Barbie Ferreira’s Oscar Gown Was Based on Your Favorite Work Shirt

Jason Sargent Monday, March 16, 2026

This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.Barbie Ferreira’s Oscar Gown Was Based on Your Favorite Work Shirt

Faran KrentcilMon, March 16, 2026 at 1:18 PM UTC

How Barbie Ferreira Got Ready for the OscarsYasmine Diba

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

One way to kill the Sunday Scaries? Turn them into couture. That’s what Barbie Ferreira did on the Oscars red carpet last night, when the Euphoria actress and Gap model wore a gown inspired by the brand’s oversized Oxford shirts—you know, the one we throw on with jeans and Prada loafers to look put-together on Mondays, even on four hours of sleep.

Ferreira wore a Gap Studio indigo dress from the label’s executive vice president and creative director, Zac Posen, who paired a corseted bodice with a full skirt in moiré taffeta, a party-ready fabric with subtle, lustrous swirls across the surface.

“The gown’s foundation comes directly from one of Gap’s most recognizable garments: the Original Big Shirt,” Posen explains. “We looked at the proportions, the attitude, and the simplicity of that shirt and reinterpreted them at a couture level—taking that signature Gap blue and the language of everyday shirting and translating it for the Oscars red carpet.”

In the middle of the skirt? A full button placket, just like the kind you’d see on your favorite Oxford shirt. Open the buttons at the bottom and get a higher slit in your skirt; keep them all closed (like Ferreira did) and stick with the full ballgown look.

“It’s actually functional—the skirt can be unbuttoned and worn more like a robe or dramatic coat,” says Posen. “Those kinds of details speak to the idea that even something as formal as an Oscars gown can still carry the practicality and spirit of sportswear.”

The dress also ties along the waist, inspired by the way we all cinch our shirts around our jeans when the office thermostat cranks up a little too much.

But even though this Gap Studio dress has a modern sensibility, it’s also a callback to the brand’s ’90s roots at the Oscars themselves. In 1996, Sharon Stone wore a black Gap tee with a Valentino skirt. Two years later, in 1998, she paired a white Gap button-up shirt with a gray satin Vera Wang skirt. (The look was later echoed by Zendaya at the 2022 Oscars; her button-up was cropped instead of oversized.)

For Posen, the throughline is obvious. “When Sharon Stone wore a Gap shirt to the Oscars, it was about elevating the everyday into glamour—showing that a simple, democratic piece could exist in the same space as couture,” he says. “Decades later, Barbie’s look continues that conversation in a different way. It takes a Gap classic and abstracts it into something closer to art.”

Scroll down to see how Posen and Ferreira built the ultimate high-low Oscar look, which Ferreira says “felt like the perfect continuation of our [Gap] campaign—effortless, vibrant, and a celebration of both where I’ve been and where I’m going.”