Culture

Will The Tyranny Of The Bodysuit Ever End?

They're at the top of their game and they're not wearing any pants.

by Reena Gupta  27 March 2023

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Snaps from Taylor Swift’s Eras tour reminded us of pop’s strange, enduring love affair with the bodysuit. But has the trend overstayed its welcome? 

Benjamin Franklin famously said that nothing is certain in this life except for death, taxes, and popstars touring in bodysuits [citation needed], a point that Taylor Swift recently drove home when she debuted a spate of bodysuits as part of her new tour wardrobe. 

Yup, anyone with access to social media has likely seen a deluge of snapshots from the new tour, where Swift participates in a swathe of costume changes that includes at least three sparkly leotards.

With all due respect, I don’t care about this tour – pretty much everything I’ve learned about Swift up to now has been against my will. But one thing I have taken away from all the hype is that the popstars-in-bodysuits trope is alive and well. In fact, one definitive mark of a female popstar at the top of their game – be it Beyoncé, Rihanna, or Taylor Swift – is that they’ve worn leotards on stage at several points throughout their career, despite resolutely not being Simone Biles. So where did this trend come from? And will pop ever move on from the bodysuit? 

 

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A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce)

Popstars Have Been Leotard Fiends For At Least 15 Years

In Racked, Rebecca Jennings explains that the female-popstars-eschewing-pants trend started to make strides in the lawless days of 2006, where the outfit helped musicians create stage presence. These included emerging musicians at the time like Lady Gaga, along with established performers like Jennifer Lopez and Madonna. 

Back in 2016 when she wrote the piece, Jennings questioned if we were at peak bodysuit given the trend had by then been around for a good 10 years. But somehow, even seven years later, the trend is showing no signs of fading. So what is it about this pantless garment that’s got pop singers in such a chokehold?

Is It… Feminism? 

One obvious reason for female pop singers’ takeup of the leotard is that the whole thing just screams ‘badass woman’. As Sadie Hechkoff writes in The Politics Of The Bodysuit, “[the woman] in a bodysuit demands attention, forbidding you to look away until you have taken in her feminine curves, recognising her as an empowered female presence”. There’s something commanding about a pop singer inside a glittering leotard taking to the stage, something that suggests they have arrived. But what’s actually empowering about a pantless suit cinched at the waist? 

The answer may have something to do with its history. Originating in dance and ballet, the bodysuit entered the realm of actual fashion around the time when Catwoman (then just referred to as ‘The Cat’) entered pop culture, with the character making her first Batman comic book appearance in the early 1940s. It was around this time when the connection between clingy fabric and women’s empowerment began to take form. 

Thanks to its relationship to dance and gymnastics, the piece also projects a sense of theatre and athleticism. And while many pop singers are incredible dancers who pull off athletic feats, they’re technically not athletes, which means that their take-up of the bodysuit is kind of loaded.

As The Guardian explains, “We are OK with women being proud of being in good shape only if the message is framed around strength and hard work; but we don’t like it when these messages are co-opted in the cause of old-fashioned ogling – and the modern leotard speaks to this contemporary ambivalence.”

What Could Be Next?

If Taylor’s tour is anything to go by, nothing. Our girls on tour are just going to keep wearing bodysuits until we’re all finally laid to rest. And while Swift isn’t the  only barometer of whether a trend is to live or die, her fashion choices are a good indicator of the current mood. Plus, we regularly see popstars wearing similar get ups while on tour today — take, for example, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Lizzo, and that one time, even Lorde.

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A post shared by Lizzo (@lizzobeeating)

It was only two years ago that W Magazine anointed French designer Thierry Mugler’s bodysuits the “New Popstar Uniform”, with The Guardian adding that the “feline, figure-hugging Mugler bodysuit … has become ubiquitous with the biggest female singers.” 

The Mugler feels like a forward-looking imagining of earlier bodysuits, though — edgier and more futuristic than what we’re used to. They tend to be black; include panels and cut-outs; and unlike what we usually see, cover the bodies of their wearers from head to toe. Hopefully, we’re seeing a disruption of the traditional bodysuit that will take us somewhere new. 

At the same time, bodysuits are bleeding more and more into everyday fashion in the form of shapewear — take Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, Skims, which markets pieces as looks that can be worn both under clothes or as pieces in their own right. Lizzo’s new shapewear brand Yitty, which caters to bodies of all sizes, does the same.

There is kind of an inherent contradiction, though, when it comes to shapewear and empowerment, given that the function of shapewear is still to flatten stomachs. And perhaps that awkwardness can be felt in the popstar’s bodysuit, too — where a prerequisite of women’s empowerment tends to be a slim body. Well that, and an absence of pants.

Reena Gupta is Junkee’s Deputy Editor. You can follow her on Twitter at @purpletank.