Don&rsquo;t have to guess the colour of the underwear anymore &mdash; fashion wants you to flaunt it, and honestly, there&rsquo;s nothing to stress about.

Is it a fashion month if it is not about clothes? For one month of the year, the world turns its attention to fashion as designers present their latest creations to buyers, celebrities, editors, and fans alike. But of late, some brands have used the lack of clothing to leverage the spotlight to start a new conversation: What if fashion were not just about clothes and how we wear them, but which clothes we&rsquo;re not wearing at all?
From bejewelled underwear at Miu Miu to JW Anderson&rsquo;s speedo-like briefs and undies layered over sweatpants at Dsquared2, several luxury labels are fashioning undergarments as outerwear and sending models down the runway in nothing but boxers. &ldquo;Naked dressing,&rdquo; it&rsquo;s been called, and it features nothing but panties south of the waist.
Celebrities are all in on the no-pants agenda. Back in 2023, Kendall Jenner made waves when she stepped out in a Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2023 crew neck, styled with nothing but black underwear and tights &mdash; a minimalistic power move that set fashion tongues wagging. Meanwhile, Lil Nas X turned the Met Gala into his personal runway, rocking nothing but a metallic G-string and a full face (and body) of crystal-encrusted makeup by Pat McGrath. He didn&rsquo;t just pose for the cameras; he basked in their adoration.&nbsp;
Fast forward to 2024, and Paul Mescal, the star of Gladiator 2, earned the unofficial title of &ldquo;Men&rsquo;s Short Shorts Advocate&rdquo; after repeatedly opting for bottoms that looked suspiciously like boxers during his off-duty moments &mdash; even during his appearance at the Gucci Men&rsquo;s Spring/Summer 2025 show in Milan. Kristen Stewart followed suit &mdash; or rather, ditched the suit &mdash; at the premiere of Love Is Bleeding, showing up pantless. Days later, she nearly broke the internet, casually stepping out in New York City wearing Brunello Cucinelli cashmere briefs from their S/S &rsquo;24 collection.
On the runways, designers doubled down on the underwear-as-outerwear trend. Raul Lopez&rsquo;s Luar sent models strutting in tops layered over barely-there briefs, while Simone Rocha added a touch of drama with sequin undies. And in classic Ludovic de Saint Sernin style, her Spring 2025 lookbook featured male models serving looks in satin and leather briefs, proving once again that less is, unequivocally, more.
Underwear, by nature, is deeply personal. It&rsquo;s thin, revealing and designed to cover what five-year-olds tactfully call &ldquo;the privates.&rdquo; Making it public, then, can feel inherently provocative &mdash; even taboo. There&rsquo;s an unwritten social contract that says privates are meant to stay private, with cultural norms and even legal codes reinforcing the idea that exposing your nether regions anywhere but at the beach or pool is, at best, eyebrow-raising and, at worst, scandalous.
But history shows us that what started as hidden can eventually step into the spotlight. Take the chemise, for example. This loose, lightweight garment began as a 16th- and 17th-century European undergarment &mdash; essentially a nightgown for women. Yet, in the Caribbean&rsquo;s balmy climate, local women wore similar styles as everyday clothing. By the 18th century, French colonisers had adopted this breezy aesthetic, and soon it made its way to the opulence of Versailles.
The chemise reached peak controversy in 1783, immortalised in Marie Antoinette en Chemise, a portrait by Elizabeth Louise Vig&eacute;e Le Brun. The queen posed in a white, ruffled gown with nothing layered over it, a look that scandalised the public. To many Europeans, the chemise was bedroom attire, not fit for a queen &mdash; proof that even in fashion, breaking the rules can spark outrage long before it earns applause.
The chemise isn&rsquo;t the only undergarment that&rsquo;s made the leap from private to public. The 1840s gave us the woollen vest, or &ldquo;under-vest,&rdquo; designed to be worn next to the skin for warmth. First embraced by labourers and sailors, this humble piece eventually morphed into the T-shirt, thanks in part to its adoption by the Navy. It wasn&rsquo;t just practicality that propelled the T-shirt into the spotlight &mdash; it was Hollywood. Marlon Brando&rsquo;s smouldering performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and The Wild One (1953), along with James Dean&rsquo;s turn in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), rebranded the T-shirt as a symbol of rebellion and masculinity. What was once an undergarment became the uniform of the cool and defiant. Fashion historian Valerie Steele put it best, calling the T-shirt &ldquo;the most significant and pervasive example of underwear as outerwear.&rdquo; It didn&rsquo;t just break rules about hidden clothing; it challenged taboos around male sexual expression, boldly bringing what was once beneath to the surface.
Society&rsquo;s style game has levelled up, and with it, the rules of dressing have loosened their grip. Over the last twenty years, Western culture has shed the strict layers of undergarments that used to dictate what was &ldquo;proper.&rdquo; Now, underwear has graduated from being a functional piece to a bold style move. At this pace, who&rsquo;s to say we won&rsquo;t be punching the clock in button-downs and briefs someday? Fashion, if nothing else, is always ready to keep us guessing.

Courtesy of Gucci.

Is the Future of Menswear… No Pants?

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Is the Future of Menswear… No Pants?

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