The Ultimate Recession Indicator? Going-Out Clothes Are Getting Tighter.

Fashion is one giant pendulum, swinging from extremes like Alessandro Michele’s technicolor tenure at Gucci to “quiet luxury” within a span of five years. It’s a bit of oversaturation, but it’s also a response to our surroundings, environmentally, aesthetically, and — without even realizing it — politically. With uncertainty and generalized mass chaos being the mood of 2025, going-out dresses are shrinking again. The girls are strapping in for the postcapitalist hellscape we live in.

To be clear: Clothes have never been baggier, and indeed the go-to day looks of our faves like Hailey Bieber and Chloë Sevigny are more capacious than ever, replete with batlike blouson leather jackets and puddling denim. The contrast of the little-top-big-bottom silhouette is also still reigning supreme, but we’re concerned with event dresses and the way the girls are cinching it in. One of the first times it stuck was Saint Laurent’s Fall/Winter 2024 hosiery-inspired collection (which Julia Fox reappropriated for Charli XCX’s Coachella afterparty), setting designers down a path of embracing the female form all over again.

This isn’t the Hervé Leger bandage-dress revival you may think it is — although, to be fair, I’ve started seeing more of those crop up whilst elbowing through fashion week parties — but instead, it’s a focus on contrasts and exploring new ways to wrap jersey around the body. Yes, the hosiery was inventive, but indie designers like George Trochopoulos are making knits gauzy and clingy, and Francesco Murano is draping fabric in just the right places. The Fall/Winter 2025 runways also signaled this return: Sarah Burton opened her debut Givenchy show with a skin-tight fishnet catsuit on Binx Walton. The look screams Fontainebleau circa 2006, which shows the cultural tides shifting, even on the premiere catwalks of Paris. This is also in line with the Y2Chaos we’ve closely charted, with unlikely aesthetics cropping back up as we enter uncharted territory of all-female space journeys causing oligarchic discourse on TikTok.

With dozens of new brands dropping monthly and so, so many events, there are infinite ways to show up as a woman today. The girlhood of it all is trending; the mature, boss-b*tch White House Wives are serving corporate energy; but sometimes, it just hits to feel sexy in a clingy dress. Whether you opt for logistically challenging latex from Khy or floral-covered cotton jersey from H&M’s Magda Butrym collection, embrace the tightening of it all — and dance carefree knowing you don’t have to wear a bra.