The Skims Nipple Bra and Margiela Merkin Are Empty Signifiers of a Sex-Starved Culture

Fashion, like any art form, serves as a cultural barometer. It both reflects and dictates our anxieties, our hopes, and our sense of collective and individual selves. And right now, fashion is saying this: We want our bodies to be lively, erotic, energetic things—or at least, we want them to appear that way.

The Skims nipple bra, designed to make its wearer appear to always have hard nipples, says we’re perky, bold, and horny. The recent John Galliano Margiela couture runway show featuring women with bush merkins beneath sheer dresses says we’re brazen, sexually mature, and carnal. People were generally excited about these looks—both were met with tweets and articles announcing that nipples and bush are “back.” With both items, though, these statements are achieved through artifice. Why are we so interested in signaling these markers of sex yet so afraid of showing off the real thing?

It’s a trend we can trace throughout much of contemporary fashion—the idea that we’re signaling sex but not actually having it. Mainstream women’s clothing increasingly pulls from the aesthetics of sex workers, from skin-tight mini dresses down to the platform clear heels akin to the Pleasers worn by strippers. The brand Poster Girl, for example, sells hosiery-esque dresses in shades like “Harlot Pink” that look exactly like the types of items sold in boxes at adult stores and dancer boutiques. But rather than being worn before a stage set on the pole, Poster Girl dresses are intended for a night out at regular vanilla clubs. And in theory, in a “sex-positive” culture, this ought to be fine. What’s wrong with young women expressing their sexual agency? It only becomes jarring when we confront the fact that, despite these aesthetics suggesting we’re in this hyper-sexy stage, we’re all actually having less sex than ever. This is especially true for young people.

Obviously, there is some matter of practicality and marketing at play. The Skims bra offers the unique appearance of the full, round, and lifted chest that only an underwire, padded bra can provide while also delivering the nipple look that would otherwise have to be achieved by going braless. The Margiela bush merkin, intended for a couture runway rather than everyday life, was worn by models who are likely required to be fully hairless for their job. Both were probably employed for their shock value. The nipple bra has since sold out in every size and color, but this could be because it was only made in limited quantities to begin with. Neither was about selling a specific product, but more about drumming up publicity for the brand. We’re probably not about to start seeing bush-revealing outfits at H&M.

Why are we so interested in signaling these markers of sex yet so afraid of showing off the real thing?

Even so, like the famous cerulean quote from The Devil Wears Prada describes, there is a trickle-down effect from even the most artful, unwearable designers and gimmicky creations into the mainstream. FashionNova, for example, is notorious for pulling designs straight from the runways of designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. Refinery29 is already suggesting that a “no pants look” will be in this year based on looks from Miu Miu, Schiarpelli, and more the from fall/winter 2023 and spring/summer 2024 collections. That both haute designers like Galliano and an everyday undergarment brand like Skims are putting forth these sexual symbols suggests that some of this has already occurred. But again, these symbols are empty: it’s more provocative to suggest the presence of erect nips and pubic hair than it is to actually show them. Or rather, it offers a means of being provocative while maintaining the safety of not pushing any bodily boundaries. These symbols allow us to (loudly) hint at sexuality without having to actually confront it, something it seems we are still too scared to do.

This isn’t to say that sexualized clothing should immediately indicate that you’re a person who is interested in sex, but rather to question why fashion currently employs these vacant signifiers. Maybe, optimistically, it’s because we’re hoping that by bearing these signifiers at all, meaning will follow. It feels like a step in the right direction. We want things to be erotically charged—we’re just waiting for the culture to catch up to our clothes. Still, the artificiality of it all betrays this. We’re not really interested in showing off our nipples and pubic hair or wearing clothes designed for sex work. We just want it to look like we are. Rather than showing off that our real bodies are indeed lively, erotic, and energetic things, we’re buying $64 nipple bras and sharing videos of couture merkins to hide the truth that we’re still too afraid to actually acknowledge it.