The ‘last taboo’ in fashion: Showing the belly button

“Showing your belly button is the ultimate taboo,” says New York designer Michael Kors, who created a diamond-cut black dress for entrepreneur and model Lori Harvey to wear to the 2022 Met Ball. The look, he adds, is “ wild and elegant at the same time”.

The daring style, trumpeted by fashion brands Christopher Esber, Saint Laurent and Gucci, and worn on the red carpet by stars including Zoë Kravitz, Julia Garner and Hailey Bieber, exposes a small sheer window above the navel. These dresses are often long-sleeved and ankle-length, putting all the focus on navel-gazing.

Mr. Kors sees the look as a direct opposition to the enforced comfort of the pandemic lockdown period. “Once they’re in tracksuits and slippers,” he says, “everyone’s like, ‘Get me out of this hoodie, I want to party.'”

Navel exposure isn’t entirely new: Mr. Kors cites Cher as an early adopter of the trend, saying he was “really addicted” to watching her look growing up. “Each week you wait to see what body part Cher will expose in a glamorous way,” he says. In the 1970s, it was rare for Cher not to show off her navel, often wearing flashy ensembles by designer Bob Mackie.

And the view dates back even further. Amanda Garfinkel, assistant curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, notes that, “Fashion has been experimenting with exposure like this for a long time.” She continues, “Erogenous zones shift over time, so cuts change location.”

It traces the opening or window to the belly in the 1960s and 70s, but cutouts, transparencies and drapes at various points can be found in evening dress designs by Madeleine Vionnet and Madame Grès as early as the 1930s.

Designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Halston in the late 1960s and ’70s referenced the sari and sarong, traditional garments that expose triangular and diamond shapes to the body through wrapping. Geoffrey Beene’s work in the 1980s and 1990s featured a series of mid-cut dresses that look similar to today’s peekaboo dresses.

Ms. Garfinkel says these outfits are often about “playing with exposure and coverage.” There’s certainly a playful quality to the velvet Gucci dress with a diamond cut-out worn by Ms. Garner at the 2022 Emmy Awards.

New York fashion influencer and filmmaker Ashley Rous, who goes by “@best.dressed” on Instagram, wore the same dress as Ms. Garner in a short film she made for Gucci. “I definitely felt exposed,” she says.

In the video, she wears the dress to type a letter on a Belle Epoque-style train. She says it was a good “challenge” to show a part of her body that she has struggled with insecurities about. “It’s nice to look at my stomach and go, ‘That’s what it is, that’s a human stomach.'”

Beyond the red carpet and fashion videos, do these dresses really sell? Beth Buccini, owner of Kirna Zabête boutiques in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania, says Saint Laurent’s diamond-cut dresses and suits, which are in the $3,000 range, have sold well at the company’s Soho store in Manhattan and online. “It’s a very young, very trendy customer who has a lot of money,” she says.

The diamond belly dress is at the forefront of the most widespread cut-out craze in clothing, which has become a staple for many women. Some, of course, are Gen Z women inspired by the looks worn by the Kardashian-Jenner clan, the Hadid sisters and the character Maddy in “Euphoria.” The black cutout mini dress from the brand Akna that Maddy wore in the second season of the TV show went viral in 2022, becoming a popular Halloween costume and DIY project for teenagers.

But the cuts have been embraced far beyond the “Euphoria” crowd. “You can get this cut-out look at any price point and any style,” Ms. Buccini says, citing “bohemian” brands like Zimmermann and Johanna Ortiz, which offer party dresses in the $500-$1,000 range, and the retailer many Revolve brands.,

who has an entire shearing section on his website.

As for age, she says it all depends on where the cut is. She notes that Italian fashion brand Blumarine has made a cropped sweater with a shoulder slit—”any age can do it.”

Erin Busbee, a blogger in Telluride, Colo., who specializes in over-40 fashion, agrees that “a lot of it comes down to placement.” She suggests cuts that fall just below the bust or at the sides of the waist. “If you have cutouts strategically placed, they can look classy and sophisticated.”

Will the diamond cut dress look big, or is it more of a flash? While dresses with relatively modest cuts are everywhere, the more extreme belly version seems to be a hot trend and a temporary phase, some say. Ms. Buccini of Kirna Zabête suggests that people are more inclined to show off other parts of their physique. “Most people have better cleavage and legs than midriffs,” she says.

Plus, she says, “You want to go to that fun party and be able to feel good in what you’re wearing and not have to worry about having a bowl of pasta.”