The Runway Report: Why you should be wearing your lingerie beyond the bedroom this season

When you boil down the history of lounging around in lingerie outside of the bedroom, it proves to be surprisingly long. In fact, underwear worn as outerwear has been around for centuries, always toeing the boundaries of what’s appropriate and what's not. Take the original slip dress, for example: the chemise. Meant to be worn underneath dresses as a protective layer, it was popularised (or scandalised) by Marie Antoinette after the French queen was depicted in the white muslin gown and a feathery bonnet in 1783.

But it wasn’t until the 20th century that women would yet again shed their outer layers to reveal their undergarments. During the golden age of Hollywood, the silver screen saw starlets wearing marabou mules, floor-sweeping dressing gowns and cinched corsetry. Just consider Jean Harlow, wearing a feather-trimmed robe in Dinner At Eight (1933) while around her crispy white boudoir purring lines like “Let me slip into something more comfortable.” Not to mention Marilyn Monroe’s iconic subtle hint of lace in The Seven Year Itch in 1954, when her wide white skirt was lifted by the wind from subway grates or Elizabeth Taylor in a lace-trimmed slip in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in 1958.

Few undergarments have become as emblematic of the trend as the corset. First abolished in the early 1900s when French designers Paul Poiret and Gabrielle’ Coco’ Chanel famously got rid of the cinched waist and petticoat, it was virtually absent from fashion until the burgeoning punk milieu of London in the mid-1970s. Vivienne Westwood led the new corsetry charge, stepping onto the scene with her modern interpretation of historical garments reviving the boned corset and crinoline skirt for a contemporary audience. She put in motion a movement of modern designers looking to history for their inspiration, spanning Alexander McQueen’s Elizabethan explorations and Theirry Mugler’s moulded metal bodices.

However, no decade has had more of an impact on wearing next to nothing than the 1990s. The '90s was kicked off by Madonna wearing her iconic pink satin cone-breasted corset designed by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier during the Blond Ambition Tour. Around the same time, Michelle Pfeiffer helped popularise the lacey maxi slip with her performance in Scar Face (1989). This was the era of the mini-mini shorts, naked dresses and bra tops, perpetuated by brands traditionally considered conservative, such as Chanel.

Towards the end of the decade, Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, frequently exposed her bra straps and bralettes, and Sarah Michelle Gellar epitomised sultry styling in a contrasting bra and waist corset in Cruel Intentions (1999).

The current tendency towards barely-there dressing can be ascribed to the cultural shift post-covid, where racy mini trends surged in a world desperate to break free of restrictions and homeliness. “Through the pandemic, we saw a real turn towards trends that spoke to a need for risk taking during a very restrictive reality,” says Celenie Seidel, the senior womenswear lead at Farfetch. “A mood for kink via things like PVC, dominatrix-style spike stilettos and exposed lingerie really emerged in the collections during those years.”

But today, according to Seidel, the trend has evolved: “Where we formerly saw lingerie as a trend with a kinkier subtext, we are now seeing it come through in a more '90s-influenced style,” she says. A style in line with the romantic and minimalistic versions of the trend, a shift not only seen in the current collections but taken even further for spring/summer 2023.

In Copenhagen, the runways were peppered with sheer bottoms, paving the way for full-coverage underwear as a wardrobe necessity – whether you’re a self-described Ganni Girl in a black crocheted two-piece or wearing a #HouseofGoya neon lace slip. Further afield, we found Fendi spearheading the look with a collection of sheer slips paired with matching underwear, and fuzzy boleros clutched close to the chest by the likes of Bella Hadid (not to mention the brand’s now iconic leather corsets).

Miu Miu almost single-handedly brought back the mini with its spring/summer 2022 collection, and the autumn/winter offering clung to the trend with silky monogram underwear peeking above the low-waisted skirts. A nod to the logomania and Calvin Klein allure of the 1990s, no doubt. On the other hand, Givenchy found its inspiration in nightgowns from the 1950s, sheer layers cascading from a delicately pleated empire seam neckline. Dior and Chanel both showed black lace layers atop matching underwear sets.

If this was not enough to prove the resilience of this perennial trend, reinterpreted repeatedly, we find further proof in the current economic climate. It is a small luxury women can afford even in the face of a recession. “Generally, I feel the resilience of things like lingerie and makeup speaks to the internal desire to maintain a small sense of luxury or escape every day,” says Seidel. “Whatever that looks like to the individual.”

In fact, this need for the little luxury has a name in economic circles: the lipstick index. A theory born during the 2001 recession when Estée Lauder noted that lipstick sales had kept increasing despite the economic downturn – not only during the turn of the millennium but also during the Great Depression of the early 1930s, with luxury lingerie proving to be equally recession-busting.

“It’s about pampering yourself,” says Maria Lager, founder of the Swedish underwear label Understatement. “The smaller purchases become increasingly important, and underwear is an easy way to treat yourself to something small."

Putting your underwear on display doesn’t necessarily mean you must ditch the demure. There are plenty of ways this trend can be personalised. “For those less comfortable with overt lingerie exposure, a fine-knit turtleneck worn under a lace-trimmed slip dress styled with something like riding boots and an overcoat could be considered,” says Seidel. “Or a slip dress peeking out as a skirt underneath an oversized, chunky knit.” She notes that vintage and pre-owned items are great to look at for this trend due to its circularity, saying that there are some “much-loved slip dresses from the archives of Phoebe Philo’s Céline that are perfect for this look.”

“This is the movement we need,” says Lager. “To make women feel liberated and have the power over her body by showing as much as she wants.”