Virgie Tovar was brought up in the church, and was always told that going braless was considered “sinful” or “lustful.” “I remember my grandmother shaming me the first time I wanted to take my bra off before bed when I was about 16 years old. I want a world where no teenager gets that message,” she said. “People should be able to do what they want with their body.”
Recently, we’ve inched closer to that world as nipple visibility has perked right up this year. On Dec. 7, Charli XCX wore a sheer Saint Laurent dress at a Variety event, inspiring a flurry of “she freed the nipple!” news hits.
Florence Pugh blazed this trail starting in 2022, wearing a series of transparent Valentino gowns that became a big talking point.
More recently, celebs including Zoe Kravitz, Katy Perry, Kristen Wiig, Emily Ratajkowski and Julia Fox have rocked see-through, nipple-forward looks on red carpets and in photo shoots.
Buoyed by the ongoing sheer fashion trend, the Spring 2025 runways in both Milan and New York were packed with areola cameos at Prabal Gurung, Tory Burch and Off-White.
At Toronto’s own FAT (Fashion Art Toronto) in November, designer Jacqueline Bradica showed a standout gauzy sheer dress modelled by Lacey Gislason.
Why are nipples so hot right now? (Or, sometimes, cold.) Fashion has done the sky-high slit, the plunging neckline and low back; this is a new frontier. And nipples remain forbidden on many social-media platforms, so baring them can be a provocative way to flout one of the last feminine taboos: a bold, body-positive statement; a reclamation of one’s own flesh.
“Hiding your nipples is a product of learning body shame. I think we as a society are questioning that shame,” said Tovar, who is now a body image futurist and author of “The Body Positive Journal.” “I think many people are tired of being expected to follow social rules and seeing no reward for doing so. I think more and more people know that gender — and the rules of gender, like ‘women cover their nipples, but men don’t have to’ — is a problematic construct.”
Just as humans traditionally applied blush and lipstick to mimic an orgasmic flush, exposed nipples can signal arousal and sex appeal, on the wearer’s own terms. An areola peeking out from under a mesh top or a nipple thrusting bias-cut silk outwards is defiance. And defiance is sexy, potent and powerful.
“It’s liberating to not feel you have to hide or contain a part of your body for ‘respectability’ and social acceptance,” said sex and pleasure educator Luna Matatas. “Feeling comfortable and safe to show nipples is empowering for people’s bodies that have been restricted due to external and non-consensual sexualization. Being free to show or not show a nipple returns body autonomy to people who have been restricted by sexist nipple control.”
This helps to explain the ongoing interest in Kim Kardashian’s Skims bra designed with built-in nipples; social feeds continue to be inundated with it a year after it launched. One benefit of the Nipple Bra is that it can return this silhouette to folks who have undergone mastectomy. But the fact that it was released by a megawatt celebrity also gives shyer citizens the courage to try out a nipple-forward look without fully committing to putting everything out there. (If Kim K. says it’s OK…)
Skims is a line that prides itself on size inclusivity, and it would be nice to see that applied to the faux nipples, which all seem to be the same teeny-tiny size. Perkies, another faux-nipple industry leader, sells stick-on nipples in the same XS size.
Rather than increasing nipple confidence, the uniformity of these products could have the opposite effect. “I do think the downside of the Nipple Bra is that it reinforces that breasts are supposed to be perky and nipples are supposed to be a certain size or shape,” Tovar said. “I want to make sure that people of all sizes and ages, with all types of breasts and nipples — perky or saggy, big or small — feel they can participate if they want to.”
When I quizzed the online populace on this subject, one refrain was that those with big breasts don’t feel confident to put their nipples out there because they have very few braless mentors with larger breasts or nipples. (Comedian Rachel Sennott proved a rare exception to this rule, in a sheer black top at a December “Babygirl” premiere after-party).
Others voiced their desire for nipples to become more neutral, so going braless for comfort or practicality would result in less leering and less judgment from family, friends, and coworkers. For those with chronic pain, restrictive garments like bras can be unbearable. And many millennial parents said they made peace with their nipples after surviving the rigours of breastfeeding.
The pandemic saw more people ditch their bras while working from home, and many didn’t bother putting them back on when they rejoined society. If the world is ending, you might as well be comfortable. “I started to question the purpose of something I took for granted as an everyday public necessity,” Matatas said. “I was tuned out of any discomfort from bras since I wore them during the day all the time.” She experimented with less supportive bras and observed how her body shape changed, what the comfort levels were. “Bras are about support, but they are also about respectability and are a form of shapewear,” she said. “Breasts, on women, are socially expected to be contained and shaped in a way that’s appealing to the male gaze. There are men who have breasts but there isn’t a market of shapewear that exists to sell bras to men.”
Comfort can be courage. Sex appeal can be strength. “Becoming a career activist isn’t for most people, but going braless is a powerful political statement,” Tovar said. Just as Dr. Evil’s fembots demonstrated, a pair of nipples can be a surprisingly effective weapon.
