When did everyone decide we were wearing big coats with sheer bottoms? I don’t know, but I’m always here for a bit of sartorial juxtaposition. To understand mood-light dressing, I guess we should really start with a quick fashion history lesson.
Back in 2015, “The Skimm” defined the term lampshading as the act of wearing an oversized T-shirt long enough to cover your shorts, therefore looking like you weren’t wearing pants. For a while, everyone was doing it, from Kim Kardashian to Bella Hadid, with most of them adding knee-high or thigh-high boots to the equation, taking the look from a lazy-girl uniform to a pap-walk moment. In this case, you can consider the boots the stem of the lamp, I guess.
In 2018 Ariana Grande became the unofficial queen of lampshading, switching out T-shirts for oversized hoodies and crewnecks every time she stepped out with then boyfriend Pete Davidson. Fast-forward seven years and Grande showed us what lampshading should really look like in Schiaparelli at the Oscars in March 2025.
Now, in the fall of 2025, an outfit formula is emerging that feels like it falls under the same umbrella. In a bit of a merger of Grande’s two lampshade-inspired looks, more and more designers are sending models down the runway in oversized outerwear and sheer skirts.
This combination creates an ethereal, moody take on the pantsless trend—a look Glamour has dubbed “mood-light dressing” or “mood-lighting.” And we’ve already seen the look make the jump from runways to street-style experts, some of whom have given the look their stamps of approval with warmer jackets and sweaters for fall and winter.
Of course Dakota Johnson was an early adopter, pairing a sheer dress with a leather jacket last fall.
