First they came for our skirts. Now they’re coming for our bras.
If you thought the current trend of wearing just your panties – inspired by Miu Miu’s 2023 collection – was a challenge, you might want to avert your eyes from this week’s Paris catwalks.
Presenting her debut collection for Chloe yesterday, designer Chemena Kamali revealed more than a new direction for the house: She also revealed much of the models’ breasts, in sheer dresses of black lace, white guipure and dove gray chiffon. There was a seventies feel to it, a decade where bras were considered very unnecessary.
Still, Chloe’s fall/winter 2024 show was relatively chaste compared to Saint Laurent’s runway on Tuesday. Yes, Saint Laurent’s designs were beautiful. But they were also very pure.
A model walks the runway in a sheer ruffled dress with a cutout at the midriff during designer Chemena Kamali’s debut collection for Chloe
Much of the Chloe collection revealed the models’ breasts, like on this lacy white design
No surprises: the trend has gained momentum, especially during awards season, with many A-listers favoring gossamer dresses.
But this wasn’t just anything. This was extremely transparent: a selection of sheer bustiers, blouses and halternecks, all worn without a bra. Pure terror, if you like – for most women, at least. As an exercise in craftsmanship, the Saint Laurent collection was a success. As an exercise in body diversity, this was less the case.
Despite the fashion industry’s pledge to be more inclusive, there is little evidence of real change this Paris Fashion Week.
Paris has always been the city most associated with the ideal of the ultra-slim model. According to curve model Felicity Hayward, whose ‘Include the Curve’ initiative is tracking size inclusivity in the four major fashion capitals of New York, London, Milan and Paris, Paris comes last, with just 28 plus-size models coming last appear on the catwalk. season, out of an estimated 4,000 looks shown.
Judging from the collections unveiled so far, this season the number seems to be even lower.
At the Chloe and Saint Laurent shows, as well as the show for the Swedish brand Acne Studios, the models not only had to be as slim as a reed: they also had to pass the pencil test – those schoolgirls who usually measure breast size. something we haven’t thought about since we were 13.
Some may argue that you can wear the sheer look at any age, with one condition: that your breasts are no larger than an A-cup. Or maybe, with a push, a perky little B. That’s a small blow to body diversity. A cynic might even argue that this was the point. The average cup size in Great Britain is 36D.
As brazen as it feels to discuss a woman’s breast size, when the breast in question is on display, it is only human to suspect.
Designer Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent collection followed a similar theme, as many models wore darker, sheer outfits
One model in the Chloe show wore a gold belt over her sheer white dress with thigh-high black leather boots
And Marks & Spencer’s bra fitters were able to quickly assess the cup size of front row guest, 39-year-old actress and director Olivia Wilde, who looked striking in a sheer black bodysuit worn with a black pencil. skirt. Georgia May Jagger, 32, also embraced the nude trend in a sheer black halter neck with vertical stripes.
However, any VIP guest over 40 was less brash. Actress Monica Bellucci, 59, wore a jumpsuit, while supermodels Kate Moss, 50, and Linda Evangelista, 58, kept their jackets on.
But such modesty did not exist on the catwalk. When coats appeared, they were largely hung indifferently over one arm, to better show off the sheer clothing.
According to Anthony Vaccarello, the Belgian-Italian designer who has been at the helm of Saint Laurent since 2016, the body-conscious garments were meant to resemble sheer undergarments, “simultaneously revealing and enveloping the woman wearing them, like hypergraphic X-rays.”
Vaccarello had made life even more difficult for himself (and his studios) by choosing to work with the same transparent fabric used for tights.
As anyone who has ever worn a pair in seconds will attest, this is not a durable material. Backstage after the show, the designer admitted that it would be difficult to mass-produce such delicate clothes.
Of the 48 looks shown, so many were transparent that by the end of the show the nudity had almost lost its shock value. But maybe that was the point. On the red carpet, the body positivity movement has seen a host of twentysomethings, including Florence Pugh, Dua Lipa, Zendaya and Kendall Jenner, embrace the braless trend, whether they’re wearing sheer tops or backless dresses.
For some, wearing a bra is as much a political statement as it is a fashion statement. “Controlling women by commenting on their bodies has been working for a long time,” Pugh said, in response to the backlash she received for baring her breasts in a Valentino dress last summer. “We have become so afraid of the human body that we can’t even look at my two cute little nipples behind fabric in a way that isn’t sexual.”
But going braless isn’t always a powerful statement of freedom. For some, going braless is just another way to get noticed. And in the age of social media, it’s important to get noticed.
As attention-seeking tricks go, it’s not new. In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent famously shocked society by putting a see-through blouse on the catwalk and saying, “Nothing is more beautiful than a naked body.”
Some of us might disagree. For anyone whose cup size is too big, whose self-confidence is low or who doesn’t have a driver to get them home safely at the end of a night out (big hits otherwise on the No. 73 bus), there is only one option: ruin the look by wearing a bra.
Or, of course, bypass it completely. After all, before you can say “pass the nipple tape,” opaque clothing will undoubtedly be back in fashion.