"It’s directional more than wearable."

Says NYT fashion reporter, Jacob Gallagher, quoting himself, in this article he writes: "Is Anyone Really Wearing a Bra as a Shirt? A trend that points nowhere" (NYT).

If it "points nowhere," how is it directional?

I think it's funny to talk of bras as pointing somewhere, given that some, but not all, bras are pointy.

Gallagher explains his position: "It expresses something, primarily, about how thin the models are. You look at these outfits and your only real takeaway is 'Well, gee, she’s skinny.' It’s doing that thing fashion often does — making us think about our own bodies and how they differ by comparison...."

So fashion is speaking to you, and what it's saying is you can't wear this. It's like a shopkeeper telling you you can't buy this mechanical bird. It's aggravating. 

"Combine [bra as outerwear] with the rise of naked dressing, nostalgia among the next gen set for the ’90s and Y2K (the last years before social media)..."

"... and GLP-1-inspired urges to show off newly shrunken bodies; power it with celebrity buy-in, as on the recent VMAs red carpet; and you get brazilla. Bralapalooza. The ultimate late-stage capitalist conclusion to the second wave feminists’ call for bra burning. Bra-vo?"

Writes Vanessa Friedman, in "Fashion Says Wear Your Bra as a Top/At Miu Miu, Miuccia Prada puts on her trend-forecasting glasses, and calls it" (NYT).

That's a gift link, as all NYT links are now, so you can go in and see the photographs of models with newly (or oldly) shrunken bodies, shown off in outfits that feature bras worn as outerwear. See if you can find the one that made me say "Her chest looks like a faceless man wearing sunglasses."

"Just as 'naked dressing' escalated from trompe l’oeil to the transparent mesh Bianca Censori wore to the 2025 Grammys, underwear as outerwear..."

"... has gone from lace-trimmed slip dresses to knicker-style shorts to just going out in your bra. Not quite the emperor’s new clothes, but perhaps only because women’s nipples are still considered more risque than men’s.... In 2026 wearing a bra as a top isn’t the subversive act of fashion rebellion or feminist declaration of sexual liberation that it was for Madonna in 1990 but a sign of compliance to the beauty standard, and the extreme thinness that’s putting women’s lives at risk...."

I'm reading the London Time: "Is a bra a top now? Looks like it! They’re in Paris and on the red carpet, but would you flaunt yours at the post office?"

I'm going to use my last WaPo gift link of the month to give you the 1991 article that is the London Times's source for photo of Madonna wearing a bra as a top: "The Roots of Madonna: Getting down to Earth with the pop star." 

"[B]reast reduction and implant-removal procedures have surpassed enlargements for the first time. This is amid a cultural shift away from 'exaggerated curves'..."

"... to a smaller, lighter, more 'delicate' shape, aka 'ballerina boobs,' also known as 'yoga tits.' Well, this is all great to know. I look forward to hearing this kind of talk applied to male appendages.... But may I also say that I suspect much of this might be a load of balls? Could the well-endowed women who are having reductions simply be sick of having back pain and two grooves on their shoulders like a workman’s ditch? Could the women having their implants removed simply have realised it’s hard to get clothes to fit and they don’t want to hoik two silicone jellyfish everywhere with them that may at some point leak?"

Writes Carol Midgley, in "Now is no time to have a voluminous bosom (and M&S won’t measure you)/It turns out that big ones are over and the ‘ballerina boob’ is in" (London Times).

I like that word "hoik." It has an interesting array of meanings. According to Wiktionary:

Should have been 34D.

I'm reading Rex Parker's write-up of today's NYT crossword: 

35D: Annual breast cancer awareness observance (NO BRA DAY) — I did not know this was a thing, or still a thing. Seems like an impractical option for many women. According to wikipedia, "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." I misread the clue as [Annual breast cancer awareness month] and, having the "NO-," wrote in NOVEMBER (which fits ... it's wrong, but it fits). Breast Cancer Awareness Month is actually right now, October, and NO BRA DAY is next week (October 13).

