Olivia Wilde is (apparently) newly single. And like the most triumphant of (apparently) newly single people, she knows that sartorial comfort is found not in trackpants but in a killer ‘revenge dress’. Just ask Princess Diana.
Luckily for her, there is a multitude of dresses that more than fit the bill right now. Dresses that reveal underwear and nipples and demand absolutely nothing of the wearer bar a certain degree of confidence. You don’t need to be single to wear them – but that does provide extra impetus.
Last night at the People’s Choice Awards, Wilde wore a sheer black lace dress by Dior. She nailed the triple-threat revenge look: sexy, glamorous and carefree.
The naked dress is having a moment, and just in time for party season. Sounds scary – but I am newly converted. So much so that a recent party in Paris I was terribly disappointed to see that my dress did not look see-through in the photos. ‘Take it again. With the flash!’ I instructed my friend, shoving the phone back into her hands.
Still, no, nothing. Just a nice frock that wouldn’t even get a PG rating.
‘It looks much more see-through in real life,’ she said comfortingly.
As so often happens with clothes, this new-found exhibitionist streak snuck up on me gradually. First, a tentative taster of bare midriff, then the mesh that makes concealing a bra awkward; necklines got lower, hems higher. And before I knew it, I was wearing a dress that shows off (almost) everything, or is at least supposed to. It might sound like dressing for the male gaze in its most basic, most heterosexual form, but it is often women who are spearheading the return of skin – both as wearers and designers (see Supriya Lele, Nensi Dojaka). My underwear was on show for all my Grazia colleagues to see at our Christmas party, thanks to a twinkling mesh dress from Camille Charrière's Mango collection (Camille, by the way, is the queen of the naked dress).
There shouldn’t be anything surprising about this. To put it as transparently as a twinkling Coperni minidress, wanting to be wanted is totally natural. Clothes can be an easy shortcut to getting that, and party season is the perfect opportunity to try out something a little more daring than the norm without (the same) fear of judgement. There is a rules-do-not-apply spirit in the air from now until New Year’s Eve.
But this new show-off stance is about more than exhibitionism: it is about glamour, fantasy, escape. So rarely do we have the opportunity to cuddle up with glamour in real life. Weddings, sure – but if it’s not your own, it would be a faux pas for your outfit to be the talking point. Dates? LOL. I cannot think of anything more mortifying than tottering into a pub looking like a budget Bond girl.
This moment is about the novelty of making an effort. We are in the age of cynicism; we don’t trust our politicians, we wear make-up to make it look like we’re barefaced, we download dating apps and curate our digital identity, only to pretend we’re not bothered. Trying too hard is still the ultimate diss. There is something refreshingly frank, something earnest about going out in clothes that don’t so much ask people to pay attention as demand they do. Clothes like this are an IRL conversation starter.
None of this is to say you need go semi-naked if you are single (some of my most successful pulling outfits have been the most anonymous ones), any more than you need to adopt puritanical garb if you are in a committed partnership. It’s just about the refreshing, deliberate act of making an effort, of celebrating not only where you are right now, but who you are right now. It’s about the soul-affirming act of making the best of yourself. I just happen to think that single people deserve to be noticed, admired and desired – just like everyone else.