It was the season of the bra. But to what end?
Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier revived the bullet bra; Prada sent what felt like an entire collection of skirts with little more than a napkin covering the models’ chests; Valentino went hard on tops that were barely a bustier. And that was only the start.
After a Miu Miu show full of bras fringed in frills, my colleague Vanessa Friedman wrote that “bras, or bra-like tops, or bras as tops, have become one of the most ubiquitous trends of the season, along with their corollary: the exposed abdomen.”
All of that skin. It was impossible to miss. But it hit a central question we’ve been pondering lately about fashion: Whom is this for? We decided to chat about it to get to the bottom of the bra boom. Is it pandering, body positive or something else entirely? We discuss.
Stella Bugbee: So, bras instead of shirts. I say, no thanks. Even if I pretend for a second that designers really think these tops are for all body types, I can’t think of a time when I’ve wanted to wear a bra as a shirt out in the world. I guess I’m not the target audience.
Marie Solis: I’m with you. It’s the counterpart to the underwear we’ve been seeing on the runway instead of pants. A lazy move for when you can’t put together a full look.
SB: Where is the hypothetical consumer wearing a bra paired with a $5,000 Prada skirt?
Jacob Gallagher: In theory, you could wear it to the next Prada show. But no, there is no real use case for this, other than the red carpet. It’s directional more than wearable.
SB: What direction is it pointing?
MS: One where we emphasize the body of the person more than the clothes they’re wearing, perhaps. We saw that move elsewhere on the runways as Jacob wrote about, with waist-cinching belts.
JG: It expresses something, primarily, about how thin the models are. You look at these outfits and your only real takeaway is “Well, gee, she’s skinny.” It’s doing that thing fashion often does — making us think about our own bodies and how they differ by comparison. After a brief time of seeing more sizes on runways, fashion is back to showing a very thin body as the ideal. And the prevalence of GLP-1s has made that attitude feel acceptable.
MS: I dabbled in bras as tops — mainly bralettes paired with thrifted, flowy skirts — on my college campus when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I remember feeling free and having fun experimenting with clothes. But nothing I saw over the last few weeks gave me even a glimmer of that idea. As much as the models were showing, many of them seemed stiff and hemmed in.
JG: You may look like you’re freeing yourself from something, but it feels like giving into a broader cultural expectation that people show some kind of skin. But am I being too much of a shrew?MS: To look at the trend with a more neutral eye, I guess you could say it’s merely interesting that parts of our bodies that used to shock can now be seen as other things to play with when trying to create an effect with an outfit. But from a silhouette perspective, there is something so uninteresting about the unyielding form of bra cups. There’s such little room for texture, draping, volume — the things that excite me in an actual top.
SB: It feels like a refusal to design for a body with any shape other than stick straight.
JG: There’s so much skin everywhere now that it packs no punch. It doesn’t feel provocative, it just reads as obvious.
What you’re shopping for this fall
After last week’s newsletter, it was comforting to hear that we were not alone in having the shoppies this time of year. Thanks to all of you who wrote in with your fall targets, but I especially want to call out Jennifer for drawing our attention to these ludicrous — in the best way — fringed socks from Alaïa. They’re $2,590. (I’m not sure you could even really call them socks. They’re more like leggings that think they’re a beaded curtain?) As she said: “SO break the bank but come on?!”
Laura had on her list “anything” from the Stockholm cashmere specialist Lisa Yang; Jamie Haller loafers; and a “super soft” sweater alpaca vest in dark turquoise from the Rome brand Apuntob, which, she wrote, “I may have had to track down from a shop in Turin because they are sold out stateside.”
Functional and well priced were Gretchen’s lug-soled zip boots from Loeffler Randall. I enjoyed as well what Erikka wrote in: “This season, I’m eyeing skirts. They are perfect for all this wacky warm weather we are experiencing.” She went in for an affordable, Westminster-y tartan skirt from Gu, Uniqlo’s sprightlier sister label.
And this is a self-serving plug, but Jeff wrote that after our recent newsletter on the British brand Townwear, he now has “about four times on the wish list from them.”
Other things worth knowing about:
-
Is the true legacy of Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent … sweaty toes?
-
An inspiring photo of what to do with a bunch of hair clips you might have sitting around at home that we’ve been thinking about for months.
-
Mike Ditka died last week. His growly voice and slicked-back hair will live forever.
-
Salon C. Lundman and Auralee, two of our favorite brands here at The Fashions, have collaborated on a little collection. The clothes are prosaic with just the right degree of panache. Unfortunately, the collection is only available at Dover Street Market in Tokyo. Sad face!
-
The various “edits” (staples, party, work, vacation) up on the e-comm site for Carmen, an Amsterdam boutique whose owner is always providing tons of easy, covetable looks on her personal Instagram, too.
-
I just need to draw your attention to the way this model for A.Presse poses. This man is the Twyla Tharp of unlocking new bodily contortions while wearing a leather jacket. If you know this man, if you are this man, email me.
-
With this new collaboration between JW Anderson and Ugg, the potato shoe is really nearing its final form.
What we’re reading and watching:
-
“Brother of the More Famous Jack,” after this Dwight Garner review: “This book is ideally short, yet one wants to live inside it, in the charmed parenthesis it opens inside the daily grind.”
-
Lynette Nylander’s fashion month outfit retrospective, teeming with Giovanna Flores tops.
Look of the Week
The post Is Anyone Really Wearing a Bra as a Shirt? appeared first on New York Times.
