Wearing Underwear As Outerwear Is An Act Of Defiance

Plus, it’s on trend.
Published October 18, 2024

(Image: Alamy)

For or a medium that’s all about rules—don’t pair navy and black together, match your shoes and accessories, don’t mix metals—fashion loves to break them. Sometimes, the more broken the rule, the better. 

Out-of-the-box styling and dressing are what make fashion interesting. It’s what keeps our curiosity piqued and our creativity charged, so when fashion asks us to dive deep into our underwear drawers and don our undergarments outside? We listen. 

As an outer-garment trend, lingerie has been a mainstay of the fashion sphere for about 30 years. What’s in our underwear drawers usually stays private, so wearing them as clothing when one pops to the shops can cause ruffles. Think Kendall Jenner getting papped in black tights and boylegs, or Olivia Rodrigo in a lace bodysuit with visible briefs at the 2021 Met Gala, or Bella Hadid’s penchant for white micro shorts.

“These trends make headlines when worn by celebrities,” says Summer Anne Lee, fashion historian and Adjunct Instructor at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. “It’s both shocking and sexy to see traditionally private garments on display in broad daylight.” 

It’s alluring wearing pieces in unexpected ways and subverting fashion norms. Boxers and bloomers are the rising stars, ditching their underwear status, and styled peeking out of baggy jeans or the bottom of a frock, or worn as bike shorts and standalone bottoms. 

“Bloomers feel like a natural extension of the bow and coquette trends, continuing this celebration of girlhood and challenging outdated ideas of femininity,” says Tina Elise Grasso, founder of Australian lingerie brand Chouchou Intimates.

“For so long, being feminine was demonised and having a ‘super-girly’ aesthetic was ridiculed, some even deeming it anti-feminist. By embracing ruffles and ribbons, women are healing their inner child and embracing femininity on their own terms,” she says.

The 2023 “blokette” trend (a portmanteau of “bloke” and “coquette”) allowed people to play freely with masculine and feminine styles, mixing and matching sportswear and “girly” pieces as they pleased, a defiant and playful approach. Breaking these so-called fashion rules is, “another sign of fashion losing all of the decorum that used to dictate exactly what types of garments could be worn when, where and by whom,” says Summer.  

"In recent years, we’ve seen boxers and bloomers rise up the trend ranks"

Summer is also a committee member of Underpinnings Museum, an online museum dedicated to the history of underwear, and says over the past few hundred years, and well into the 20th century, undergarments were essential for achieving fashionable silhouettes. 

To take what’s been traditionally hidden, and make it public consumption, is a form of rebellion. As women, what we wear under our clothing has often been policed. “Women generally didn’t feel that they could go out in polite society without their underpinnings, whether that be corsets and cage crinolines or brassieres and girdles,” says Summer. 

And that list truly does go on, with other forms of lingerie like corset covers and slips often worn to cover panty lines. “Underwear over more underwear!” says Summer. Undergarments were so socially enforced that overgarments were designed with these layers upon layers of underpinnings in mind. “In other words, the garment wouldn’t fit properly without them,” she says.

Popularised in the ’90s, the slip dress has now been integrated as a staple garment. What’s more, the humble T-shirt started as men’s underwear. Fashion is an ever-changing organism, and sometimes clothes have to fight for their rights.

In comparison to styles of previous centuries, modern-day clothes are infinitely more practical and multifunctional. An embrace of underwear and casual clothes as outer garments is a win, for comfort, as well as self-expression.

(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: Getty Images)

“Lingerie is deeply personal and naturally empowering. I think its unique ability to boost one’s self-image by making them feel confident [and] sensual is what has made it a fashion mainstay for decades,” says Tina.

Perhaps it’s why we’re turning back to vintage styles and translating them for our contemporary lives. “I think vintage styles evoke a sense of nostalgia and tell a story, adding depth to designs and making them more than just trend pieces,” says Tina.

Summer points out how underwear has always acted as a vehicle for cultural identifiers. “By the sixteenth century, European nobility and royalty like King Henry VIII would show off the high quality of their linen undergarments through a technique known as slashingand-puffing, where the undergarment was pulled through decorative slashes in the outer garment,” she says.

This form of peacocking might sound a tad onerous, but the behaviour is mirrored in our current fashion world, too. “I think there’s a connection to this and the idea of revealing the brand name of one’s underwear on the waistband, like Calvin Klein,” says Summer.

Power and fashion are longtime lovers and Summer and Tina point to the dominance of lingerie worn by touring pop stars, including Taylor Swift’s Midnights-inspired garter, Olivia Rodrigo’s bedazzled high-waist briefs, and Sabrina Carpenter’s frilly micro bloomers.

It’s unsurprising to learn that bloomers—which originally gathered at the ankles—became popular with women’s rights activists in the 1850s.

"Power and fashion are longtime lovers"

It’s said that American activist Elizabeth Smith Miller cut her dress so it was knee-length and paired it with full-length Turkish pantaloons (later known as bloomers). Amelia Bloomer, her friend, newspaper editor and fellow women’s rights advocate, helped popularise the “Bloomer costume”.

At the sight of women wearing trousers in public, controversy ensued. “I stood amazed at the furore I had unwittingly caused,” wrote Amelia, whose surname became associated with the style. “Some praised and some blamed, some commented, and some ridiculed and condemned.” 

That’s fashion for you.

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This article originally appeared in Issue 02 of Cosmopolitan Australia. Get your copy and subscribe to future issues here.

Maggie Zhou
Maggie Zhou is a Melbourne-based freelance writer, a slow fashion advocate and co-host of the Culture Club podcast.
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