Everyone’s Saying Same Thing About Sydney Sweeney’s See-Through Dress At ‘Power Of Women’ Event

Sydney Sweeney’s appearance at Variety’s 2025 Power of Women gala has drawn a strikingly consistent reaction across social platforms, with thousands of viewers posting near-identical praise that she looked “like a goddess” in a sheer, silver crystal gown as she arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday, 29 October.

Images and red-carpet clips circulating from the event show the 28-year-old actor in a floor-length, see-through dress by Christian Cowan in collaboration with Elias Matso, styled with a short blonde bob and minimal jewellery; within hours, comment threads beneath widely shared posts filled with single-word superlatives and variations on the same refrain, including “goddess,” “queen,” and “otherworldly,” while fans debated the intent of the look and its fit with an evening dedicated to women’s achievements.

The visual details are well documented in high-resolution photographs published from the arrivals line—crystal mesh, a scoop neckline, mid-length sleeves, a twisted waist and a lace-up, open back—paired with nude underpinnings and no bra, a combination that ensured the dress read as daring under flash and stage light alike.

Those close-ups align with eyewitness video and captioned photo sets that identify the piece as a Spring/Summer 2026 design by Cowan and Matso, part of the label’s recent run of red-carpet chain-mail silhouettes.

The near-uniform “goddess” language was not confined to a single platform. Under carpet clips posted by entertainment accounts on Instagram and to short-form feeds on other services, users repeated the term as the first or only word in their reactions, often accompanied by heart or star-sparkle emojis, with several variations emphasising the same idea—“actual goddess,” “Greek goddess,” “a literal goddess”—as fans shared screenshots of the gown’s intricate crystal lattice under flash.

One summary of fan responses noted that commenters had explicitly used “Goddess” in describing the look, a shorthand that captured how the clip travelled beyond fashion-watchers into general celebrity feeds.

While there was dissent—some users questioned the choice at a philanthropy-centred event—the dominant sentiment, visible at a glance beneath the most-viewed posts, was that the look achieved a kind of archetypal glamour that justified the hyperbole.

Context inside the ballroom underscored why Sweeney was present. She was among the evening’s honourees and later took the stage to speak about former world champion boxer Christy Martin, whom she portrays in the upcoming film Christy.

In short clips from the ceremony and official uploads of her acceptance, Sweeney highlighted Martin’s resilience and framed the tribute as central to her appearance, aligning with the gala’s brief to spotlight women whose work and advocacy have tangible impact.

The sequence—head-turning entrance, viral reaction to the dress, and a speech pivoting attention to another woman’s story—repeated a pattern seen at past Power of Women editions, but this time amplified by unusually concentrated audience language about the look itself.

On the carpet, Sweeney’s brief exchanges with fellow attendees added to the night’s momentum. A widely shared moment showed Jamie Lee Curtis clocking the outfit with an animated grin before greeting Sweeney, a clipped sequence that viewers interpreted as an on-site endorsement from a veteran known for cheerleading peers’ risk-taking.

That wordless interaction was consistent with Curtis’s public persona and helped steer casual observers toward reading the outfit as celebratory rather than transgressive, a framing that dovetailed with the “goddess” throughline in comments.

The design’s technical features explain some of the reaction. Under flash photography, the crystal mesh creates a liquid, armour-like surface that evokes classical references—hence the “goddess” shorthand—while the open back and lace-up detailing foreground the body without heavy structural elements.

Photographs from the portico and step-and-repeat captured the dress moving with Sweeney’s gait and catching light at the hip and waist twists, details that reward the image-driven formats in which the clips circulated.

The styling—blonde bob, defined liner, bronzed lip—kept focus on the garment’s engineering and left negative space for the silhouette to read clearly at a distance, a choice that tends to generate cleaner thumbnails and higher share rates in social algorithms. Those choices mirrored Sweeney’s recent swing between casual stadium looks and high-concept couture, with this appearance landing firmly in the latter category.

The “goddess” refrain also intersected with a parallel conversation Sweeney has been steering in recent days about perception and agency. In an on-the-record interview tied to her honour, she addressed years of scrutiny over her appearance, recalling that, as a teenager, she was told to “fix [her] face” with Botox if she wanted to succeed.

She reiterated that she has “never gotten anything done,” said she is “absolutely terrified of needles,” and intends to “age gracefully,” pushing back on speculation fuelled by comparison photos from her early career.

