Among the actors promoting their films, producers pitching their projects, brand ambassadors pushing their products and freeloaders hanging on to whatever dignity they have left, sometimes a guest on the red carpet has nothing to sell – or at least, isn't there for that purpose only. Indeed, at Cannes or Venice, the Met Gala or the Oscars, some take the opportunity to send a message.

Whether geopolitical or social, implicit or explicit, surprising or predictable, they all share a common trait. From Cate Blanchett's green, red and black dress worn at Cannes last year referencing Palestine, to American Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's white dress emblazoned with "Tax the rich" at the Met Gala in 2021, to Natalie Portman's Dior cape embroidered with the names of female directors she felt were snubbed by the Academy Awards in 2020, each of these messages inevitably raised the question: Is this really the time and place?

This seemingly childish question leads to others. For instance, do we really have the right to disrupt an event as crucial to the world as a red carpet to draw attention to a war? Can we jeopardize the Met Gala's lavish procession to discuss an issue as futile as taxing the ultra-rich? Does this triviality called feminism warrant sharing the ancestral pomp of the Oscars?

Without speaking, without overdoing it

Let's be clear. To transcend the fundamentally ridiculous and grotesque exercise of the red carpet, one must forgo giving poses and glances to the masses, like offering them cake in another time. Without speaking, without overdoing it, without necessarily dousing oneself in fake blood as a woman did two years ago at Cannes in a dress colored like the Ukrainian flag, it is entirely appropriate to express an opinion on the red carpet.

Last year, at Cannes, the most adept at this was, by far, Yseult. At the screening of Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, the French singer, a size 64, appeared on the carpet dressed in the famous Bar suit designed by Christian Dior in 1947 and, without a single word, conveyed a message of body inclusivity. The move was so skillful that, that evening, people even forgot Yseult was there as a L'Oréal ambassador. That's saying something.

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.