by Lingerie is often presented as fashion’s most intimate category: something hidden beneath clothing, purchased for comfort, romance, confidence, or simply practicality. Yet the moment lingerie becomes visible—on a runway, in an advertisement, on a billboard, or across social media—it stops being merely underwear. It becomes a statement about whose body is considered desirable, whose sexuality is acceptable, whose skin is treated as the default, and whose presence is allowed to remain complicated.
That is why lingerie representation remains politically charged.
For decades, mainstream lingerie imagery largely operated according to a remarkably narrow visual formula. The ideal model was generally young, conventionally attractive, slim, able-bodied and presented through a highly polished version of femininity. Even when brands used the language of empowerment, the underlying message could remain restrictive: this is what sexy looks like; this is how a desirable body should be shaped; this is the kind of woman who belongs in lingerie.
The cultural landscape has changed dramatically. Plus-size models have become more visible. Black and brown skin tones have gained greater commercial recognition. Disabled models have appeared in adaptive lingerie campaigns. Trans and gender-nonconforming people have entered conversations about intimate apparel. Muslim and other modest-dressing consumers have demanded fashion that does not treat coverage as the opposite of confidence. Older women have begun appearing more prominently in campaigns. And brands have learned that consumers are not simply asking to be represented—they are asking to be designed for.
Yet representation creates its own questions.
Who gets represented, and who merely appears as a marketing symbol? Does putting a larger body in a campaign matter if the product does not fit that body? Is a wider shade range meaningful if “nude” still quietly refers to one racial group? Can lingerie be inclusive while continuing to sexualize bodies according to old standards? And what happens when the politics of visibility collide with cultural ideas about modesty, religion, sexuality, privacy and dignity?
These questions reveal why lingerie is not politically neutral. It sits directly at the intersection of the personal and the public.
Lingerie Was Never Just About Underwear
The politics of lingerie begin with a deceptively simple fact: underwear is worn by almost everyone, but it has not historically been designed or advertised as though everyone matters equally.
Lingerie has long been associated with femininity, desirability and the performance of sexuality. Advertising transformed an ordinary garment into a fantasy. The bra became a symbol; lace became a language; the body wearing it became part of a carefully constructed visual story.
That story was not universal.
For much of modern Western fashion history, the dominant lingerie image centered on a relatively standardized body. The model was not merely wearing the product. She was demonstrating an ideal. Her body provided the supposed evidence that the lingerie worked.
This distinction matters.
When a campaign features only one kind of body, consumers can interpret the absence of other bodies as meaningful even when the company never explicitly says that those bodies are undesirable. A teenager looking at a lingerie advertisement does not need to hear the sentence “your body is wrong” for the image to influence her understanding of what society considers beautiful.
Representation therefore operates through repetition.
The body that repeatedly appears becomes ordinary. The body that rarely appears becomes exceptional.
And the exceptional body is frequently treated as a marketing event rather than a normal customer.
That is one reason lingerie representation has become politically charged: changing the model changes the implied definition of who the product belongs to.
The Victoria’s Secret Era and the Politics of the “Ideal”
Few examples illustrate the cultural power of lingerie imagery more clearly than Victoria’s Secret.
For more than two decades, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show became a global entertainment phenomenon. Its Angels were not simply models selling underwear. They became celebrities, beauty references and symbols of a particular version of glamour.
The formula was highly recognizable: elaborate wings, sculpted bodies, elaborate styling and a fantasy-driven spectacle.
But as cultural expectations changed, the limitations of that formula became increasingly visible. Vogue noted that the show had propagated a narrow, male-oriented definition of sexiness while leaving comparatively little room for diversity. The show was ultimately canceled in 2019 after declining relevance, criticism and broader questions about the brand’s approach to representation.
The important point is not that the Victoria’s Secret aesthetic was inherently wrong.
There is nothing inherently oppressive about glamorous lingerie, slim models, elaborate fantasy or overt sexuality. The problem emerges when one aesthetic becomes so dominant that it begins to masquerade as the universal definition of desirability.
A person can enjoy the fantasy without believing that everyone must resemble it.
The political problem occurs when the fantasy becomes the gatekeeper.
The controversy surrounding Victoria’s Secret became particularly revealing in 2018, when then-executive Ed Razek publicly defended the company’s decision not to pursue every form of casting diversity, arguing that the fashion show was entertainment rather than a statement of political correctness.
That defense unintentionally exposed the central cultural disagreement.
Representation itself had become political.
