Thread by @Sanilac_J

WHY SYDNEY SWEENEY'S TRANSPARENT DRESS WILL CHANGE FASHION FOREVER

Catchy title, eh? Well, it's true. Breaking through the transparency barrier really will change the world. I'll explain in this thread, so keep reading!👇

Public decency standards have been steadily loosening for around 150 years, with brief steps back in the 1950s and 1980s. The changes have been slow and impacted different clothing elements, so you hardly notice them happening. But today a bright line has been crossed.

To simplify, immodesty progressed in three main stages.

1. During the 20th century, hemlines came up and necklines came down. This funny graph shows the progress.

2. From 2000-2025, bottoms got tighter. If you're young enough you might not realize it, but the third set of leggings here would have been totally unacceptable in 1999.

That second stage has now ended, because bottoms got, well, about as tight as they could get.

3. Stage three is transparency. After you've maxxed out on skimpiness and tightness, it's the only place to go. And that's the stage your favorite busty celebrity's stunt has thrust us so deeply into today.

I know what you're thinking: Kanye's girlfriend already did this. The transparent dress at a celebrity event. It's just a stunt. Well, it was just a stunt when Kanye's girlfriend did it, but she was escorted away by police! That was an icebreaker. Today is the real deal.

No police. Everyone is treating this like a normal event. Sydney Sweeney's expression says nothing special is happening. But, of course, something big IS happening. A previously hard line is being unceremoniously mowed down at an award ceremony.

This is something I've been expecting to happen eventually. Take a look at the prediction below. When you see a 150-year trend, it's easy to bet the trend will keep going. I just didn't expect it to happen so fast.

On a fashion level, this is a positive development. Transparency is a lot prettier and more interesting than tightness. Here are some looks that I expect will come into fashion over the next decades.

On a social level, I find crossing the transparency barrier much more questionable. But that's a topic for a different thread.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE FROM NORMALIZING TRANSPARENCY

In my seduction tips for flat girls I've long recommended the braless look. That's because for decades this has been a spice that they could get away with when their curvier sisters couldn't. A special advantage unique to them.

Sadly, as soon as transparency is normalized for everyone, the unique advantage for flat girls disappears. And that's another reason Sydney Sweeney's transparent fashion statement is such a big deal. Celebs have gone braless on the red carpet in the past, but not busty celebs.

As I explained in great detail in my podcast (link below), big breasts are a big advantage - and most women today underestimate just HOW BIG an advantage they are. But until today this advantage was always restrained by stricter limits.

Stricter dress codes have long been enforced on better-endowed women in order to restrain their higher sex appeal. That means higher necklines than were acceptable for flatter girls - and transparency completely off limits.

The people who say I'm exaggerating the importance Sydney's transparent dress are missing the point I've just made. What she's knocked over is a longstanding rule that helped to equalize the sex appeal of well- and poorly endowed women in social settings.

With this de facto suppression of inequality ended, the public beauty deathmatch women fight every day is now going to take place on very uneven terms.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

This boost to inequality isn't the only change on the way. Once a hard line has been broken, as it has today, the path becomes clear to toboggan all the way down a slippery slope at exceedingly high speeds. And that, dear readers, is what will happen next.

Crossing the hard line into transparency doesn't end the 150-year spree of decreasing modesty. It makes it easier to continue that spree, degree by degree.

In Photoshop you can set opacity from 0 to 100%. If Sydney's new dress is 50%, you know what to expect. Next year it will be 49%, and then 48%, and then it will toboggan on and on down the slope to 1%. I'd like to show you more accurate pictures, but I'm keeping this thread PG13.

As I've explained in the past, the only natural endpoint of this trend is a new concept of fashion as "decorated nudity." Not soon, no. But, that's where we're headed.

Everything comes back into style if you wait long enough, and while 5,000 years is an awfully long time to wait, we've already seen this endpoint with the Minoan civilization. And that's what we'll get when transparency reaches 0%. A return of the Minoan style.

In past times natural forces always pushed back against immodesty eventually. There were consequences to being sexually loose. But today the birthrate is at an all-time low and the teen birthrate even lower. Meanwhile, kids grow up watching you know exactly what on their phones.

So the snow is primed for the toboggan and there are no moguls on the hill. Enjoy the ride, I guess.

Photos: a memory of life back at the top of the mountain.

If this thread doesn't get as many reposts as the one I wrote on the new and improved breast augmentation technology I'm going to be pretty pissed. So get reposting, people!

If you're too busy to listen to my amazing podcast with @musecontour, you can still learn the truth about feminine beauty at the infamous link below. I cover attractive clothing styles and so much more.

And - I'll soon be updating the section on modesty!
jsanilac.com/dispelling-bea…

@MuseContour P.S.

Many will celebrate this trend toward immodesty. My personal opinion - if it wasn't clear - is that it's unfortunate, and transparency is better saved for a private setting. If you want to know why, read the "goldilocks" thread above.

But - nobody cares! Happening anyway.

@MuseContour Why do I say "happening anyway"?

There's a social advantage - or at least the PERCEPTION of a social advantage (attention!) - to wearing clothes that are slightly more revealing than the woman next to you. With every woman competing for social success, the outcome is obvious.

@MuseContour Yes, I hate celebrity beauty analysis and think it's a massive distraction from understanding real beauty. But, even I will admit that when it comes to setting social trends celeb stunts like the one I've covered here can be a big deal.

@MuseContour Maybe I didn't say this plainly enough, so a TLDR:

When you normalize full transparency, you let loose an insanely intense competition over breast size and shape that longstanding modesty standards had been restraining for centuries.

This is what they call "Chesterton's bra."

@MuseContour Transparency was almost certainly going to happen eventually anyway, but Sydney's PR team singlehandedly moved it forward by several YEARS, which is quite an "accomplishment." All for the sake of a few days of headlines in the Daily Mail. The wisdom on which our culture moves.