I love wearing current trends, such as sheer dresses with nice lingerie underneath. I think it can be done elegantly and tastefully. Unfortunately, the places I visit and the people I know are far more conservative than I. So is it scandalous to wear a chic see-through dress to, say, a New England golf club cocktail party? Do I risk being ostracized? — Anna, Washington, D.C.
Ostracization is unlikely, but you definitely risk being the talk of the event (and possibly a few discussions thereafter). Though the naked look, or see-through dressing, has been a surprisingly resilient trend with celebrities, it’s more complicated in the real world. And to be fair, the reason most celebrities opt for the look is the sheer — no pun intended — attention it generates.
That may be good if you are Dakota Johnson, wearing sheer blue Gucci lace at the Zurich Film Festival, or Margot Robbie, in sheer embroidered Armani Privé at a film premiere. Or Beyoncé, in sheer Givenchy at the Met Gala, or Rihanna, who may have started the current craze in 2014 with her sheer Adam Selman to the CFDA awards (if you don’t include Marilyn Monroe and her “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress). But it also set off the Cannes fashion police, who in May felt a need to officially prohibit nudity “on the red carpet, as well as in any other area of the festival.”
The truth is we have been arguing over the propriety of public nudity or semi-nudity since Lady Godiva rode down the streets of Coventry in the 11th century with only her long hair as coverage. Just think of how Saint Laurent shocked the bourgeoisie with his sheer tops in 1966 and how Florence Pugh did it again with sheer Valentino in 2022.
As Meredith Koop, Michelle Obama’s stylist and a contributor to Mrs. Obama’s new book, “The Look” (and hence someone who knows something about society’s often unmerited judgments), emailed when I asked about sheer dressing: “There are a lot of nuanced conversations we could have about women, exposure, safety, history, trend, misogyny, control, subjugation and brainwashing.”
But mostly, she said, what those conversations are about is “revealing people’s narrow apertures of what women should wear, more than revealing skin.”
This may be a vestige of our Puritan past or backlash from our conservative present, and it may be unfair, but it’s also a reality. It’s great to love your body and feel comfortable showing it off, but if you do so in a setting where there are people who probably will be less comfortable with the whole idea (like people at conservative country clubs, a bar mitzvah or pretty much any Washington cocktail party), you should, at the very least, consider the repercussions.
Which is that your outfit, not your actions or conversation or smile, becomes the main subject of conversation. And not just of the evening, but potentially for days and even years thereafter, complete with assumptions that are made about your own value system and why you may have dressed that way.
“This is clichéd but true,” said Risa Heller, the crisis consultant. “There is only one chance to make a first impression. The last thing you want to do is shock people with a lack of understanding of your environment or the cultural mores of wherever you are going — unless, that is, what you are going for. If so, fine, but otherwise you are doing yourself a disservice.”
Still, there are ways to test the waters. Ms. Koop advised layering — “a bustier or sheer turtleneck under a chic oversize blazer or a great leather jacket.” (For the turtleneck, she suggested checking out Gap Studio.) “If you want to ease into experimentation,” she added, “maybe just show a little peek.” Who knows? Doing so may help to expand other people’s definitions of “appropriate”
“You might inspire someone else to express themselves more authentically, to lean into what feels aligned for them,” Ms. Koop said.
Your Style Questions, Answered
Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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