Why going braless has become a trend in 2023.

Bridget Jones said it best:

“Being a woman is worse than being a farmer – there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms to be shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised. The whole performance is so highly tuned that you only need neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed….is it any wonder girls have no confidence?”

Add to this the increasingly elaborate demands of the lingerie market to truss ourselves up like chickens, due the prevalent trend of complicated bondage style bras and corsets.  Thanks to these styles, we had even more work ahead of us to get ready for a night out just getting our underwear on. And what about coming home late at night drunk and trying to take it off? 

Also concerning, the logistics of combining the many elastic bands and harnesses with the same parts of the body that require Spanx to avoid unsightly bulging. Exactly how was that supposed to work?  There may be instances of women wearing both together and cutting off the circulation to their entire body.  If you were going to attempt this, shouldn’t you add a medical alert necklace to your outfit?

“Thanks to lingerie designers, you can indulge your secret fantasy of being tied up for a night in the rotisserie.“

Unhooked.online

Going braless – something you expected on the beaches of Europe – has now landed in the urban jungle.

Itty bitty, big & jiggly, bouncy up and down, swinging side to side, low slung, perky, pendulous – in short, every shape and size boob is free and roaming the New York streets. This appears to be the latest side effect of the pandemic. Apparently, 16 months of lockdown without strapping the girls down in a bra has resulted in widespread underwear rebellion. It has gone beyond the fairly commonplace practice of walking the dog in pajama pants and fluffy slippers.

Bra sales have sagged, if you will, because everywhere you look women have declared they’re not returning to the torture of being pushed up, buckled in, padded, synched, pinched, hoisted and cantilevered into the pre-pandemic bras fashions.

Basically, woman are leaving the house half naked and free-boobing it to a startling degree.

Is it freedom of expression or exhibitionism? Or just complete loss of inhibition due to months and months sitting at home? Could it be that women have realized that it is just more comfortable leaving the cleavage in its natural position rather than buckling them in and hoisting them sky high.

Is it any wonder that the gaze of the innocent passerby is registering surprise, wonderment (and delight) at the sight of so many different shapes and sizes of breasts? It’s quite a development after 2 or 3 decades of foam filled Wonderbra’s standardizing the female silhouette into neatly packaged round spheres.

In the retail world, just trying to come back after being hard hit by the pandemic, it’s not just the big wig bra companies who have reason to be concerned at the so-called “lowering the bar” of sartorial elegance by the general public. In the immortal words of Christian Dior: “Without proper foundations, there can be no fashion.” We’ll see how this trend affects bra sales long-term but expect a hard-core advertising attack from the big brands as they try to convince women to strap up the girls again. Back to the nipple bra? Only time will tell.

We’re not leaving you hanging – you can check out our bra trend report for free.