Celebrities seem to have developed a pants allergy. Bella Hadid and Julia Fox have been running errands in their underpants. Bodysuits, oversize blazers worn as dresses, and sheer fabrics that reveal the lingerie underneath are all common sights. This widespread pantsless trend has given rise to a new sort of garment, more micro than micro-shorts, bulkier than lingerie: I call it the “fashion diaper.”

Its closest historical analogues are the hot pants of the 1970s or the bottoms of the two-piece playsuits that were popular in the 1940s, though both of these are more shorts than briefs. The fashion diaper differs in that it’s distinctly undergarment-shaped: It may be a high-waisted brief, a bikini cut, or even a thong. It is underwear designed from the start to be worn as outerwear. It may come with accessories such as a belt; it may be bejeweled, or rendered in textured fabrics such as leather or a chunky knit. Miu Miu’s 2023 fall/winter fashion show featured several pairs of panties-as-outerwear. This has been mostly a trend in women’s fashion, although Prada’s spring-2026 menswear show featured very short shorts that looked pretty fashion-diaper-y.

The goal of the fashion diaper seems to be to expose not the rear, as you might expect (many are high-waisted and not particularly flattering to the behind), but rather as much leg as possible. “It’s a very interesting turn toward the legs,” Nancy Deihl, a co-author of The History of Modern Fashion: From 1850, told me.

Why legs, and why now? As with many trends, this shift seems to have come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, so this is hard to answer definitively. But the simplest explanation might be this: Fashion diapers get attention. “It’s not that easy to shock or surprise in fashion anymore,” Sonya Abrego, a fashion historian at Parsons School of Design, told me. The fashion experts I spoke with said that low-cut tops, sheer fabrics, and other body-baring looks rarely stand out in all the photos and videos that people see online these days. Fashion diapers, however, “maybe feel a little bit more provocative because they’re the bottoms,” Abrego said. The few inches of fabric that differentiate a micro-short from a fashion diaper are a crucial few inches that catch the eye when they go missing.

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The first place I noticed the fashion diaper—appropriately for an attention-grabbing garment—was onstage. In the Tortured Poets Department segment of her Eras Tour, Taylor Swift wore a couple of versions of a sparkly, high-waisted Vivienne Westwood brief, with a matching bra. Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo have worn many a fashion diaper, as have the members of the K-pop act Blackpink. Sabrina Carpenter wore one while performing at this year’s VMAs. The girl group Katseye’s endless array of tiny bottoms veers back and forth across the line between micro-miniskirts and full-blown fashion diapers. On her Cowboy Carter Tour, Beyoncé wore a lot of bodysuits and chaps, but she also dabbled in spangly and denim briefs.

Pop stars have been performing in bodysuits for decades—the leotard silhouette is visually striking while also giving freedom of movement, and can be easily layered over for quick costume changes. Perhaps somebody was inevitably going to think to cut one in half. Sarah Chapelle, who runs the Taylor Swift Style blog, told me in an email that she thinks of these garments as “pop star underwear.” She noted that they have dance-class associations, and create “a trick of the eye to elongate the leg.”

It makes sense that fashion diapers would proliferate among pop singers, because no matter where Deihl sees them, she told me, “all I can see is costume.” The look reminds her of the Rockettes, “the kind of gorgeous-gams showgirl look.” And we’re in something of a showgirl moment right now, thanks in large part to Taylor Swift’s recent album The Life of a Showgirl. In images for the album, Swift wears a vintage showgirl costume from the legendary designer Bob Mackie: a bejeweled underwear set he designed for the Vegas show Jubilee that reportedly caused a Swarovski-crystal shortage. Mackie’s looks have also recently been seen on Miley Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, and Zendaya.

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But fashion diapers also appear offstage, on the runway, the red carpet, and the street. The peak of the pantsless trend may have been this year’s Met Gala, where the dress code was “Tailored for You,” a nod to Black dandyism. Several stars wore menswear-inspired bodysuits or minidresses, and a couple of fashion diapers made appearances as well. Abrego told me that going pantsless was “an obvious way” to make the theme “sexier.” These looks reminded Daniel James Cole, a co-author of The History of Modern Fashion, once again of showgirls—“I just expect to toss one of these young women on the red carpet a top hat or a derby hat,” he said. (Taraji P. Henson did indeed wear a derby hat with her pantsless ensemble.)

The showgirl theory also holds in that fashion diapers seem to have taken off almost only among celebrities. Although Abrego and Cole mentioned seeing the occasional pantsless street-style look in New York City, the diaper trend does not seem likely to trickle down to H&M. Fashion’s turn toward legs seems to be manifesting for the ordinary person in slightly more modest ways: See the current popularity of short shorts (for men and women) and miniskirts.

When Kristen Stewart takes a walk in cable-knit undies, or Sydney Sweeney goes out in bejeweled briefs, that’s different from an anonymous civilian doing so. For celebrities, “their daily life is an extension of their performativity,” Deihl said. “They’re always dressing to be photographed.” Perhaps showgirls feel particularly resonant right now because, in the age of social media, “we’re all showgirls performing, to some degree, for the current cultural landscape of the internet,” Chapelle said. Yet only some of us are doing it pantsless.

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