For audiences demanding broader visibility, the issue was not simply whether a particular model looked beautiful. It was whether a global company had the cultural power to decide which bodies were worthy of being associated with lingerie.
The Fenty Disruption: Changing Who Gets to Be Sexy
The rise of Savage X Fenty offered one of the clearest challenges to the old lingerie hierarchy.
When Rihanna launched Savage X Fenty in 2018, the brand entered a market where inclusive lingerie was increasingly being demanded but was still far from universal. Its early campaigns featured a visibly diverse group of models, while its product offering extended beyond the narrow sizing conventions that had dominated much of the industry. Vogue reported that the initial range included bras from 32A to 44DD and underwear from XS to 3X.
The cultural significance was larger than the numbers.
Savage X Fenty did not simply place different bodies inside an existing lingerie fantasy. Its shows changed the atmosphere surrounding lingerie itself.
The 2018 Savage X Fenty show included models and performers from different racial backgrounds and body types, as well as Laverne Cox and a pregnant Slick Woods. Vogue described the presentation as an alternative to the conventional lingerie runway, combining fashion, choreography, music and a much broader cast.
Rihanna’s own explanation was particularly significant. In a Vogue interview, she described the goal as including women who had not traditionally been made to feel sexy according to society’s expectations. She also emphasized that the casting was not limited by size, shape or color.
This reframed the consumer.
The lingerie wearer was no longer necessarily a woman attempting to become closer to an idealized model. She could be the starting point.
That is a profound shift.
But Is Visibility the Same as Inclusion?
This is where the conversation becomes more complicated.
Representation is powerful, but representation alone cannot solve structural exclusion.
A brand can photograph a plus-size model and still have limited plus-size stock. It can show darker skin tones while producing only one or two “nude” shades for those consumers. It can feature a disabled model while offering no genuinely adaptive construction. It can include a hijab-wearing fashion figure in an editorial while ignoring consumers who want coverage, layering or culturally appropriate design.
The photograph can change faster than the product.
That creates a distinction between representational inclusion and material inclusion.
Representational inclusion asks:
Can I see someone like myself in the campaign?
Material inclusion asks:
Can I actually buy something that works for me?
The second question is harder.
It involves pattern-making, manufacturing, pricing, distribution, stock levels, fit testing and customer service.
A campaign may cost relatively little compared with redesigning a product range.
That is why consumers increasingly scrutinize whether diversity exists throughout the business rather than only in front of the camera.
The Politics of “Nude”
Few words in fashion demonstrate the racial politics of representation as effectively as “nude.”
Historically, lingerie labeled nude frequently meant a pale beige or pinkish shade designed to visually approximate lighter skin. For consumers with darker complexions, the supposed neutral was not neutral at all.
The Guardian documented this problem through the growth of brands such as Nubian Skin, founded by Ade Hassan, which specifically sought to offer underwear and hosiery in darker skin tones. The broader problem was not simply a shortage of colors; it was the assumption that one skin tone could stand in for humanity as a whole.
This is why color representation carries political weight.
Calling something “skin tone” when it represents only one portion of the population quietly establishes a hierarchy of normality.
It says:
This is the skin that does not need explanation.
Everyone else requires a special category.
The expansion of skin-tone lingerie challenges that hierarchy. But even this progress requires nuance. There is no single Black, brown, South Asian, Middle Eastern or Indigenous skin tone. A genuinely inclusive nude spectrum cannot simply add “brown” to “beige” and declare victory.
Human skin exists across extraordinary variation.
Representation must therefore move from symbolic recognition toward precision.
Plus-Size Representation: From Visibility to Fit
The politics surrounding plus-size lingerie are particularly revealing because the body itself becomes part of the product conversation.
In mainstream fashion imagery, larger bodies have historically been presented as exceptions. When they entered campaigns, they were often accompanied by language about confidence, empowerment or body positivity.
That language can be meaningful.
But it can also create a strange cultural burden.
A straight-size model is usually allowed to simply be beautiful.
A plus-size model is often expected to represent an entire movement.
She becomes “empowering.”
She becomes “brave.”
She becomes evidence that a brand is changing.
This creates an uncomfortable double standard. Why should one body be permitted to exist as ordinary while another must carry an inspirational narrative?
True representation should eventually make the body less narratively exceptional.
A plus-size woman wearing lingerie does not always need to symbolize resistance.
Sometimes she is simply a customer buying underwear.
That ordinariness is itself a form of progress.
The Psychological Importance of Seeing an Ordinary Body
The psychological impact of representation does not depend solely on whether viewers consciously identify with a model.
Images shape social norms through repetition.
