Wonder BRAS

Long seen as a SYMBOL of traditional FEMININITY, the BRA is getting a high-fashion BLOW UP, as designers TRANSFORM, REIMAGINE, and SUBVERT our EXPECTATIONS of what one is meant to do

- TEXT BY BROOKE BOBB

IF YOU WEREN'T staring closely at Vaquera’s latest runway show in Paris, you could have glanced at look 34 and seen a model wearing a giant white silk sash trailing down over tailored gray trousers. But if you fixed your eyes more closely, you noticed that the sash had giant cups, adjustable straps, and a hook-and-eye closure. A poofy-hipped skirt in the finale look, upon further inspection, was actually the padded cups of a giant brassiere.

A week later, bras were on display again, this time with pointed precision, as Miuccia Prada revived the 1950s bullet-bra silhouette on the Miu Miu runway. They were styled under tight little sweaters and worn by models who looked like they were playing dress-up as retro secretaries whose sharp wit (and pointy chests) could cut glass. Backstage, Mrs. Prada asked, “Do we need femininity in this moment to lift us up?” It was a classic, cryptic Prada-ism: part tongue-in-cheek (you know, with the bras and the lifting), part oracular. The question lingered.

What to make of a Paris Fashion Week bookended by bras? The cups runnethed over elsewhere too. In London, Simone Rocha showed fuzzy fur bras that added an animalistic flair to leather jackets and voluminous skirts. Sarah Burton, in her debut collection for Givenchy, sent models down the runway in a series of mesh bodysuits and dresses that revealed bras and briefs beneath. And this was after Duran Lantink showed a bright-red pouffed-up bra in September for Spring 2025 that looked like Minnie Mouse ears. Chanel sent out skirt suits with bras exposed.