In a world of naked dresses, did one take it too far?

(CNN) — It was arguably the biggest red carpet trend of 2024, dominating the Academy Awards, the Met Gala and everything else in between. The naked dress — embraced by celebrities ranging from Elle Fanning to Kim Kardashian, Doja Cat to Charlize Theron — has become an eyebrow-raising red carpet fixture. At last year’s Vanity Fair Oscars after party, we saw how nudity could be both angelic (as demonstrated by Jennifer Lawerence’s sheer, Fall-Winter 1996 Givenchy empire-waist dress hand-embroidered with clovers) and risqué (such as Charli XCX’s gauzy yellow nipple-baring gown, also made by Givenchy.)

But at Sunday’s Grammys, only one naked dress was turning heads. While most guests opted for muted palettes and pared-back styling amid tributes to victims of Los Angeles’ devastating wildfires, Bianca Censori took a different approach.

Censori arrived at the event alongside husband Kanye West — who now goes by Ye. If the Australian model’s long feather coat seemed uncharacteristically demure, given her risqué approach to dressing in public, it was because she didn’t plan on wearing it for long.

Within seconds of stopping for photos, the 30-year-old turned her back to the cameras and dropped her coat to reveal a barely-there sleeveless mini-dress made of transparent mesh that left nothing to the imagination.

Naked dresses come in all shapes, sizes and varying levels of exposure. This genre of frock centers about the power of suggestion — sometimes, the wearer is not revealing anything at all. In the late 1990s, Jean-Paul Gaultier made waves with his trompe-l’oeil patterns, images of the bare human form, which he printed onto blazers and dresses. It’s a print that has since been revived by designers such as Glenn Martens, whose acid-colored, heatmap-style pieces have been worn by Bella Hadid and A$AP Rocky.

Even some of the earliest examples of naked frocks — Mae West in the 1936 film “Go West, Young Man” or Carroll Baker’s Balmain dress worn while promoting “The Carpetbaggers” in 1964 — relied on expertly placed embroidery to give the impression of bare skin while avoiding any actual displays of nudity. Naked dresses, for all the fervent discussion, can be surprisingly modest.

But what is the logical conclusion of a culture that revels in the suggestion of disrobing? To some — particularly those like Censori, who has frequently appeared in public in revealing outfits, whether heading into a music studio almost naked beneath a see-through rain jacket or going to dinner in LA wearing little more than a bra and a pair of sheer tights — the leap from naked dress to plain naked might feel small.

On the Grammys red carpet, West, meanwhile, stood beside Censori in a black T-shirt and pants, expressionless behind a pair of sunglasses. Reports soon swirled that the couple were escorted out of the awards show. However, a source familiar with the sequence of events told CNN that was untrue. “He was not escorted out,” they said. “He’s a nominee. He walked the carpet and got in his car and left.” CNN has reached out to a representative for West for comment.

Soon after the appearance, the couple shared Polaroid photos of Censori modeling the look in posts on their respective social media accounts. In a since-deleted Instagram post, West described his wife’s outfit as “custom couture,” yet there was no artistry or clever draping to be admired, no titillating embroidery techniques like those worn by West and Baker. The blankness of Censori’s nudity begs the question: is it fashion, or just a body?

West has not confirmed whether he personally designed — or was involved in designing — Censori’s outfit, though social media users questioned the rapper’s role in his wife’s wardrobe choices. Others speculated that the model may have fallen afoul of California’s indecent exposure laws, which prohibit people from exposing their “naked body or genitals in front of anyone who could be annoyed or offended by it.”

When asked if Censori had breached California’s indecent exposure laws, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department told CNN via email that it had “not been made aware of any incident at the Grammys.” The Recording Academy and CBS did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

While Censori has certainly contributed a notable moment in the history of the naked dress trend, she has transformed what is typically a suggestive whisper into a deafening shout.

The-CNN-Wire
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