Shania Twain Nods to One of Her Classic ’90s Looks on the People’s Choice Awards Red Carpet [Pictures]
At the 2022 People's Choice Awards on Tuesday night (Dec. 6), Shania Twain was set to be honored with the Music Icon Award — a recognition of her decades of history-making pop-country superstardom. So, it was only fitting that the singer incorporated some throwback looks into her visual aesthetic.
And references to her most iconic '90s looks abounded during the medley performance she gave during the show — leather pants! Lassos! A top hat! — but the most unmistakable homage came on the red carpet, which Twain walked wearing a hooded, leopard print ensemble that reprised one one the most unforgettable looks of her career: The outfit she wore in the music video for her 1998 megahit, "That Don't Impress Me Much."
Twain's Tuesday night look differed from the outfit in the video in a few key ways, swapping out the bare midriff she rocked in '98 for a mesh underlying panel with built-in gloves. The singer wore long, leopard-print sleeves for her music video with matching gloves, and a leopard-print suitcase, too.
Still, the resemblance between the two looks as undeniable. E! even created a TikTok video of Twain's carpet walk, captioning it, "This glambot? That does impress E! much."
Over the years, Twain has displayed a knack for eye-catching looks that became almost as famed and specific to her as the music she released. In the recently-released Netflix documentary Shania Twain: Not Just a Girl, the singer explains that early on, choosing how she portrayed herself in videos was a way to exert creative control. Especially for her first album cycle (for her 1993 debut, What Made You Say That), that control was essential, as her record label edged her out of offering much input on the tracklist itself.
"The music video for ‘What Made You Say That,’ that was the moment that I grabbed onto creatively, and it was liberating. And I liberated myself in so many ways, and right from that very first video,” she says (quote via Cheatsheet.) “It was like, ‘Freedom!'”
Twain's fashion and visual sensibilities have inspired a younger generation of stars: For example, Kelsea Ballerini borrows from Twain's iconic aesthetics in her fashion choices for the music video of "Hole in the Bottle," a song that features a remix guest starring Twain herself.
"That Don't Impress Me Much" — which comes off Twain's marquee 1997 studio album, Come on Over — made an appearance later in Tuesday night's show as part of a medley of hits she performed on the People's Choice Awards stage. The singer updated one line in the song — "Okay, so you're Brad Pitt / That don't impress me much" — to focus on actor Ryan Reynolds, who was sitting in the audience and offered a bemused laugh as he heard his name get called out in the song.
Later, Reynolds tweeted about the moment, writing: "I can't think of a more iconic, smart and beautiful person to not impress all that much. Thank you for an amazing night, [Shania Twain.]"