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Here’s a dare for all you fashion peacocks out there: Try wearing a pointy-cup cone bra to a New York sports bar during March Madness. I attempted as much over the weekend, tasked with trying out a similar piece of lingerie to those found on the runway at Stella McCartney’s Fall 2017 show. The version that I test-drove was a pretty pink silk number from Fleur du Mal with cups that tipped up and shot out just so. In the old days they were called bullet bras. “What the hell are you wearing?” my boyfriend asked as we headed out the door to watch Wisconsin play Villanova. “It’s a cone bra and it’s chic,” I replied to his steeply raised eyebrow.
I was wearing it underneath a semi-sheer, plain white T-shirt tucked into high-waist mom jeans. As you can imagine, this outfit choice accentuated my relatively small chest to an absurd degree. Maybe chic wasn’t actually the right word.
We landed at The Three Monkeys on West 54th Street and posted up next to our close friends visiting from Chicago. Out of sheer embarrassment and after seeing my significant other’s initial reaction, I preemptively explained why I was wearing such a thing. I went to hug one of them and she giggled, “Oh wow, I can feel it!” At least while seated at the bar and with everyone’s attention on the game, I was safe from judgment. Alas, it came time for a bathroom break and as I got up and walked toward the back of the room the stares and chuckles ensued. I’m pretty sure I saw one girl almost spit out her vodka soda when I passed her table.
After the walk of shame at bar number one, we took off for another dive downtown to watch the end of the nail-biter basketball game. This one was packed full of former frat boys and sorority chicks, none of whom were wearing anything but Wisconsin red. We walked in, more people sneered, and then we greeted our crew. Again, I explained why I was dressed in the underwear and this time I got an unexpected reaction from my best friend: “I can’t believe you’re even wearing a bra in the first place.” She was right. Lately I’ve been drawn to tops that allow me to go braless, wearing loose printed button-downs and oversize V-neck knits in dark shades that don’t necessarily require lingerie. Unlike the conical shaped thing I was wearing in that dark bar in the middle of the day, I realized that going without one made me feel much more comfortable and, even without showing too much, happily uninhibited. Turns out I’m not really the Madonna type after all.
This season, at a time when women’s bodies are under attack, there’s real merit in McCartney’s ode to the provocative 1950s undergarment made iconic by the Madonnas and Marilyn Monroes of the world. Whether they were stitched into the clothing or worn under light knitwear, the cone bras certainly grabbed people’s attention at McCartney’s show. But more importantly, it was what they stood for (no pun intended) that really mattered—a celebration of the female form.
I can appreciate the gesture of wearing something that makes my bust go va-voom but after my experience, I concluded that you don’t necessarily need to pump things up or show off the goods in order to honor your shape. Bullet bra or bare-chested, it’s about feeling confident no matter the cup size or the circumstance. I may have gotten a lot of side-eye but hey, I bet that bar crowd never thought a girl like me would have the guts to wear something so weird on game day.
Watch all of our Fall 2017 Ready-to-Wear videos: