Your Bra Strap is Showing

Decades ago, women would never reveal any part of an undergarment, let alone put it on display.

But these days, the bra is no longer playing a strictly supporting role, so to speak. No longer safely tucked away, bras have moved beyond peek-a-boo to front and center.

The late etiquette expert Emily Post most likely would be shocked to see how exposing mountains of straps and lace is all the rage with the under-30 crowd.

It’s hard to believe there was a time when such exposure was so taboo that women would use safety pins to make sure a bra strap wouldn’t creep out of a sleeveless dress. Designers even built certain snaps into gowns to ensure a bra strap would stay in its given place.

It’s a trend with legs when major fashionistas are giving advice on how to keep it tasteful rather than tacky.

Leave it to Madonna, and her supportive designer friend Jean Paul Gautier, to reverse that trend. After gallivanting through the 1980s in leather and lace, the performer made a point of closing the decade by busting the trend even further. In brazenly donning everything from cone bras to exposed lingerie, she put everything on display, and undergarments became the main attraction.

But the trend was tamed a decade later by Carrie Bradshaw, who showed “Sex and the City” fans how to expose the bra strap in a more mainstream manner.

Today, the trend is huge with a younger generation. Teens and 20-somethings are exposing bra straps in a way that is both loud and proud. It’s a trend with legs when major fashionistas are giving advice on how to keep it tasteful rather than tacky. Bold and bright colors work, but white and nude apparently register high on the tacky scale.

What does this exposure say about the culture? It may seem a far cry from the sexual revolution of the 1960s when women were burning bras. Today, young women may be embracing feminism and freedom in their own unique way. After all, this is the age of the transparent, TMI (too much information) ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ selfie, and a little more exposure just may go with the territory.

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