See-through clothing (also known as naked dress) is any garment of clothing made with lace, mesh or sheer fabric that allows the wearer's body or undergarments to be seen through its fabric. See-through fabrics have been fashionable at various times in history, ranging from eighteenth-century Europe to the modern "sheer fashion trend" that started with designer clothing from 2008.
Materials
Mesh, web, or net fabric may have many connected or woven pieces with many closely spaced holes and is frequently used for modern sports jerseys. A sheer fabric is a thin cloth which is semi-transparent. These include chiffon, georgette, and gauze. Some are fine-denier knits used in tights, stockings, bodystockings, dancewear and lingerie. It can also be used in tops, pants, skirts, dresses, and gowns. Latex rubber, which is naturally translucent, or plastic, can be made into clothing materials of any level of transparency. Clear plastic is typically only found in over-garments, such as raincoats. The use of translucent latex rubber for clothing can also be found in fetish clothing. Some materials become transparent when wet or when very bright light is shone on them, such as by a flashbulb.
Terminology The term "naked dress", originally used in the late 1930s for strapless gowns, became popular again in the late 1990s (fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell attributes this to a 1998 episode of the HBO series Sex and the City where the words are applied disparagingly to the flesh-toned slip dress worn by the protagonist Carrie Bradshaw). By the 2020s it was applied to a variety of dresses (sheer, flesh-toned, skintight, or a combination of these) that were designed to reveal (or create an illusion of) little or no clothing worn underneath. See-through or sheer fabric, particularly in skintone (called "nude") colours, is sometimes called illusion, as in "illusion bodice" (or sleeve) due to giving the impression of exposed flesh, or a revealing ensemble.
18th and 19th centuries
During the 1770s and 1780s, there was a fashion for wrap-over dresses, which were sometimes worn by actresses in Oriental roles. These were criticised by Horace Walpole among others, for resembling dressing gowns too closely, while others objected to their revealingly thin materials, such as silk gauze and muslin. In the 1780s the chemise à la Reine, as worn by Marie Antoinette in a notorious portrait of 1783 by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, became very popular. It was a filmy white muslin dress similar to the undergarment also called a chemise. In 1784 Abigail Adams visited Paris, where she was shocked to observe that fashionable Frenchwomen, including Madame Helvétius, favoured the more revealing and sheer versions of this gown. By the end of the 1790s, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, observing the dress of Frenchwomen, noted that demi-mondaines were dressing in a manner he described as "a la sauvage", comprising a semi-sheer muslin gown worn only over a flesh-coloured bodystocking, with the breasts, arms, and feet bare. Mercier blamed the public display of nude or lightly draped statues for encouraging this immodesty. In the very late 18th century and for the first decade of the 19th, neoclassical gowns made of lightweight translucent muslin were fashionable. As the fabric clung to the body, revealing what was beneath, it made nudity à la grecque a centrepiece of public spectacle. The concept of transparency in women's dress was often satirised by caricaturists of the day such as Isaac Cruikshank. Throughout the 19th century, women's dresses, particularly for summer or evening wear, often featured transparent fabrics. However, these were almost always lined or worn over opaque undergarments or an underdress so that the wearer's modesty was preserved.
Gallery
Marie Antoinette in a Muslin Dress, or Chemise a la Reine, by Vigée Le Brun Point de Convention or Absolutely no agreement by Louis-Léopold Boilly. An Incroyable is shown propositioning a woman dressed a la sauvage Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, showing a sheer gauze overdress with long sleeves over a white silk underdress. Fashion plate showing a ball dress of sheer material over a pink underdress. Portrait of Elena Chertkova Stroganova in a black satin dress with transparent white gauze sleeves. The Two Sisters by James Tissot showing a muslin summer dress with a transparent bodice clearly showing the arms and a low-necked camisole. Portrait of Sonja Knips by Gustav Klimt. Afternoon dress in densely gathered sheer pink chiffon over a solid foundation lining.
20th century
1900s–1910s A fashionable garment in the early 20th century was the "peekaboo waist", a blouse made from broderie anglaise or sheer fabric, which led to complaints that flesh could be seen through the eyelets in the embroidery or through the thin fabric. In 1913 the so-called "x-ray dress", defined as a woman's dress that was considered to be too sheer or revealing, caused similar consternation. In August that year, the chief of police of Los Angeles stated his intention to recommend a law banning women from wearing the "diaphanous" x‑ray dress on the streets. H. Russell Albee, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, ordered the arrest of any woman caught wearing an x‑ray dress on the street, which was defined as a gown cut too low at the neck or split to the knee. The following year, Jean-Philippe Worth, designer for the renowned Paris couture House of Worth, had a client object to the thickness of the taffeta lining of her dress, which was described as "thinner than a cigarette paper". Worth stated that using an even thinner, sheerer lining fabric would have had the effect of an "x-ray dress". In Australia, an article was published in The Daily Telegraph on the 24 November 1913 strongly opposed to "freak dresses" and "peek-a-boo blouses" that had lately become the fashion in "other Capitals". The editorial complains of dresses of "exiguous transparency and undue scantiness" and "the low-cut blouse that invites pneumonia".
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