If you’re hitting the tiles tonight and still can’t decide what to wear, how about channelling fashion’s hottest trend for 2024? Or should that be draughtiest, because it involves a severely underdressed lower half – as in nothing but your knickers. Sheer tights are permitted, but only if they’re worn under your undies.
You can blame Miu Miu, the label that sent models down the runway in bejewelled briefs at Paris fashion week in March. Leading the charge was actor Emma Corrin, who later chose a similar look for the red carpet at the Venice film festival, pairing an olive green woollen cardi and knickers set with brogues and a tiny handbag.
“I love it! If I were younger, I would go out in panties!” Miu Miu’s creative director, Miuccia Prada, has enthused, but to anyone not from Planet Fashion, the effect was contumaciously comical. It hasn’t stopped a host of labels and celebrities from following suit, and last week the fad found its way on to Woman’s Hour, when Vogue’s Julia Hobbs described trying the look out herself. She wore glittery, embroidered Miu Miu knickers (they retail for an entirely reasonable £3,750), which she likened to a “sequined diaper”, admitting to drawing a few “quizzical looks” on the tube.
She pegged the trend to Edie Sedgwick’s 1960s look, an aesthetic itself informed by jazz ballet garb, but there are more empowering sources of inspiration. Just consider Henry VIII and his codpieces, or Superman, whose topsy-turvy costume was modelled on circus performers and weightlifters. As with even the most provocative fashions, there’s not much that’s new about this one. When Marlon Brando smouldered in his white T-shirt, tees were supposed to be kept hidden beneath button-downs. Then there were Jane Fonda’s leotards, Tina Turner’s bustiers, Madonna’s pointy bras. Knickers have been vying for our attention ever since Calvins were flashed in the 80s and whale tail thongs flaunted in the 90s. See also Kate Middleton’s student fashion show stunt and Carrie Bradshaw’s “fashion roadkill” moment.
The question that we civilians often ask of fashion is, why now? Is it a feminist, post-#MeToo thumbing of the nose at the all-too-recent tabloid obsession with celebrity upskirting and VPL shaming? Or is it just another way for a misogynist industry to make women look ridiculous? You could equally see it as a wily subversion of performative sexiness – a kind of anti-drag – since, despite what Signora Prada says, these briefs aren’t really “panties” at all. Whether ribbed or knitted, the lingerie they most resemble are polyester PE knickers.
Interestingly, one thing this trend for appearing to make the private public is not is revealing. Note that designers are twinning their pants with roll necks and cosy knits – it’s librarian up top, Freudian bad dream down below. But in comparison with the thong bikinis and micro shorts that were all over the high street like a heat rash last summer, the overall effect is trim, almost prim.
At least, that’s how it looks on models. I can only imagine how it will work for the rest of us. And then there’s all the waxing and toning. Plus, as winterwear, if your underwear is on top of your tights, what’s underneath? Because, let’s face it, if the answer’s nothing, it’s a yeast infection waiting to happen.
But while there’s no way I’m going to be stepping out in my scanties this New Year’s Eve, I shall be raising a toast to statement knickers. There hasn’t been much in 2023’s news cycle to raise a smile but this beyond parody fad , complete with allusions to despotic Tudors, big tops and shiny leotards, is a gift.
• Hephzibah Anderson is a freelance journalist and critic
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