beauty
By Emily Kirkpatrick, a freelance writer specializing in pop culture and fashion. An expert on all things D-list, she writes the 'I <3 Mess' weekly newsletter rounding up the best of the worst celebrity fashion.
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images
Beauty culture has been waging an all-out war on pubic hair in this country ever since the hippies last went au naturel in the 1960s. Between the invention of electrolysis in the ’70s, ever-shrinking swimsuits, and the rise in accessible, at-home hair-removal options, by the early aughts, women of all ages had become convinced that they should be completely bald down there. But attitudes surrounding the aesthetics of the bikini zone may be changing: Recent events suggest that a full bush is back in fashion.
Things started to shift around the onset of the pandemic, which put most people’s grooming routines on indefinite hiatus. This newfound acceptance of the natural hair down there manifested itself in the 2021 launch of Gillette Venus’s #SayPubic campaign aiming to destigmatize the word–complete with an animated music video called “The Pube Song.” The following year, Gillette doubled down on the campaign’s popularity by collaborating with Princess Nokia on a track titled “It’s Time to Care (for Your Pubic Hair).” And a handful of Australian women made headlines for embracing the pube just last summer, wearing bikinis that showed their body hair on TikTok and kicking off a body-positive social-media trend.
Doja Cat at the Grammys Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
As more and more people skip their laser appointments, fashion also appears to be shifting to a more prominently featured full bush. The most recent Maison Margiela Artisanal collection went super viral at the end of January in part due to sheer dresses that featured hand-embroidered merkins worn underneath — a look that was then worn by Björk on the cover of Vogue Scandinavia, faux-pubic-hair thong and all. In April, Julia Fox — who first started showing labia last year at NYFW — wore a pair of bikini bottoms printed with a trompe l’oeil image of a hairy mons pubis with the word CLOSED tattooed across it. At the 2024 Grammys, Doja Cat sported a visible areola as well as a bush in a transparent dress by Dilara Fındıkoğlu, followed up with a nude bodysuit by Charlie Le Mindu affixed with long, blonde human hair extensions and a caveman-inspired furry bikini by Entire Studios for her Coachella headlining slot.
Julia Fox Photo: Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Given the increasingly nude direction the red carpet has been headed in recent years, this new pubic hair-centric trend makes a whole lot of sense: As being fully exposed on the step-and-repeat becomes increasingly normalized, stars are forced to go in all-new fashion extremes to generate the same press they’ve become accustomed to. Hence, the exposed butt-crack trend from earlier this year or the army of Julia Fox wannabes that have popped up in her wake. In this endless hunt for fresh sources of sartorial outrage bait, the exposed full bush just might be the final frontier of scandalous dressing.
While she didn’t show off any pubic hair in her jockstrap-clad cover for Rolling Stone in February, Kristen Stewart told the outlet of her intention behind the photo shoot, “I want to do the gayest f*cking thing you’ve ever seen in your life. If I could grow a little mustache, if I could grow a f*cking happy trail and unbutton my pants, I would.” A follicular dream that it seems like Maison Margiela would be more than happy to facilitate.
It seems highly doubtful that these body-hair-forward fashions will catch on beyond the rich and famous looking for some free press, but in terms of personal grooming, pubic hair does seem to be back in vogue amongst the masses as well. When COVID restricted people’s access to their regular hair-removal appointments, that pause may have inspired many to think more critically about what it means to be stuck on this hamster wheel of hair removal for the rest of their lives. Inflation has also forced people to reevaluate their budgets and decide what’s actually a necessity. TikTok is full of anecdotal evidence from waxers, lash techs, and nail artists documenting the huge drop-off in business over the last year as people increasingly start doing these types of beauty services at home or give them up entirely to save a little cash. There could also be a touch of the 4B movement in this new hirsute beauty trend as well as women excise men from their lives entirely along with their aesthetic preferences.
Whatever the reason, it’s clear that whether you wear it untamed, landing stripped, or full Brazilian, there’s no wrong way to flaunt your pubic hair in public this summer.
Tags:
- fashion
- style
- beauty
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