Charlize Theron wore a one-shouldered green Dior gown to the Golden Globes, half of it sweeping, tulle chiffon, the other a transparent black corset. The peek-a-boo factor should have screamed “sexy,” but upon seeing it, I did not gasp, stare, or rage-tweet at the Parents Television Council. I believe I sighed and then went to my kitchen to make some popcorn.
Later, Kerry Washington would exit her limo in a black Altuzarra blazer and long satin skirt. The outfit’s pièce de résistance was undoubtedly the intricate, bedazzled, and revealing harness Washington’s stylist plucked in place of a shirt. A look fit for a dominatrix who’s paying her way through law school, perhaps. Titillating in its intention, probably. But there are only so many times one can see a blazer over a bare chest and truly be shocked.
Then there were Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow, also part of the bondage brigade, doing their own take on BDSM, or at least desires of the flesh, in their respective beaded bra top and sheer gown. Both women looked great. But dress-wise? Sort of a yawn.
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There was a time, not too long ago, when the easiest way for a celebrity to drum their name into discourse was to step out in latex, mesh, a harness, or perhaps a combination of all three. Lest we forget the fateful day in 2003 when Snoop Dogg led two women wearing leashes to the MTV Awards, an offense which remains synonymous with his name nearly two decades later.
Snoop Dogg’s display was inarguably pretty sickening. In the past few years, female actresses have gone a more respectful route, riffing on bondage’s restrictive connotations. They choose to squeeze into bra gags or leather gear as a statement of subversion, or perhaps just because the easiest way to look hot fast is to slap on a corset. Blame it on Kim Kardashian’s love of the waist trainer, 50 Shades of Grey, or Instagram influencers uploading their boudoir photos morning, noon, and night.
Indeed, last week I was scrolling through my feed when I stopped at a photo of a friend’s ex wearing a white leather strappy bra and underwear set, rolling around on her apartment floor, her back arched and legs bent like a drunk mermaid. Again, she looked fantastic. But the sight of anyone’s body confined in wet-looking polyurethane has become so ubiquitous on Instagram that it’s less interesting to me than the copious amounts of wedding and baby announcements which also flood that cursed app.
In 2005, a Minnesota school banned “bondage pants”—trousers with exposed zippers, chains, and buckles, made famous in the '70s and ’80s by punk designers like Vivienne Westwood. Now, the look wouldn’t be out of place on Billie Eilish. A few months ago, Vanessa Hudgens attended Rihanna’s Fenty lingerie fashion show in a lacy, push-up bodysuit; she paired the top with satin pajama pants, as if she also knew how snoozy the whole thing was.
Of course, any mainstream acceptance of bondage wear comes from a rarified, elevated perspective. That’s what makes Goop’s $55 Sensua Suede Whip (“designed with the kink-curious in mind”) so dull. Wearing latex in public was once a political act, a way to silently state one’s outsider-dom; today it’s what Kendall Jenner dons underneath her floral trumpet gown.
Madonna’s ’80s fashion—breast cones, corsets, nipple tassels—look tame today, but were the subject of much decency finger-wagging at the time. Decades later, she’d revive such concerns in a butt- and boob-baring Givenchy number at the 2016 Met Gala.
The dress had an agenda, with the pop legend writing on Instagram, “The fact that people actually believe a woman is not allowed to express her sexuality and be adventurous past a certain age is proof that we still live in an age-ist and sexist society.”
Bondage-as-fashion will never hit as hard as seeing someone rep the genuine stuff, which often comes from much cheaper—if seedier—retailers. But there are exceptions.
In December, national treasure Lizzo wore an assless t-shirt dress to a Lakers game, eliciting a predictable, if annoying, reaction from fun-haters criticizing her choice of clothing. Those naysayers seemingly didn’t faze the singer, who joyfully celebrates her body and challenges convention outfit after outfit.
“One hopes that her stance on the sexiness of her fat, black body is what will keep her from being subsumed into a highly marketable, white-friendly image,” my colleague Cassie Da Costa wrote at the time.
And if I may add: Lizzo, and other adventurous celebrities who wear clothes, might wake us all from the surprisingly unsexy slumber that is popular bondage dressing today.
