What is a garment for?
Anthropologists answer that it protects from the cold and covers nudity.
So what good is transparent clothing for?
Because in fact, it favors neither one nor the other.
The question arises at the time of the great success of the transparent dress, a garment that reveals everything, including (especially?) the parts of the body that are usually modestly hidden.
At this time, we are talking about a socio-cultural phenomenon that is taking place above all on the planet of the famous.
Can we therefore see the beginnings of a revolution in the locker room of ordinary mortals?
Too early to tell, the virus has not yet reached Madame Tout-Le-Monde.
But we hadn't seen such enthusiasm since the 1960s, when transparent clothing became popular as a symbol of liberated sexuality.
Sixty years later, the trajectory of this symbolism has shifted, narrowing around the ideas of power and female emancipation.
Whether it's windy, raining or freezing, the sexy dress is on every media outlet.
And of course, the buzz follows.
We could see Kate Moss, at the dawn of her fifties - age, let us recall, targeted as the tipping point towards the invisibilization of women in the media, walking around in panties,
breasts in majesty in her transparent dress in the middle of November, in London.
Not chilly either singer Rihanna who used it to unpack panties, bra and well advanced pregnancy in the middle of winter in Paris.
Actress Olivia Wilde made it a revenge dress after her breakup with Harry Styles.
While American actress Chloé Sevigny and French influencer Camille Charrière sent norms and conventions flying at the foot of the altar in a transparent wedding dress.
Read alsoThe influencer Camille Charrière gets married in a transparent dress at Maxim's
So what does this feminine flesh displayed in all directions tell?
After a period of pandemic which put everyone under glass, and silenced the crazy pageantry of the evening, some saw it as an opportunity to draw attention to these famous silhouettes subjected to fierce media competition since their return to red carpets.
A visibility that went hand in hand with the scent of a certain feminist statement.
Varnished with a transparent veil, these celebrities invite you to live naked (well, in panties) and to claim your body not as an object of desire in the eyes of others (even if), but as an affirmation of yourself.
Rihanna leaving the Dior fashion show.
(Paris, March 1, 2022.) Getty Images
Unbolt the injunctions
For Rihanna, it's hard not to see it as a well-controlled intention.
The singer knows how much in the fashion sector everything is about appearance and symbols.
A subject that she obviously masters at her fingertips for having herself imposed a more inclusive look on fashion with her lingerie brand Fenty, which has enjoyed phenomenal success since its launch in 2018. Her advocacy has always been simple (and effectively seller): include everyone, regardless of shape, size, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation.
As the queen of repositioning representation, it's hardly surprising that the
Diamonds performer
has continued its way in the upheaval of codes by playing the card of sexy pregnancy.
In view of the torrent of contrasting reactions aroused by her little outfits on social networks, we understand that this fertile belly coated in a transparent babydoll suddenly became contradictory with the appearance and the maternal role that was expected of her.
And ultimately, Rihanna's sexy and highly publicized pregnancy style has turned, in 2022, into a platform against internalized injunctions.
Fashion is in droves
This discourse that combines assertiveness and transparent dress would not be possible without the support of fashion designers.
If some designers like Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier or Vivienne Westwood have often used transparency in their creations, to make them audacious, provocative and avant-garde, it now invites itself to all levels of fashion.
And tends to break down the traditional social rules surrounding the wearing of clothing.
The next summer and winter collections are full of them: Acne, Alaïa, Givenchy, Ami, Coperni, Burberry, Chanel, Chloé, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Emporio Armani...
The brands are moving forward in unison to ignore old ideas about the wardrobe, and push back, more or less timidly, but always a little more, the limits of very sexy.
However, in this exercise in the aesthetics of the flesh claimed loud and clear on the catwalks, one point emerges: the young and slender silhouettes that embody it.
The vision of the assertive woman, freed from norms, is overwhelmingly made in size 34, short of wrinkles and white hair.
This approach gives rise to a strange mix between deep questioning of the female object and the difficulty of fitting into this era of diversity and body positivism.
But perhaps transparency can help overcome this paradox, encouraged by stars pushing the boundaries.
Last December, Paloma Elsesser,
Vogue
, invited herself into the conversation with a dress signed Dilara Findikoglu enhanced with a corset, which revealed her generous chest.
A coquetry that is in no way naive...