Are we really going to wear underwear instead of pants?

That the fashion world is all about excess and extravagance is certainly nothing new, but maybe this time we can say we are officially surprised. Just a few days ago, Emma Corrin appeared at the Venice Film Festival wearing a full Miu Miu look, the most striking feature of which was undoubtedly the use of underwear instead of pants. Thanks to her ability not to disfigure herself in any outfit, the interpreter of The Crown upstaged her colleagues present at the event and managed to normalize something that would raise more than one eyebrow. The spontaneous question that arises is: are we really going to wear our briefs as if they were regular pants? The first to theorize this possibility seems to be Miuccia Prada, the fashion maven who put a pair of 390€ boxers on sale. The special feature? They are meant to be worn instead of pants, at least according to the styling on the site.

Simple stylistic wishful thinking or not, underwear has taken on an increasingly important and expensive role in recent years. For Balenciaga's SS 2023 collection, boxer shorts - worth €450 - had a huge branded elastic band designed to peek under a pair of low-rise jeans, while Miu Miu's FW 2023 show played with layering (wearing the same Emma Corrin to boot who walked the runway with Mia Goth), lowering skirts, and shortening pants. Never before have shorts seemed to get shorter and shorter, exposing legs to the point where the difference between underwear and shorts is almost imperceptible. An example of this is the queen of trends, Bella Hadid, who just a year ago walked around New York City in a pair of shorts so daring that some people asked, «But aren't those boxer shorts?». But having established a trend that now seems impossible to deny, the question we must ask ourselves is the actual practicality and styling of Prada's briefs and all those to come in the next few months. If Superman wore his red briefs strictly over his costume (but even in this comic book fans are divided), in our case the choice seems to fall obligatorily on bare legs, with the possibility of experimenting with an oversized blazer or cardigan, perfect for playing with the proportions of the look.

It was a different story for Loewe, which dressed Kylie Jenner for its Spring/Summer 2023 show in what looks like a pair of classic white boxer shorts with a branded elastic waistband, a look that was meant to upend the way we think about our outfits and put the emphasis on what is usually hidden, whether it's underwear or a simple white tank top. Looking back, Prada itself caused a stir a few months ago when it put a white tank top with the classic triangle logo on sale for 750 euros, as did many other brands, from Gucci to Saint Laurent. The need for fashion to reinvent the every day and turn even our underwear into a luxury item is certainly nothing new (remember that Brunello Cucinelli sells a pair of socks for €430), but in the constant reinterpretation of codes and styles, it happens that even a brand like Prada aims to make the everyday luxurious, transforming a generally neglected garment like a pair of briefs into an accessory costing hundreds of euros, ready to appear on catwalks halfway around the world and in the street styles of all the fashion capitals. It seems that long gone are the days when the underwear par excellence was Supreme, proudly worn by hype-beasts around the world, and now a symbol of bad taste.