When particular bodies dominate advertising, those bodies become associated with desirability. When alternative bodies repeatedly appear in attractive, ordinary, non-apologetic contexts, the boundaries of desirability can expand.
This matters especially for younger consumers.
A young person learning what femininity means is not encountering beauty standards through one advertisement. She is receiving thousands of visual messages from television, fashion, social media, influencers and retail environments.
Lingerie contributes to that environment because it places the body itself at the center.
The psychological difference between “this woman looks good in lingerie” and “women who look like this can look good in lingerie” is substantial.
The second message is social.
It expands belonging.
Yet representation should not be treated as a cure for body dissatisfaction. A diverse advertising campaign cannot eliminate cultural pressure, comparison or insecurity by itself.
That would place too much responsibility on imagery and too little on the larger systems producing beauty standards.
Representation is one piece of the environment, not a complete psychological intervention.
Disability and the Question of Who Lingerie Is Designed For
Another major shift concerns disability.
For years, lingerie imagery overwhelmingly assumed a body that could move, dress and undress according to conventional garment construction.
That assumption left many people outside the design conversation.
In 2023, Victoria’s Secret announced an adaptive intimates collection developed with Runway of Dreams and Gamut Management. The collection included features such as magnetic closures and was tested with women with different disabilities; models with disabilities were also included in the runway presentation.
This is important because adaptive lingerie changes the meaning of representation.
The issue is no longer simply:
Does a disabled person appear in the advertisement?
It becomes:
Was the product designed around disabled people’s actual experiences?
That distinction is crucial.
Disability representation can become tokenistic when a person is placed in front of a camera without meaningful changes behind it.
But adaptive design can turn representation into infrastructure.
A magnetic closure, easier fastening mechanism or alternative construction may look like a small technical decision. For the person using it, however, it can determine independence, comfort and dignity.
Lingerie therefore becomes political not merely because bodies are visible, but because design determines who gets autonomy.
Modesty Complicates the Meaning of Empowerment
One of the most important challenges to Western lingerie narratives comes from cultures in which public sexual visibility is not necessarily the preferred expression of empowerment.
This is especially significant in Muslim communities, but the principle extends much further.
Fashion discourse has sometimes treated revealing clothing as inherently liberating and covered clothing as inherently restrictive.
That is too simplistic.
Modesty can be religious.
It can be cultural.
It can be personal.
It can be aesthetic.
It can vary according to setting.
And it can coexist with confidence, ambition, sensuality and self-expression.
Research and reporting on contemporary modest fashion have increasingly demonstrated the diversity of Muslim women’s relationships with clothing. The de Young Museum’s Contemporary Muslim Fashions exhibition, for example, explicitly challenged the tendency to treat Muslim dress as a monolithic or purely restrictive phenomenon.
This matters to lingerie because the intimate garment is often designed according to assumptions about what happens outside it.
A Western lingerie campaign may define empowerment through exposure.
A Muslim consumer may define empowerment through privacy, choice, coverage or the ability to decide when and for whom her body is visible.
Neither interpretation automatically represents every woman.
The political mistake is assuming that one must replace the other.
Muslim Consumers and the Right to a Private Body
The politics become even more interesting when considering lingerie itself.
A woman who dresses modestly in public does not cease to have preferences about underwear.
She may want beautiful colors, sophisticated construction, luxurious fabrics, supportive bras or coordinated sets. She may want lingerie that makes her feel attractive privately without wanting that sensuality displayed publicly.
This challenges a commercial assumption that lingerie empowerment requires public visibility.
It does not.
A woman does not have to show her lingerie to prove that she enjoys it.
The distinction between private sensuality and public sexual representation deserves greater attention.
For many consumers, lingerie is not a public political statement. It is an intensely private form of self-expression.
The industry can respect that by expanding the idea of who lingerie is for without requiring every consumer to participate in the same visual culture.
When Modesty Becomes Politically Charged
The reverse problem also exists.
Muslim and modest-dressing women can become politically visible precisely because of what they choose to cover.
Vogue Business reported in 2025 that modest fashion exists within a complicated political landscape, particularly amid Islamophobia and debates over religious dress. The article also noted the double standard by which covered clothing can be described as “chic” on non-Muslim women but interpreted through more restrictive or stereotyped language when worn by visibly Muslim women.
That double standard demonstrates why representation cannot be reduced to exposure.
A woman wearing less is not automatically more liberated.
A woman wearing more is not automatically less liberated.
The political question should be whether she has meaningful agency over her clothing.
That is a much more demanding standard.