I'd never heard of "No Bra Day" — I don't think — until I did today's NYT crossword. A search of the NYT archive shows it's only ever been used in the crossword. This annual "observance" — ahem — has never been spoken of in an actual article or column. It's not like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is talked up all the time.

I'd say it’s ridiculous to have a day where women are urged to invite people to focus on their undefended — unshielded, unsupported — breasts. Making breasts more gawkable does not create awareness of cancer. It creates awareness of breasts, especially healthy, good-looking breasts. But we don't want a special event for that, because it seems to legitimate staring. If the idea is to increase awareness of the comfort of not wearing a bra, it fails. The best bralessness happens when you believe no one notices, whether your belief is true or false.

Anyway, too bad the NYT made the clue 35D and not 34D or 36D. 35D almost sounds like a bra size.

"There are literally no rules, which is to say laws, that govern women’s underwear...."

"New York City was... the first jurisdiction to insist on 'full gender neutrality,' meaning an employer can 'require an individual identifying as female to wear a bra or hide her nipples, but only if the same rule applies to a male employee.'... When it comes to federal law... 'it only requires that dress codes have gender parity with regard to burdens such as cost.'...  As to the notion that bras are necessary for women’s health... there is no particular medical reason to wear a bra (and... bras don’t prevent sagging).... To be faced with freed breasts, whether or not nipples are visible, is to be forced to confront deep-seated prejudices about all of this, and that is both upsetting and distracting to a lot of people. Especially at this particular moment in time, when control of women’s bodies and their reproductive purpose has become once again a hot-button political issue.... It is not, of course, your job to make other people comfortable or to help them sort through their own feelings about all of the above...."

Writes Vanessa Friedman in "Are There Any Rules About Going Braless? A reader wonders when it’s OK to abandon the undergarment" (NYT)

The wondering reader is from Madison, Wisconsin, I note. It wasn't me, I should add, though I have the same question. And I believe Friedman did not answer the question asked. 

"In 1942, Vogue quoted a male soldier saying of his female counterparts, 'To look unattractive these days is downright 'morale-breaking and should be considered treason.'"

"The next year, that magazine carried an ad naming women in uniform the 'Best Dressed Women in the World Today.' The government asked Elizabeth Arden to concoct a lipstick to match the red piping on women’s Marine Corps uniforms. Women marines were issued this Montezuma Red lipstick and matching nail polish in their official military kits. (It remained mandatory for thirty more years.) A Tangee cosmetics ad from the era reasoned, 'No lipstick—ours or anyone else’s—will win the war. But it symbolizes one of the reasons we are fighting . . . the precious right of women to be feminine and lovely, under any circumstances.'"

 
Writes Patricia Marx, in "Is the Army’s New Tactical Bra Ready for Deployment? It’s fire-resistant but not bulletproof, and was developed with help from eighteen thousand female soldiers" (The New Yorker).

"Even the name of the place Corey Brooks frequented for routine medical care — Magee-Womens Hospital — felt alienating."

"Patients donned pink gowns. Cutouts of pink bras were plastered on the walls. A sign urged patients to 'fight like a girl.' 'Things like that are just incredibly disorienting for someone going into those spaces who is always being reminded, hey, this wasn’t designed for you,' Brooks said. 'You’re not really sure if you should disclose to these people that you’re trans or not.' Brooks identifies as nonbinary and transgender, but as someone who was assigned female at birth, they share similar health needs as cisgender women for gynecologic care and screenings for chest health as they age...."

 
From "For trans people, medical visits can be more traumatizing than healing/Trans patients share their stories of subtle discrimination, outright hostility and ill-informed medical professionals" (WaPo).

Is everything woman-specific now going to be characterized as unfriendly or even wrong and toxic?!

"The young ones tend to never wear a bra.... What is with the hate on bras?... I am very happy to wear a comfortable bra every day..."

