Bare Season

Interesting, to say the least.

At the New York Times, "Suddenly It’s Bare Season":

“People, in other words, are running around half naked.” Can confirm. https://t.co/2niLTT2sSh

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) July 22, 2021

Bras in the parks, skivvies on Fifth Avenue: Is this the logical endpoint of increasingly blurred distinctions between public and private?

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Who hasn’t had the nightmare? It’s the one about being caught in public dressed in your undies. Therapists and dream bibles tend to cast these dreams as symbolic expressions of shame or repression.

Yet what if the so-called experts are wrong and these dreams are instead a subconscious bid for liberation? Shed the embarrassment along with those constricting outer garments. Go forth proudly in your turtle-print boxers or your Cosabella bra.

That is assuredly what a lot of people are doing lately, as many venture forth after 16 months of hibernation with a startling degree of license about what passes for street wear.

As recently as a decade ago, it was a rarity to spot people on Fifth Avenue, in Washington Square Park, riding the subway or milling about at airports in various states of advanced dishabille. Anyone who’s taken a stroll in New York lately can tell you that’s not true anymore.

People, in other words, are running around half-naked.

Last week Claudia Summers, a writer, was out doing errands in Midtown Manhattan when she passed a young woman nonchalantly ambling along 33rd Street near Moynihan Train Hall dressed in low-slung jeans and a bra. “Was it a sports bra?” a follower inquired after Ms. Summers posted a snapshot of the woman to her Instagram account.

“Most definitely not!” replied Ms. Summers, who quickly added that she admired the woman’s moxie and, anyway, the day was hot.

Of course it wasn’t a bra top. Bralettes, itty-bitty bandeaus and crocheted bikinis are everywhere. So, too, are Daisy Dukes cut high enough to expose buttocks curvature. And these items are by no means relegated to people who identify with the pronouns “she” and “her.”

“I’m an exhibitionist, and I get pleasure from showing off my body,” said Kae Cook, 32, a messenger, of his wardrobe choice one recent evening as he made his way across Eighth Street in the East Village.