Out Of Touch

(the only work-safe pic accompanying this article)


NO one blinked at the Marc Jacobs fashion show last week when the model Freja Beha Erichsen appeared in a sheer black top that revealed that she was wearing a nipple ring. No one blushed at the Chris Benz show when Sasha Luss and Ekat Kiseleva posed in see-through camisoles. No one seemed particularly hot or bothered that Ali Stephens’s breasts were clearly visible through her dress when she walked for Derek Lam. No one was outraged that Francisco Costa showed a transparent raincoat at Calvin Klein with nothing but a thong underneath.

We have become so desensitized to images of naked celebrities, sex tapes and Internet pornography that designers are hard-pressed to create anything that seems really transgressive. Even a strong undercurrent of bondage in the spring collections, with harnesses at Proenza Schouler and Rodarte, caging stripes at Narciso Rodriguez and Thakoon and blackout bars across the breasts of a sheer top from Cushnie et Ochs, a new label by recent fashion school graduates Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs, failed to whip up a frenzy.
One could argue that American tastes have become less puritanical, but it seems more likely that they have simply become dulled.
NYT.

OK, I’ll grant that (capitalF)ashion is supposed to be theatrical and edgy and push boundaries. But COME ON. Even when this season’s runway themes trickle down to the ready-to-wear racks, who will be actually ready to wear this particular trend?

(And may I just add that for many of us, going braless is not “liberating,” but just damned uncomfortable.)
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12 Comments

  1. I’m sure when it hits the stores, it will be sheer tops that you wear with camisoles, or sheer inserts in dresses….as the story points out, this isn’t very new. YSL did it before. I don’t find the sheer pieces as silly as the Chanel pasties Lagerfeld did a number of years ago!

  2. I’m beginning to care less and less whether I can wear clothes. I want my eyes to dance. I suppose this is why we have couture…but there should be some sort of mid-ground.

    It is for this reason that I simultaneously love and loathe Thom Browne.

  3. Dejapseu: The qualifier ‘for many of us’ is important. These anorexic, size 0 or size -2 models hardly have breasts to worry about. :-/

  4. I really don’t think runway can be taken at all literally- and there is always layering. But most of this stuff doesn’t even make it to retail, and if it does, it’s modified.

  5. You’re probably all correct that it will either be quite watered down or won’t make it to mass market at all. I guess I should just quit hoping to see anything on runways that would eventually translate into something I’d want to wear.

    Bitter? What makes you say that?

    ;-p

  6. Why on earth would I want my male peers — who wear stiffly starched, non-transparent Oxford-cloth shirts — to get a clear view of my breasts (or even to think they might?).

    For a woman with a white-collar job, this is a no-win fashion. If your breasts show well, you’re distracting the men and will be treated like a sex object. And if they don’t show well, you’re a failed sex object, which is pathetic and self-defeating.

    But the guys in codpieces, and I’ll consider a sheer top over a camisole. Maybe.

  7. Oh come on…I know that you are saving your pennies for that transparent raincoat and that sheer camisole. I know I am.
    Doesn’t every woman need those kind of pieces for their work wardrobes….
    Oh..I forgot, the women who can buy couture don’t have work wardrobes becaues they don’t, you know, actually work.

  8. Ok, I’m in my mid-20s and it strikes me as ridiculous. What next? Models strutting down with nothing on at all so we can imagine them wearing not just the cami but everything else? Then we can all ooh and awe at our own imagination’s work.

    The sad thing is how many people around here in Florida would think that was perfectly acceptable street wear. I went to a college music audition recently and one of the girls wore no bra and tube top so thin that it might as well have been sheer — especially in the well-air-conditioned room.

  9. I can only encourage the designer’s designs 😉 OK, I know these are dresses/outfits that are not worn every day, but on a nice party tehy are stunning!

    Ow, end the model’s legs seems endless…