In a world of naked dresses, did one take it too far?

It was arguably the biggest red carpet trend of 2024, dominating the Academy Awards, the Met Gala and everything else in between. The naked dress — embraced by celebrities ranging from Elle Fanning to Kim Kardashian, Doja Cat to Charlize Theron — has become an eyebrow-raising red carpet fixture. At last year’s Vanity Fair Oscars after party, we saw how nudity could be both angelic (as demonstrated by Jennifer Lawerence’s sheer, Fall-Winter 1996 Givenchy empire-waist dress hand-embroidered with clovers) and risqué (such as Charli XCX’s gauzy yellow nipple-baring gown, also made by Givenchy.) But at Sunday’s Grammys, only one naked dress was turning heads. While most guests opted for muted palettes and pared-back styling amid tributes to victims of Los Angeles’ devastating wildfires, Bianca Censori took a different approach. Censori arrived at the event alongside husband Kanye West — who now goes by Ye. If the Australian model’s long feather coat seemed uncharacteristically demure, given her risqué approach to dressing in public, it was because she didn’t plan on wearing it for long. On the other hand, “Emilia Pérez” has been lampooned for its tonal extremes, criticized for its depiction of Mexican culture and engulfed in controversy since it ascended to Oscar-favorite status. Within seconds of stopping for photos, the 30-year-old turned her back to the cameras and dropped her coat to reveal a barely-there sleeveless mini-dress made of transparent mesh that left nothing to the imagination. Naked dresses come in all shapes, sizes and varying levels of exposure. This genre of frock centers about the power of suggestion — sometimes, the wearer is not revealing anything at all. In the late 1990s, Jean-Paul Gaultier made waves with his trompe-l’oeil patterns, images of the bare human form, which he printed onto blazers and dresses. It’s a print that has since been revived by designers such as Glenn Martens, whose acid-colored, heatmap-style pieces have been worn by Bella Hadid and A$AP Rocky. Even some of the earliest examples of naked frocks — Mae West in the 1936 film “Go West, Young Man” or Carroll Baker’s Balmain dress worn while promoting “The Carpetbaggers” in 1964 — relied on expertly placed embroidery to give the impression of bare skin while avoiding any actual displays of nudity. Naked dresses, for all the fervent discussion, can be surprisingly modest. But what is the logical conclusion of a culture that revels in the suggestion of disrobing? To some — particularly those like Censori, who has frequently appeared in public in revealing outfits, whether heading into a music studio almost naked beneath a see-through rain jacket or going to dinner in LA wearing little more than a bra and a pair of sheer tights — the leap from naked dress to plain naked might feel small. On the Grammys red carpet, West, meanwhile, stood beside Censori in a black T-shirt and pants, expressionless behind a pair of sunglasses. Reports soon swirled that the couple were escorted out of the awards show. However, a source familiar with the sequence of events told CNN that was untrue. “He was not escorted out,” they said. “He’s a nominee. He walked the carpet and got in his car and left.” CNN has reached out to a representative for West for comment.