Amanda Seyfried Had A Good Reason For Her Risqué Outfit At The 2004 Mean Girls Premiere

These days, Amanda Seyfried is a style maven. Since skyrocketing to fame in 2004's "Mean Girls," her career has risen to incredible heights, and her fashion has kept pace. But long before she was gracing the cover of Vogue and strutting down red carpets in haute couture from labels like Balenciaga and Rodarte, she was making fashion fumbles just like the rest of us. One of her most unforgettable style blunders was an overtly risqué look that she wore to the New York City premiere of "Mean Girls."

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The future "Mamma Mia!" star took to the red carpet in a sleeveless turtleneck black-and-white dress. The spotted number was a midi that would have otherwise been conservative if it weren't for the totally sheer fabric. Unwittingly, Seyfried flashed her white bra and black underwear to the sea of cameras. But rather than trying to make a statement through shock value — in a time before many of the most iconic celebrity naked dress moments — Seyfried's see-through situation simply came down to the fact that she had no fashion mentor to guide her through those early years.

"I did not have a stylist," she explained on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2022. "I didn't know any of the rules, so I was wearing a white bra and black underwear and no slip." (These are some of the biggest mistakes to avoid when you're trying to nail the sheer trend). While it might have been shocking at the time, fans understand where the "Housemaid" actor was coming from, with one writing in a BuzzFeed comment section, "I think we have all made the mistake of assuming black will not be transparent and been proved wrong." Aside from not having a stylist, Seyfried had another good reason why she ended up with a look like this.

A successful career in Hollywood usually leads to unthinkable wealth, but it can take a while to accumulate that dough. When Amanda Seyfried was doing "Mean Girls," she was a long way off from her estimated $16 million net worth. "I used the only money I had to buy a dress — but there were two premieres, and so I had to buy two dresses because you wear different dresses," she explained to Jimmy Kimmel. "I paid $600 for that dress."

In addition to not having a stylist, publicist, or makeup artist, Seyfried simply didn't have the funds for the designer garb she wears today, which could have helped her avoid having this becoming a red-carpet outfit she regrets. While she could have asked the studio for some help, since "Mean Girls" was such a success, she hadn't yet found her voice. "I slipped through the cracks, because I didn't ever ask for anything — because I thought I was in the way," she went on. "Which is not how I want to raise my daughter, for sure."

These days, Seyfried works with stylist Elizabeth Stewart, who has totally transformed the star's look. "Elizabeth is so savvy — she is so amazing and I trust her so much," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2022. "She has these incredible relationships with designers, and she always finds the pieces that she knows I will like." But while she definitely has more fun exploring fashion at this stage in her career, Seyfried still finds red carpets "very brief and very frantic." She admitted to the outlet, "You can take as long as you like to feel comfortable and make the clothing work for you [in fashion shoots], which just isn't really the case on the red carpet."