FASHION
SHEER BLOUSE £44.95, CHICHI
BRA £18, LEPEL
LONDON AT DE
GRUCHY
BRALETTE £29, FREE
PEOPLE AT VOISINS
SKIRT £255,
GANNI AT
VOISINS
28
Fast-forward to the eighties and
boundaries were being pushed further with
midriff s making their entrance thanks to
the racy crop-top, (a nod to the aerobics
craze and the popularity of the movie,
‘Flashdance’). By the late nineties and early
noughties, hugely popular music artists;
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera
popularised the garment so much so,
that the crop-top achieved mainstream
altitudes amongst teeny-boppers, causing
schools to expressly ban the exposure of the
midriff from their dress code. Anyone else
remember rebelling by tying their school
shirt up to navel revealing heights after
school whilst reciting ‘Hit Me Baby, One
More Time’, into a hairbrush, alone in their
bedroom with as much sexual prowess as a
twelve-year-old can muster? Just me?
By 2006, fashion went back to contour,
a look so favoured a century earlier via
corsetry.
Figure-hugging
body-con dresses became a
go-to look for a night out
as they specifi cally enhanced
the feminine hour-glass
shape; a clear visualisation
of silhouette, useful for
mating selection purposes
to the male species within
the nightclub territory.
‘Body-con’, short for ‘body-
conscious, (not contour),
clothing had been around
since the late eighties,
originally attributive to the
invention of the ‘bandage
dress’ by Hervé Leger but
hadn’t gained momentum
until 15 years later.
SAINT LAURENT
Nevertheless, the speed
at which sex appeal has exuded through fashion
has accelerated like no time before it over the most
recent last two decades. By 2010 we had become
desensitised to visions of excess fl esh and dresses
that vacuum packed our bodies to proudly reveal
our physiques. Designers scratched their heads.
Where could sex-appeal in womenswear go next?
Brands advanced by designing items of clothing
that had never been seen before by sending
runway models down the catwalk in underwear
to be worn as outerwear, and the world followed
suit, audaciously driving social and sexual limits
in clothing to uncharted terrain. All of a sudden
a ‘lacy bralette’ became something every girl
owned, while cunning brands marvelled with glee
for simply throwing a suffi x on the situation by
adding ‘-lette’ to the end of ‘bra’ to distinguish it
from actual bras.
But after all this pioneering graft work, where
does this leave us today? Ironically, as women have
fought for the liberation of sex appeal in their
wardrobes over the years, it appears they have
simultaneously slipped into the tricky business of
objectifying themselves. And as we fi nd ourselves
amidst what has been labelled ‘Th e Th ird Wave of
Feminism’, undoubtedly accentuated by the likes
of the #metoo movement and high power celebrity
women such as Beyonce and Lady Gaga, we appear
to have hit a stumbling block amidst our
journey. Popular opinion today states
that women should be allowed to dress
however they wish, provocatively or otherwise,
stipulating that clothing that exudes sex-appeal
creates a layer of armour that makes a woman feel
empowered, cue the recent #bossbabe movement.
Yet, on the other hand, the very people that place
such value on this opinion complain of the media
sexualising women through clothing, therefore
treating them like objects, protesting that such
images give women a false impression of what they
are supposed to look like. Patriarchy! Th ere seems
to be some confusion.
While society makes up its mind on this one,
it might be safe to assume that one aspect that
does appear to trend between the two opinions
is that women are making a stand to no longer
be objectifi ed. Yes, some women may want to
feel noticed and to prosper from the feeling of
power that comes with that, but we do not want
to be solely valued on our image, to the neglect of
other aspects of who we are, such as our thoughts,
feelings and desires. Th erefore, we may start to
see the future of sex-appeal in clothing lies not in
the next shockingly sexualised trend, but more so
the overarching acceptance of how we all choose
to self-express, be it scantily-clad or donning a
burqa, and to know that some fi nd empowerment
in revealing their body as much as others do in
modesty and that these choices do not defi ne
women as individuals.