"... and I am uncomfortable not wearing one. I find this new generation of braless ladies rude and unprofessional. These young ladies do not seem to mind the stares from others and more so when the office gets a little chilly. I have nothing against 'free the nipple' but why impose this on others in a professional environment?"

Asks an anonymous letter-writer of Roxane Gay, the NYT "work friend" advice columnist.

Hey, you know what's "unprofessional"? Staring at nipples!

As Gay puts it: "Women are not imposing their nipples on you by existing, braless, in public spaces. You are imposing your judgment on their bodies." She advises Anonymous to "interrogate the judgments you place on other people’s bodies." Ha ha ha. "Interrogate." Academic jargon is hilarious encountered in the raw on a chilly morning. I picture a crime suspect grilled in a harshly lit, windowless room. But it makes perfect sense to say: question your own judgments. That's something we should do more often.

Here are 8 TikToks to delight or vex you. Let me know what you think.

 1. "Ever since I was told that corn was real, it tasted good."

2. Yes, there is a burger bra. The question is what to wear with it.

3. For the European person — the coolest places in America.

4. Mr. Jeff's Musical Gizmos is open. 

5. Do you know the song my recently departed mother loved?

6. Getting searched at the San Francisco airport. (This can't be real, can it?)

7. Approaching the volcano in Iceland.

8. Glen Campbell and Leon Russell play "Jambalaya."

"There is such a bias toward glorifying hot weather and vilifying cold, though a lot of people strongly prefer winter to summer."

"I don't really get depressed in the summer, but I dread it because of the extreme discomfort & nothing to do for it but stay indoors. Winter, on the other hand, is completely manageable by dressing properly."

Says a commenter on "Seasonal Affective Disorder Isn’t Just for Winter/Feeling blue even though everyone seems to be basking in perfect summer weather? There might be a good reason for that" (NYT).  

That was originally published a year ago, but it's on the NYT home page today, presumably because it's great Memorial Day weekend topic: Some of us don't love summer. If you suffer in winter, you have lots of vocal company. And if you enjoy winter, other people are always interfering with the pleasure by openly complaining about it. But there's an excessive celebration of the greatness of summer. If you feel bad in the summer, you might feel harassed by the pressure to join in all this purported fun.

Here's another comment from over there:

They named the woman-focused sports bar Sports Bra.

I'm reading "A bar of their own: Portland’s Sports Bra will only show women’s sports/Jenny Nguyen’s sports bar, opening in April, has already received praise from women’s sports fans around the world" (WaPo). 

From the comments at WaPo:

1. "Men have become discontented and snarly. Women still possess hope. So women's sports and sports fans are still fun. I'd like Netflix or Britbox to feature women's sports leagues. Is that an idea? Why not sports on streaming sites?"

2. "There isn't the demand to warrant that. The reality is that the vast bulk of women's sports don't have a very high level of interest or make any money.... Mark my words, six months from now the headline will read 'bar that only had women's sports on tv closes.'" 

3. "Okay, whateverdoodle, oh Dearth of Hope comment-maker."

"Fur coat? It is said that nobody wants fur these days, but animals do. Rehabilitators, like those at Sacred Friends, in Norfolk, Virginia, cut up old coats and..."

"... use the scraps as little capes and stoles to keep sick animals warm... peta wants your pelts, too. The organization donates them to the homeless ('the only humans with any excuse to wear fur,' according to its Web site), and lately it has shipped fur garments to Afghanistan and Iraq for use by refugees.... Your old bras are welcomed with open arms at the Bra Recyclers, a Phoenix-based enterprise that has sent more than four million bras to homeless shelters, schools, foster programs, and other nonprofits all over the world. As Elaine Birks-Mitchell, the founder of the Bra Recyclers, explained to me over Zoom, bras are not just about fashion. For girls in developing countries, they make it possible to play sports and attend school without embarrassment."