Those remarks supplied a ready counterpoint for supporters who framed the dress as an expression of confidence rather than a bid for attention, and they appeared in the comment arguments that ran alongside the “goddess” messaging, with fans citing her own statements as a baseline for interpreting the look.

Not all responses were unqualified praise. A minority of commenters argued that the sheerness was ill-suited to a philanthropic stage and said it undercut the content of her speech, a critique visible in threads where debates about empowerment and display are routine.

Others countered that the evening’s premise—celebrating women’s achievements in public—coexists with the right to show up as one chooses, and that Sweeney’s on-stage focus on Christy Martin made clear where she intended the night’s attention to rest.

That back-and-forth tracked with coverage that described both admiration and backlash, yet the measurable top-line reaction across the highest-engagement posts and clips was the repetitive superlative that produced the headline-level takeaway: many viewers thought the look read as mythic and said so with the same single word.

In the hours after the gala, additional stills and reels from the event cemented the narrative. High-angle shots of Sweeney crossing the carpet in three-quarter profile and stage-side images of her at the lectern in the same dress were re-posted by entertainment accounts, prompting further comment streams that echoed the language from earlier in the evening.

One fan-reaction round-up captured the sentiment plainly, quoting a user who called her a “Goddess” and others who added “stunning,” “ethereal,” and “mesmerising,” while another edit spliced the carpet sequence with a brief cut of her speech, captioning the montage with the same single-word label.

The repetition suggested a feedback loop familiar to social-video cycles: an eye-catching visual yields a simple descriptor; the descriptor becomes the hook; and subsequent posts import that language to maximise recognition and shares.

Sweeney’s stage remarks anchored the substance of the night. In the official recording of her acceptance and corroborating clips from the floor, she spoke about being underestimated, connected that experience to Martin’s career, and urged young women to own their power without waiting for permission.

Those lines drew applause in the room and supplied quotable sentences for captions attached to portraits taken backstage with Martin and fellow honourees. The juxtaposition—viral dress, purposeful message—was central to how supporters defended the look in comment exchanges, arguing that the optics of the gown did not eclipse the clarity of what she said at the podium.

The designers’ role in the moment was also part of the conversation. Christian Cowan’s recent work has leaned into club-adjacent exuberance and crystallised surfaces, and Matso’s collaboration on this piece emphasised negative space that plays well under flash.

By crediting the look to the Spring/Summer 2026 collection, posts placed the gown on a runway-to-red-carpet continuum that fashion-savvy commenters recognise, which may explain why a portion of the “goddess” commentary came from style accounts and not just celebrity fan pages. For Cowan and Matso, the sustained visibility across platforms—complete with synchronous descriptors—functions as validation of the collection’s red-carpet viability.

Outside the style discourse, Sweeney’s public positioning in 2025 has been marked by unusually high attention to her image. In the months leading up to the gala, she fielded waves of online debate about brand campaigns and marketing choices while maintaining that her career strategy rests on choosing work that interests her and using visibility to produce projects.

Her remarks this week about ageing, natural features and self-definition provided context that many commenters imported into their readings of the carpet moment; to those supporters, the “goddess” label was less about idealised perfection than about owning the frame in which she chooses to appear. That explanation surfaced repeatedly beneath reposts of her speech clips and portraits with Martin.

Among peers inside the room, the tone appeared supportive. The brief red-carpet exchange with Jamie Lee Curtis became one of the night’s most replayed visuals and dovetailed with a stream of in-ballroom posts that showed Sweeney greeting fellow honourees and presenters.

Those micro-interactions—smiles, embraces, and passing words that did not carry in the audio—gave viewers a sense of consensus in the room and buttressed the online “goddess” chorus with images of collegiality. For casual audiences encountering only the carpet clip, that single moment with Curtis read as endorsement enough.

By Thursday morning, the pattern was set. Photogalleries, reels and reposts framed the dress as Sweeney’s “most daring look yet,” while the comment sections repeated the same handful of descriptors that had attached to the first viral clips. In practical terms, the staying power of the moment owes as much to the dress’s image-making properties—how it photographs, how it moves under lights—as to any wider narrative about its wearer.

But in the semantics of social reaction, the uniformity of the headline word did notable work, collapsing disparate audiences into a single-term verdict that travelled quickly and cleanly: to many viewers, she looked like a goddess. Sweeney’s own contribution—an acceptance speech centred on someone else’s fight and legacy—ensured that the evening’s meaning, once the surface spectacle receded, remained grounded in what the night was designed to honour.