Thirteen years after she became an internet sensation for her viral red carpet pose, Angelina Jolie brought her famous leg-baring look back to life at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The 50-year-old actress turned heads at the premiere of her latest film, 'Couture,' arriving at the Princess of Wales Theatre on September 7 in a brown, double-breasted wool trench coat, and nothing underneath but sheer nylons.
The coat’s buttons stopped mid-waist, transforming it into a makeshift thigh-high slit that showed off one leg, reminiscent of her legendary Atelier Versace gown at the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Completing the daring look were sheer tights, retro statement studs, and pointed black heels.
In a 2019 interview with Extra, Jolie reflected on that Oscars fashion moment. “There’s a whole longer story behind that. I had a more complicated dress, and I wore the more comfortable dress, which was that one, and I think I was just so comfortable that…”
She added, “I think when you feel comfortable, when you feel yourself, which is very much the theme of the film, and we know this in life, you embrace it. And sometimes, maybe it appears to be a thing, I don’t know.”
But Jolie’s appearance at TIFF wasn’t just about fashion nostalgia. It was also a deeply personal evening for the actress, who grew emotional during a post-screening Q&A when asked about grief and hope.
Following the 'Couture' premiere, an audience member who had recently lost a friend to cancer asked Jolie and her co-stars about how to remain hopeful while grieving. Jolie, visibly moved, responded with empathy and a memory of her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who passed away in 2007 after battling ovarian and breast cancer.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said, holding back tears. Regaining her composure, she recalled, “I think I will say that one thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had a dinner and people were asking her how she was feeling and she said, ‘All anybody ever asks me about is cancer.’”
She continued, “So I would say, if you know someone who is going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well, you know? They’re a whole person and they’re still living.”
'Couture,' directed by Alice Winocour, casts Jolie as Maxine Walker, an American filmmaker navigating life, single motherhood, and a recent breast cancer diagnosis while working on a video project during Paris Fashion Week.
Speaking on Jolie’s connection to the film, Winocour shared during the Q&A, “She immediately found a personal connection with the film for reasons we know since her mother and grandmother died of breast cancer.” She continued, “She also had a connection in her flesh to this story since she underwent a double mastectomy to escape her family fate.”
Jolie’s decision to undergo preventative surgery came in 2013 after she tested positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, giving her an 87% risk of breast cancer. In her New York Times op-ed 'My Medical Choice,' she detailed how the procedure reduced her risk to under 5%.
Jolie also opened up about the long-lasting impact of her mother’s death in another NYT piece in 2020, writing, “When I look back to that time, I can see how much her death changed me. It was not sudden, but so much shifted inside.”