From "A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Everything/Once you’ve thanked and said goodbye to the items that do not spark joy, what can you do with them?" by Patricia Marx (The New Yorker).

"Propriety long ago came to seem like morality’s prairie dress, standing prim in a riotous digital landscape..."

"... where no one knows who is Zooming pants-less and intimate selfies are the equivalent of a Tumblr hello. Seen in that light, underwear on Fifth Avenue was probably always a logical endpoint in a progressive blurring of distinctions between public and private. Or so I imagined until an afternoon last week when, glancing up from my Harvest Bowl at Sweetgreen, I spotted through the window a young woman casually crossing Astor Place wearing a pair of cutoffs, some sandals and — it is fully legal to do this — naked above the waist."

That's the end of this long, lavishly illustrated NYT "critic's notebook" piece by Guy Trebay, "Suddenly It’s Bare Season Bras in the parks, skivvies on Fifth Avenue: Is this the logical endpoint of increasingly blurred distinctions between public and private?"

When I first saw this article yesterday, I thought the NYT was gratuitously splashing its pages with pictures of scantily covered breasts. This morning, looking for a morsel of text to cut and display here, I thought it was all pretty funny —  "morality’s prairie dress," "Zooming pants-less," "underwear on Fifth Avenue." 

I was chuckling over the gratuitousness, not of the breasts, but of "my Harvest Bowl at Sweetgreen." If morality wears a prairie dress, surely, morality eats a harvest bowl. 

(Speaking of gratuitous, why capitalize Harvest Bowl? I could understand the capitalization if it was a frozen dinner in a box. Or a football game.)

"I have 38D boobs and have been wearing a bra since fifth grade, so the thought of returning my boobs to any state of confinement has left me horrified."

"How could I go back to imprisoning my ladies after a wondrous year of letting them roam? In the words of Kate Lambert, 'I see women out and y’all are wearing bras again. I THOUGHT WE HAD AN AGREEMENT.'... Babe, I assure you, it is not about politics — it is about comfort. A few years back, a dear friend wrote about her bra-free path, saying that the decision to not wear a bra was not political, 'except insofar as everything a woman does with her body that isn’t letting someone else dictate what she ought to do with it is a political decision.' That sounds about right to me."

From "Free the Boob!" by Dayna Evans (NY Magazine).

"[L]ast year, Hsu Hsiu-e, 84 and Chang Wan-ji, 83—a married couple who own a laundromat in Taiwan—became global social media stars thanks to their Instagram account..."

"... @wantshowasyoung. The pair pose in compelling outfits styled from clothes their laundromat customers have left behind. The account is now up to over 654,000 followers and the pair was recently named the ambassadors for Taipei Fashion Week." 

From "Grandpa Style: Why 20-Somethings Are Dressing Like Senior Citizens/Thanks to Instagram accounts like @Gramparents and books like ‘Chinatown Pretty,’ milllenials and Gen-Z are coming to appreciate their gray-haired elders’ fashion sense" (WSJ). 

 I'm amused by the way the WSJ tried so hard to get the double letters in "millennial" right and came up with "milllenials." 

Anyway... @wantshowasyoung isn't about youngish people dressing like really old people. It's old people wanting to "show as young" — look young. I'm blogging this little side issue, because I like the Instagram account. Such a perfect idea. Example:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 萬秀的洗衣店｜WANT SHOW as young (@wantshowasyoung)

As for millennials and Gen Zers dressing like "grandfathers," my favorite example of this is the YouTube icon Review Brah, who explains here — in his mesmerizing style — why he dresses like that: 

"It’s simply true that governments attempt to conceal all kinds of things. Even things partially visible to the naked eye."

