jaunty bandana hairband situation alone. There is a full pale denim ensemble that in and of itself is a better ensemble than anything Selena Gomez has ever worn in her entire life. (Fight me.) These outfits deserve a People’s Choice Award. That’s not what People’s Choice Awards are for, you say? Who cares! We are the people, and we choose it. Give her Jim Parsons’ from last year; he has enough as it is.
Pour It Up
If we had to choose one image with which to immortalize our patron saint of not giving one single f*ck, it would undoubtedly have to be Rihanna’s first and most prominent look in the “Pour It Up” video. A floor length fur coat drags through the unidentifiable liquid that covers the floor (she doesn’t care, she has 30 more where that mink came from). As Ri walks to a throne, she drops it to reveal perhaps the most Rihanna outfit to ever have existed: a jewel encrusted bra that is making literally the most minimal of efforts to cover anything at all, paired with cut-off-jean-short-thong-chaps that reveal bright red underwear beneath. Accessories include an emerald choker and crystal earrings, black vinyl elbow length gloves with the fingertips cut out (as to showcase Ms. Fenty’s blood red dagger nails), dark sunglasses, and clear platform stripper heels with money (yes, US currency) printed on them. Top this off with platinum blonde Marilyn Monroe hair, and you have a vision that is indulgent, in-your-face, and nothing short of holy.
BBHMM
There are many noteworthy fashion moments in this gleefully dark kidnap and torture extravaganza (see: patchwork denim duster, clear vinyl fur trimmed trench coat, world’s most impractical bathing suit, something that looks like children’s bloomers worn as a hat). The style injected by Rihanna’s girl gang accomplices, Sita Abellan and Sanam, is nothing to sneeze at either. But we’d all be lying to ourselves if we didn’t admit that the most iconic “outfit” of the whole video wasn’t the singer nude and splattered with blood, laying in a large trunk full of cash money. Because that’s totally an outfit she would wear in real life.
Work
Just when we thought Ri had possibly, yet deliciously, lost her damn mind (see: lace bloomer hat in BBHMM), she shows up in the video for “Work” channeling vintage Rihanna, all grown up. Swaying in the club in her beachy Tommy Hilfiger mesh dress and bikini combo, she brings us back to where she came from: the island girl gone home. But now she’s seen the world, she’s loved and she’s lost (shout out “Take Care,” another honorable mention), and she’s come out the other side wearing an o-ring bondage choker and a custom Barbados flag garter. Perhaps the most impressive? The singer’s ability to revive the strappy gold gladiator sandal, by way of these Giussepe Zanotti stilettos, which had all been murdered by Rachel Zoe et al in the mid 2000s. But if anyone can do it, it’s the woman who somehow still looks gorgeous with a Skrillex hair-cut, or in orange Gandhi robes with her eyebrows and half her lipstick missing (as in her most recent music video, “Sledgehammer”). Honorable mention: Rihanna’s nipples, as freed by the sparkly pink tank top she wears in the second half of this same video.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my look together to accept the award I should be receiving for watching every single Rihanna video in order without losing it completely. I think I’ll wear a maxi skirt, pasties that are shaped like actual nipples, and a hat made of my own broken dreams. See you on the carpet!