Exposed Bra Straps Exposed
Post-feminism, Mean Girls the Musical and the lore of visible bra straps.
It’s been five days since I saw Mean Girls the Musical – and beyond my secret shame of actually enjoying the offbeat “Stupid in Love” rendition – I find myself enthralled by one recurring thought:
The presence of exposed bra straps in this explicitly Glossier-ed era of girlhood.
Whilst Renee Rapp sings her anthemic belt of “World Burn”, two duck-egg blue bra straps rise from her fast-fashion Khaite dupe shirt. With a few lines of elastic, Mean Girls the Musical triggered the layered lore of the visible bra strap.
So strap in, we’re looking at the underwire scandal of the simple fashion occurrence that turned women just existing into shorthand for slut.
Get in loser, we’re going back to 2004
In the original 2004 film, the exposed hot pink bra strap of Cady’s striped black mini dress joined my exclusive list of LBD from cinema’s most monumental moments. See also: Hitchcock’s Rear Window and the revenge dress of Elizabeth James in The Parent Trap.
By 2024, an exposed neon bra strap is rarely – the look . We may have welcomed back the whale tale with open arms but something about the bra can’t help but be coded as trashy or tacky. In fact, Cady’s proudly present bra could be misconstrued today as proof of her clueless outsider status.
But 20 years ago, the choice to have Cady layer a hot pink t-shirt style bra (which matched her hoop earrings) with a pink and black candy cane stripe mini is pure genius.
The evident strap loudly tells the audience before she even descends the stairs that Cady has changed – exchanging her tribal beads for the bargain bins of Victoria‘s Secret. From the seemingly idyllic simplicity of the developing world, she now is enraptured in the chaotic plastic paradise of late capitalist America.
Cady is a tabloid page come to live now, making my four-year-old self – unbeknownst to her internalised purity culture – ask the television screen: “Is that girl beyond saving?”
The strap that could
The raunchy romp of was 00s fashion celebrated the presence of visible underwear. In an era that naively claimed to be defined by post-feminism, 00s femininity features a flurry of trends to signify women’s empowerment – using a language derived from the male gaze. Bra straps were a hallmark part of this – poetically bringing underwear to the outer world.
Now, I know, it’s literally just a bra strap. But the collapse of a clear divide between inside at-home fashion and outside to-be-seen fashion has a radical undercurrent. The private and public spheres operate as inherently gendered realms – women are still synonymous with the private world of the domesticated home. Best identified by urban theorist Jean Franco who he said women only occupied public space as either “whores or madwomen.” Tag yourself.
When women started making their underwear visible – most notably debuted on the runways of Vivienne Westwood and the stage of Madonna – the aesthetics of the private world entered the public. In doing so, it destabilised the entire structure that supported the systems of patriarchy. Women’s inner lives were being made present on a public scale.
However, this didn’t necessarily launch any political progress because it’s literally just a bra strap.
Ultimately, exposed bra straps waged the idgaf war. In this case, idgaf about women’s decorum, idgaf civility politics and idgaf about the fact that this crass colourway clashes with my outfit. Just like the matriarch of this trend, Ms Carrie Bradshaw, the visible strap was a signifier of her zany and vivacious attitude as a modern, manless woman.
More importantly, for the wearer, the exposed bra strap had the cathartic release of making something meant to be hidden, finally be seen. And this thrill of taking on taboos comes with an addictive sense of power.
Strap-tease: the slutification of literal elastic
Visible bras are most often associated with sex – which is ironic because they’re a descendent of corsetry – a tool created for the purpose of posture. When we think about it this way, by exposing one’s bra, women make evident their humanity and no one wants that. It should repulse us as much as visible panty lines – a terrible reminder that women require underwear to avoid things like infections.
The sexification of bras isn’t anything widely nuanced. A peak of a bra is a reminder of what’s under one’s clothes.
Admittedly, unpacking how bra straps became a symbol of sex does not give a flattering look at the critical or complex thinking capacities of the male gaze. However, this extremely simple idea ended up projecting a world of subliminal messaging onto a tiny piece of elastic. .
However, in the 00s, exposed bra straps were its very own accessory. A generation of it-girls donned neon bras to show a little strap and immediately inject sex into their outfit. In researching this piece, I came across the treasure trove of Thoughts of a Midwestern Girlie Girl – a seemingly abandoned blog from 2011 which is now my personal Rosetta stone. In one article, the author (name sadly unknown) reminds us that an exposed bra strap leaves you looking *checks notes* “like a hussy”.
Unstrapped: the hiding of the bra
So where did the exposed bra strap go – and more importantly, why did it re-emerge into public life in a movie musical?
The decline of the visible bra strap aligns with the odd period in the late 00s whereby corporate chic dominated women’s fashion, with the likes of blazer silhouettes, pencil skirts and fedoras.
The recession would be the most convenient event to blame this era on and no doubt, no one felt sexy in 2008 and wanted to get slutty, but timelines aren’t adding up. I contend that it was the Bimbo Reckoning (not to be confused with the Decade of the Bimbo or Bimbo Convention) which convinced the public that we should actually be very afraid of women who were unafraid of sexuality. Events of this time include Britney’s breakdown, Lindsey’s prison sentence, Jessica Simpson's rehab time and many more. Sexually liberated young women and their sense of style were shamelessly villified to the brink of extinction in a wave of bubblegum misogyny.
As we transitioned into the Obama era, liberal culture suddenly had a chance to prove its legitimacy. And it did this by replacing the sleazy styles of 00s with the sensible fashion of Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton.
Bra straps begone. Gigantic fugly belt, you’re up.
So powerful comeback or poor costuming
There’s little chance Cady Heron and Regina George circa 2024 will be inciting a renaissance of this trend any time soon. We’re plunging into a recession and mainstream media still likes to get weird about women’s bodies (see FKA Twigs and Calvin Klein).
More importantly, as girlhood, bow mania and coquette core continue to prosper, the bold and in-your-face iterations of femininity found in 2004 are unlikely to take flight again. Whilst girlhood aesthetics reach the mainstream, they admittedly do begin to lose their wink-to-camera self-awareness and just become bordering on self-infantilising.
However, in the cries of concern facing the childlike outfits of girlhood culture, we come back to the same issue. Whether a bra strap or hair bow, women’s fashion will always be quickly pathologised and criticised by how it makes men feel.
Maybe Renee Rapp’s blue bra won’t incite hysteria in this contemporary audience, but it doesn’t mean there won’t be some meaningless, powerless accessory that the culture will decide to demonise soon.
And my bets are on bows.
such an interesting piece! i haven’t seen the musical movie, but so much of how teen girlhood is portrayed in the original movie is so rooted in the time it was made, i was curious how it was updated for more modern girlhood (or not!); anyway loved this deep dive into the visible bra strap!
This was so gooood. My bet is also on the bow!!!