"But it’s also true that the human body is a complex machine given to all sorts of odd behaviors. As Dan Savage wrote, 'Only Andrew Cuomo knows for sure, of course, and he’s not telling.' But, Savage said, 'I’ve spent a lot of time around gay guys with tit rings, and it’s my considered opinion that those are tit rings. Almost certainly.'... I decided the only thing left to do was call Barney Frank. Back in 2011, the former congressman stepped onto the House floor wearing a light-blue sweater through which his nipples were visible to anybody watching C-Span. Future president Donald Trump was apparently doing just that. 'Barney Frank looked disgusting — nipples protruding — in his blue shirt before Congress. Very very disrespectful,' he said on Twitter.... In general, Frank said, being a politician whose nipples become a subject of mockery or scrutiny isn’t as negative an experience as you might think. 'In some ways, it makes you feel good because it means you have people who are trying to attack you and they can’t find anything substantive.'... ...  Of Cuomo’s critics, he said, 'It reflects badly on them.' With all of that out of the way, I asked Frank if he’d be surprised if it turned out that Cuomo does, in fact, have pierced nipples. 'I’m gonna act as if you didn’t ask me that,' he said."

Since she asks, I guess it "reflects badly" — per Barney Frank — on Olivia Nuzzi, the author of the article I'm quoting "What’s the Deal With Andrew Cuomo’s Nipples? An Investigation" (NY Magazine).

Just to balance things out — though, as you know, with breasts, there's never perfect symmetry — I saw this in The Daily Mail a few days ago: "Experts warn that not wearing a bra during lockdown could damage the Cooper's ligament and cause breasts to sag - as women reveal they're ditching underwear for comfort while working at home."

Experts! Last I looked the expert opinion was that wearing a bra causes breasts to sag.

Imagine staying at home during the coronawar and worrying that your comfortable loungewear stylings were endangering what's left of your breastal perkiness! We've got bigger things to worry about, like the imaginary nipple piercings of the New York Governor.

"There’s been a real shift in how people, especially young women, think about beauty and desire. We’re in the age of #MeToo. Ideals are changing..."

"... and people want diversity and representation, ethnically and racially, but also in terms of shape and body type. For retailers to not adapt or evolve can be a fatal flaw."

Said marketing professor Kalinda Ukanwa, quoted under the heading "Out-of-touch, overly sexual marketing," the 3rd of "5 factors that led to Victoria’s Secret’s fall" (WaPo).

From the comments at WaPo:

Originally, Victoria's Secret sold pretty underthings and nightgowns in a time when women were wearing practical or professional clothes. Then they changed and the merchandise was more about overt sexuality and tartiness. It was like they were trying to replace Frederick's of Hollywood. The store windows could be embarrassing to people shopping with kids. Go back to things women want to wear for themselves, drop the stripper vibe, and the business could flourish again....

Do you remember the original Victoria's Secret — in the 1970s? It did always have to do with the male shopper, but it was created by a man who felt bad about the way he was treated when he went shopping for lingerie for his wife — like a "pervert." That is, it wasn't so much about the kind of leering, domineering male #MeToo is fighting, but about a male who himself feels dismissed and judged — the subordinate man.

"Oh, Thank God, It’s Over Now."

A headline at NY Magazine. I clicked because I thought that it was going to be about the impeachment hearings and that it was interesting that somebody at NY Magazine was glad they were over. But it's about the annual televised Victoria's Secret fashion show.

Victoria’s Secret has become emblematic of an outdated kind of sex appeal, one that was sold to women but catered to men. It also probably doesn’t help that Les Wexner, the former CEO of L Brands, was a well-known client of Jeffrey Epstein....

The brand has had some attempts to change. A September ad campaign was inspired by Me Too and photos of a plus-size model and a transgender model were shown in stores (the plus-size model in question, people were quick to point out, has made fatphobic comments in the past). Still, the general response was, “Too little too late.”...

"So you (and your boobs) stay comfortable while you run."

Well, I am uncomfortable with this one boob who is emailing me too much while he runs:



(Click to enlarge and clarify.)

ADDED: Oh, I see. I'm a press outlet. But only to Cory Booker. I'm getting press releases. Example: