The underwear-as-outerwear trend has been developing over the course of the last few seasons, and on the streets of Copenhagen, it found its fullest, most line-blurring expression yet. The Spring 2025 season’s street-style leaders found nuanced riffs on the trend, drawing attention to pieces originally conceived to stay behind closed doors – bras, bralettes, slips, camisoles, and more – while layering them with more typical and often more formal outerwear garments.
Subcategories of this streetwear trend include mindfully exposed undergarments through sheer outerwear and fresh takes on the pant-less look with peek-a-boo high-waisted panties under black, white, or grey lace. Sheer skirts worn over tiny shorts were also a frequent sight.
So what does this trend mean for the direction of street fashion? Will we all be walking around naked some time soon? Probably not. Rather than reflecting a social tendency toward less modesty (though it is certainly connected to it), this trend feels more emblematic of the wider contemporary movement of self-aware fashion. Along with the underwear-as-outerwear trend, we see this aspect in the design themes of hybridity, deconstruction, and trompe-l’œil on many runways today: a self-reflexive perspective, fashion pointing to itself as fashion, often with an ironic or archly provocative sensibility. By taking underwear garments out of their typical or original use, these looks playfully point back to the traditions of fashion functionality, while leaving these social traditions behind in favor of an indulgent individuality.
It feels like this metatrend might actually be nearing its peak, and if so, we wonder what will happen when the pendulum swings back the other way. But whatever the future looks like, in the present we’re here for the simple, liberating joy of showing some skin.
