Britney Spears Fought to Wear Her Iconic Red Catsuit In the ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ Video
Britney Spears has had plenty of unforgettable music videos throughout her career. To this day, the video for her 2000 single “Oops!… I Did It Again” holds a special place in fans’ hearts.
‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ was a smash Britney Spears song
Spears burst onto the scene in 1999 with her smash debut single “…Baby One More Time.” The following year, she recreated her success with her breakout single in a big way with “Oops!… I Did It Again,” the lead single off her sophomore album of the same name.
While “…Baby One More Time” introduced the world to Britney Spears, “Oops!… I Did It Again” made her into a superstar that no one could escape. So when it came time to make the music video for the song, it had to be something no one could ever forget.
Britney Spears fought for her iconic red catsuit in the ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ video
In the “Oops!… I Did It Again” video, Spears wore a red latex jumpsuit as she danced her way from Earth to outer space. In 2020, Vogue interviewed the video’s stylist, Estee Stanley, to discuss Spears’ now-famous costume.
Stanley and Spears worked together to crafting the initial fashion vision for the video’s space-age theme. “We wanted everything to be sexy and monochromatic,” Stanley said. They came up with all black-and-white outfits for Spears, and Stanley dressed the backup dancers in silvery looks, with Spears’ boyfriend in the video wearing an astronaut costume.
Still, Spears (along with Stanley) couldn’t decide on what she wanted to be her main outfit for the video. They turned to Michael Bush, a costume designer who was doing all of Spears’s custom tour looks at the time, to make something exciting for Spears. “It was a last-minute thing to go to him and see if he could make something for us,” Stanley admitted. “In [the music] world, everybody has to do everything in two minutes, so we knew he could pull it off. And he did.”
Bush ended up creating the iconic red latex suit overnight. Spears immediately loved it, and it quickly became a part of pop music history.
Britney was sweating while filming the ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ video
Latex is a notably difficult fabric to work with. Not only is it a hard fabric to tailor, but because it has no ventilation, the wearer begins sweating almost instantly after donning the outfit.
Stanley knew the dangers of wearing latex and was wary about putting Spears in a fitted latex outfit. Not only would she be wearing the restrictive material, but she would be dancing for hours on end.
“If you put a latex outfit on, you’re immediately sweating, and I knew she was going to be dancing all day,” Stanley said. “I was nervous that she would pass out.”
Stanley’s fears about her being uncomfortable came true. “After one take, I unzipped her, and it literally looked like a bucket of water poured out of this jumpsuit,” he remembered. “She had a very intense day, to say the least.”
