The bare truth about NAKED DRESSING

The trend isn't just for A-listers. But it isn't necessarily for all of us, either.

- Halie LeSavage

It’s 1993, and Kate Moss is attending Elite Models’ Look of the Year party in a completely sheer slip dress and little black briefs. It’s 1998, and Charlotte York tells Carrie Bradshaw her backless DKNY slip for her first date with Big on Sex and the City looks more like a “naked dress”. It’s 2014, and Rihanna is crowned the CFDA’s Fashion Icon, braless under a starry pink net of Swarovski crystals. It’s 2015, and Beyoncé is ascending the Met Gala steps cloaked in a Givenchy gown made up of nude tulle and strategically placed crystals. It’s 2024, and Emily Ratajkowski or Zoë Kravitz or (insert your preferred KarJenner here) is arriving at some red carpet, somewhere, in a corset or sheath that leaves nothing to the imagination.

All those outfits are variations on the same red carpet theme: naked dressing, which has become a catch-all term for garments that include sheer fabrics, strategic cut-outs and body-hugging silhouettes that reveal more than they conceal. It’s become the default for when celebs want to be seen.

The precedent stretches back decades. In the 1920s, starlets like the original It girl, Clara Bow, were slipping into semi-sheer garments for the first silent films. The advent of the sexual revolution-meets-women’s liberation movement in the ’60s and ’70s brought more adventurously constructed pieces to the fore with it.

But naked dressing really hit its stride in near-present Hollywood. At this point, by watching red carpet live streams and scrolling social media for a living, I have seen more nearly naked celebrities than I have seen actual naked people in real life.