The past couple of years have undoubtedly been fashion’s nakedest. Just look at the most ubiquitous trends: freeing the nip, see-through garments, exposed underwear, and, most recently, assless chaps. The barely-there ethos has also infiltrated multiple style categories including bags and shoes.
It makes sense, therefore, that the risqué attitude has now seeped into the one space where it was once very much off-limits: the workplace. Welcome to the era of NSFW (as in not-suitable-for-work) office wear, aka corporate sleaze.
What Is Corporate Sleaze?
Traditionally, corporate employees or office-goers wore pencil skirts, blouses, button-downs, and suits to work. Well, the corporate sleaze trend takes all of those items and adds a little spice.
Styling options include wearing sheer pieces, exposing lingerie, unbuttoning tops, and shortening hemlines. These dress code no-nos were previously seen as transgressions that merited HR memos (or worse) — and still are in most office settings — but these days, the look has been upended by fashion’s most brazen.
Celebrities Love Office Cosplay
The office siren has long been an alluring archetype or “corporate fetish,” a term coined by Emily Sundberg, writer of fashion business newsletter Feed Me. That’s the persona style stars have been leaning into, especially Elsa Hosk.
The Helsa Studio founder is the biggest advocate of the aesthetic, wearing suits without bras, exposing her panties’ waistbands, pairing itty-bitty hemlines with boxy jackets, or taking the top and pencil-skirt combo (an office uniform for many) with a sheer, freed-nip twist.
She even starred in an office-inspired campaign for I.AM.GIA, which was completely NSFW. She dubbed it a “C.E.Hoe” shoot, rife with looks that pushed the limits of what’s acceptable at a place of work. She stripped to skivvies in the photocopy room, wore a sheer, nip-baring top with a micro mini, and unbuttoned her blouse to expose her bra while lounging on her desk.
Beyoncé also gave the style her stamp of approval, developing a particular affinity for gray suiting. To promote her SirDavis whisky, she dressed like a boss and rocked a gray plaid skirt suit with the deepest, décolletage-baring plunge.
The “16 CARRIAGES” songstress also rocked iterations of the plunging, no-bra look a few other times, including in a bedazzled suit and blazer dress.
Even low-key Jennifer Lawrence embraced the style at Paris Fashion Week last February. She wore a boardroom favorite: a vest, trousers, and blazer combo. But instead of wearing a button-down under the vest, she, well… didn’t. The result was a cleavage-forward look that was peak office siren.
Bella Hadid is also a fan. Last May, she donned a gray Gucci ensemble that consisted of a blazer, a low top, and a micro miniskirt.
Weeks later, Miley Cyrus wore the exact same ’fit to appear on David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
The Style Is On Runways, Too
Designers are also drawn to corp sleaze, sending models in iterations of the trend down runways including Luar and Peter Do’s Fall/Winter 2024 shows. The biggest advocate of the style, however, is Saint Laurent. At Paris Fashion Week, the French house basically took its corpcore DNA and turned it sleazy.
On the label’s September runway, 36 out of 48 looks freed the nip in see-through permutations of “office attire.” Think: pussy-bow blouses and pencil skirts, a trademark Saint Laurent outfit. The ensembles that weren’t sheer were also risqué, like suits worn sans top for a majorly plunging neckline.
The trend continued well into the Spring/Summer 2025 season, especially on the runways of Prada and Sportmax. The former paired skirt suits with bras, while the latter strategically skipped an item of clothing per look, pairing trousers with a bra as a top, or a blazer with mere undies.
But Is It Practical?
The 2020 lockdowns undoubtedly altered office dressing for good. Years of working remotely meant wearing outfits that were Zoom-appropriate on top and comfortable on bottom. As employees returned to their company bases, comfort became a factor in dressing for work, and dress codes somewhat loosened up.
Still, the corporate sleaze style is mostly relegated to celebs and TikTok; those who don’t have to act within the confines of convention. Traipse into a conference room in nothing but a bra and trousers at your own risk, but feel free to cosplay as an office siren after-hours.
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