The 2025 Grammys was a night of power-cleavage and underwear as outerwear. Women artists, all at the top of their game, dominated both the list of winners and best dressed.
Beyoncé made history as the most-awarded artist in Grammy’s history wearing a stunning low-cut Schiaparelli Haute Couture dress. Doechii took home the Grammy for best rap album, and stripped down to sporty designer underwear. Sabrina Carpenter showed bum cleavage on the red carpet before snagging a pair of awards. Charli XCX, who has made micro shorts and bikini tops her signature outfit, also got a pair of Grammys before she closed out the show by showering the stage in knickers while singing her lingerie-themed banger Guess.
And then there was Kanye West, desperately pulling another ridiculous stunt at the expense of a woman’s dignity.
Bianca Censori, his wife, arrived in a floor-length black fur coat that she dropped – seemingly on West’s command – to reveal she was wearing a skintight mesh tube that left literally nothing to the imagination.
Calling it a dress would be a stretch. It was more of a human-sized equivalent of the bags you usually find supermarket onions in.
While rumours circulated that the pair were kicked out of the event, it appears that they simply walked the red carpet as invited guests then drove away. The red carpet was merely a photo-op for West to promote his 2024 album, Vultures 1, which used a similar image of West in all black facing the camera while Censori bared most of her bum for the camera.
Boobs as a billboard? Ass out to break the internet? Groundbreaking.
Sex sells, and the Grammys are traditionally the racier night of awards season before everyone covers up a bit for the Oscars. Courtney Love wore a sheer nude dress to the Grammys way back in 1998, before there was even a social media to trend on.
Cleavage being back in vogue is something to celebrate, especially when Ozempic is waging a war on the busty. While there was plenty of skin on show on both the red carpet at the stage, the majority of it was carefully choreographed with smart fashion references and messages of social justice.
Carpenter’s custom JW Anderson gown was a clear reference to the backless, bejewelled butt cleavage look worn by Shirley MacLaine in camp Sixties comedy What A Way to Go (which itself was a reference to Fifties model Vicky Dougan’s famous back cleavage dresses). Her performance was a tribute to a golden age of cheeky Hollywood dance routines. Yes she was in a bustier for some of it, but obviously wearing multiple layers of shiny dance tights underneath.
Chappell Roan rocked a corseted archive pull in the form of a Jean Paul Gaultier 2003 couture dress for the red carpet, featuring a print of Edward Degas’ ballet dancers. Roan switched to a studded leather leotard to ride a giant pink pony on stage, while using her time in front of the mic to advocate for trans rights and better conditions for music artists.
Julia Fox, who briefly dated West, knows how to create a look and play with expectations. She layered panels of mesh over the undergarments and paired them with oversized and fashion-ugly accessories: chunky boots, a boxy leather jacket, and yellow rubber gloves of the kind usually found by your sink.
Taylor Swift tried to beat the demure figure skater costume allegations with a sexy red Vivienne Westwood corseted number, accessorized with a thigh chain with a dangling T for boyfriend Travis Kelce. It still came off more sweet than sultry, but Swift was out in full force to support her fellow women despite her own music getting snubbed.
Even the boys got in on the tearaway costume action, with singer Benson Boone having Heidi Klum rip off his suit to reveal a skintight baby blue sequined number. It was Eurovision levels of high camp.
West’s fashion credentials are, in comparison, all fur coat, no knickers. He uses the female body as a shock tactic, styling the women he dates in increasingly outrages (non) ensembles to prove what, exactly? That he can?
West has always appeared to fancy himself as a Svengali stylist to the women in his orbit. Amber Rose, who dated West between 2008 and 2010, has spoken out regularly about how her ex moulded her public image into that of a “sexpot type of girl”.
The snakeskin print low-cut catsuit West dressed Rose in for the 2009 MTV Music Awards got him some attention, and he’s been using the same tired model ever since. When they broke up, West went on to make deeply unpleasant slut-shamey comments about Rose.
Ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s wardrobe was, famously, another West “project”. When they got together, he threw out her wardrobe of bodycon dresses and pumps and started dressing her in more avant garde looks. At the 2019 Met Gala, West dressed his then wife in a wet-look latex Thierry Mugler dress with exaggerated ruching over her bum. Then West moped and said the look was “too sexy”.
Kardashian at least seemed to have a bit of fun with her time as a West accessory. And when, post breakup, she wore the naked dress designed for Marylin Monroe to the 2022 Met Gala the complaints weren’t about how much of her body was on display – but about the correct treatment of historic garments. Nakedness in fashion just isn’t an interesting talking point any more.
Censori, meanwhile, is just the latest iteration of West’s apparent penchant for treating his romantic partners as silent dress-up doll accessories.
In Fox’s memoir she hinted that West controlled what she wore during their relationship, appointing stylists who would make her change in the bathroom during a date if the musician didn’t like what she wore. She also alleged that her ex once offered to get her a boob job.
Censori has been naked to promote her husband’s work for so long she probably has permanent frostbite. He regularly posts nude shots of Censori bathing or wearing a micro bikini on Instagram. Even when flying it doesn’t let up; the pair were photographed at Tokyo airport last week with West in a baggy all-white ensemble while Censori wore a sheer bodysuit, tights and heels.
While it gives the tabloids plenty of material to keep West’s fading music and fashion careers in the spotlight, it just makes him look like a sad creep that’s out of ideas.
It would have been far more interesting and subversive if Censori had, say, rocked a full bush to poke through the onion-bag. A full Hollywood wax is beyond passé, but it seems West is stuck trying to shill a pornified image of women to boost his own image.
The naked dress was, indeed, outrageous. But not in the sense that our sense of decency and morals were particularly outraged. We know what boobs look like. We have mirrors and/or the internet. All that free the nipple malarkey was literally over a decade ago. Rather, it’s outrageously boring.
With full nudity on the red carpet achieved, West has run out of road when it comes to using his romantic partners to pull stunts. All the women artists had something to say, regardless of how much of their own bodies they chose to reveal. West’s sideshow party trick fell flat.
India Block is a culture and lifestyle writer
