Most of the outfits that Emily Ratajkowski wears are an experiment in out-revealing the last. As with Kim Kardashian in her flesh-tone shapewear or Victoria Beckham in her LBDs and face-swamping sunglasses, a famous person’s taking ownership of a particular aesthetic sends up a red flare that communicates who they are and what they’re about.
In the case of Ratajkowski, a model who rose to fame as a bikini-clad music video vixen, this seems to be about reclaiming the objectified female form. In April 2021, she claimed artist Richard Prince had taken one of her Instagram photos and printed it on a large canvas (priced at $90,000) without her permission. She later sold that same image as an NFT. And then she wrote a best-selling book, in which she bore down on the (often uncomfortable) ways in which her image has been used to sell heterosexual fantasies.
“I’ve felt objectified and limited by my position in the world as a so-called sex symbol,” she said on its release. “I’m still grappling with how I feel about sexuality and empowerment.” And so all the dental floss bikinis gave rise to midriff-exposing two pieces, which have now given rise to an accretion of nude-illusion dresses. Ratajkowski took that to its most extreme iteration last night: wearing a gossamer slip with pair of transparent, toe-baring heels while strolling through New York with her BFF Babs Jeanne. (See the photo here.)
An outfit like this might buttress the mechanisms it tries to destabilize, but, much like it was for Florence Pugh, a sheer dress remains a powerful symbol for these women. And it’s this conflicted space, between dread and desire, that Emily Ratajkowski continues to navigate.
This article first appeared on British
