Occasionally a fashion concept translates nicely from the runway or the TV screen or the silver screen onto the streets of Chicago.
Remember Jennifer Aniston’s haircut on “Friends” or that slouchy “Annie Hall” get-up or the nonchalance of the “Flashdance” workout clothes?
Of course, such “hot looks” often lose something in the translation. Particularly when flabby midriffs try to mimic a belly-baring Britney, or outfits inspired by the mono-monikered Cher, Madonna or Shakira show up in the supermarket check-out line.
Which brings us to the current fashion kerfuffle: the peekaboo bra look.
Credit TV’s premier cosmopolitan-sipper “Carrie Bradshaw”-a.k.a. Sarah Jessica Parker of “Sex and the City” fame-as well as those cutting-edge designers, Dolce & Gabbana, for the current spate of bra-baring.
It is a look that has found acolytes in Chicago, despite the weather. Why else would a trio of club-crawling young women spotted at the Lincoln/ Halsted/Armitage intersection recently defy the elements by ditching their coats and parading down the street in sheer black blouses atop black brassieres?
If such fashion statements raise a few eyebrows now, just wait: Come spring, bras will be-pardon the next groaner-busting out all over.
Designers are continuing their ongoing love affair with sheer fabrics, prompting the fashionable to tastefully manage their undergarments. Ultra-hip fashionistas, those who belong to the Dolce & Gabbana school of cool, may find themselves aping the looks the two men are showing for spring, black or solid-colored bras under sheer shirts as well as jackets buttoned just enough to show off the bra underneath.
Jill Martin, fashion guru for ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America,” has put her imprimatur on the peekaboo bra look. Recent “GMA” segments on “Sex and the City” fashion and 2002 spring trends cite Dolce & Gabbana’s pairing of a shirt that looks like a man’s white undershirt worn with a black bra. “Now all the top designers are showing it with a black bra showing underneath,” Martin says.
And while Martin resides a good part of her life in snow-deprived Miami Beach, one might wonder where on this planet, beyond aerobics class, this peekaboo bra look works?
“I don’t think it would fly in the middle of Idaho,” says Martin. “But, I wear it with blue jeans and a black bra and a white T-shirt. I’m 25 and I think it’s a very sexy look. I consider a bra . . . a piece of clothing to me so it doesn’t necessarily need to be hidden.”
Jill, meet Sue Evans.
She thinks this bra-baring trend has “peaked.”
“Lingerie trends are still important, but we are seeing pretty Edwardiana-inspired cotton camisoles and lace-trimmed vests rather than bras showing through sheer fabrics,” e-mails Evans, a London-based fashion maven for WGSN, an online fashion information service. “The trend is definitely romantic rather than in-your-face-sexy. … There are a lot of off-the-shoulder tops, so expect to see bare shoulders rather than provocative bra straps.
“However,” cautions Evans, “fashion is a fickle beast and maybe the retirement of Yves Saint Laurent, who started the whole sheer blouse trend way back in the ’60s, will promote a wave of nostalgia among fashionistas.”
Sue, meet Andrea Reynders.
Reynders, chair of the fashion department at the School of the Art Institute, is not surprised by all this, since (a) our penchant for showing off our underwear is nothing new; (b) we are in an intense period of recycling past fashion looks; and (c) “We go through periods of sheer,” she says.
And that goes all the way back to chic women of Napoleon’s day. “They would wear very thin white muslin dresses that they would wet down and they would wear these wet dripping dresses to court,” says Reynders. “But they would be totally nude underneath. So you would get the contours of their body and everything else exposed through this one sheer layer of fabric.”
So the peekaboo bra pales by comparison?
“Now,” says Reynders, “you’re looking at somebody’s underwear, but you can’t really see what’s underneath it. But the idea of it being underwear is the attraction.”