Race, Sexuality and the Burden of Being “Exotic”
Lingerie representation also has a racial history that goes beyond skin-tone matching.
Certain racialized bodies have been repeatedly associated with particular sexual stereotypes. Black women, for example, have historically been subjected to hypersexualized representations in Western visual culture. Meanwhile, Asian women have often been represented through contrasting stereotypes of delicacy, submissiveness or exoticism.
The danger is that increasing representation can sometimes reproduce the same stereotypes rather than dismantle them.
A Black woman appearing in lingerie is not automatically progressive if the image relies on hypersexualization.
An Asian model is not meaningfully represented if her identity is reduced to exotic styling.
A South Asian woman should not have to perform a simplified version of “ethnic sensuality” to become visible.
Representation becomes meaningful when people are allowed complexity.
They can be sexy without being reduced to sex.
They can be glamorous without becoming stereotypes.
They can be ordinary without disappearing.
Gender Representation Changes the Question Again
Lingerie has traditionally been marketed through a binary understanding of gender.
Bras were for women.
Men’s underwear belonged to a separate visual category.
But contemporary fashion has increasingly challenged these boundaries.
Savage X Fenty’s presentations, for example, have included men across different racial backgrounds and body types, alongside performers such as Troye Sivan and Jeremy Pope. Rihanna explicitly discussed men’s inclusion as an area where representation had also been lacking.
This raises an important cultural question:
Why must lingerie always reinforce the gender categories through which it was historically sold?
For some consumers, lingerie is connected strongly to femininity.
For others, underwear is about comfort, sensuality, identity, gender expression or aesthetics that do not fit conventional categories.
The goal does not have to be erasing women’s lingerie.
It can simply mean allowing more people to exist within the category without demanding that they conform to one script.
The “Male Gaze” Is Only Part of the Story
Lingerie criticism frequently relies on the concept of the male gaze: the idea that women are often represented as objects for heterosexual male visual consumption.
This remains useful, but it does not explain everything.
Women look at lingerie.
Queer consumers look at lingerie.
Partners look at lingerie.
People buy lingerie for themselves.
And people can enjoy sexualized imagery without wanting every representation to be sexually neutral.
The more interesting question is therefore not:
Is this image sexy?
It is:
Who gets to define what sexy means?
That distinction allows room for glamour, eroticism and fantasy while still challenging exclusion.
The political goal should not necessarily be to desexualize lingerie.
That could create another restrictive standard.
Instead, the goal is to democratize desirability.
Why “Body Positivity” Can Become Another Box
The body-positive movement changed fashion by challenging the assumption that only thin bodies could be celebrated.
But even body positivity can develop its own visual formula.
There is pressure to appear confident.
There is pressure to love every part of one’s body.
There is pressure to pose boldly.
There is pressure to turn insecurity into empowerment.
That can become exhausting.
A person does not have to love every part of their body to deserve well-fitting lingerie.
They do not have to post a photograph.
They do not have to call themselves body positive.
They do not have to transform their underwear into activism.
The more inclusive future may therefore be less about demanding that consumers embrace a particular ideology and more about giving them choices.
Representation Must Include Economics
Another political dimension is price.
It is easy to discuss diversity while ignoring affordability.
A luxury lingerie campaign may feature a broad range of bodies and skin tones, yet remain financially inaccessible to many of the people it represents.
This creates a subtle contradiction.
The campaign says:
You belong here.
The price tag says:
But perhaps not as a customer.
Representation without affordability can become aspirational rather than inclusive.
This does not mean every lingerie company must become inexpensive. Luxury has its own legitimate market.
But a culturally meaningful industry needs diversity across price points, not only at the premium end.
Accessibility is part of representation.
The Global Problem With a Single Definition of “Sexy”
The internet has globalized lingerie imagery without creating a single global understanding of sexuality.
A campaign produced in New York may be viewed in Karachi, Lagos, Jakarta, Dubai, Nairobi, London or São Paulo within seconds.
But the cultural meaning of lingerie changes across these places.
A lace bra may represent empowerment to one viewer, private romance to another, ordinary clothing to another, or something culturally inappropriate to someone else.
That diversity should not be treated as a problem to solve.
It is a reality to design for.
Global fashion increasingly operates across cultural borders, but representation becomes more intelligent when brands recognize that consumers do not all arrive with the same relationship to exposure, modesty, sexuality or body image.
The most inclusive brand may therefore be the one that offers multiple ways of belonging.
Representation Should Not Require Performance
There is another subtle problem with modern inclusivity: the pressure to perform diversity visibly.
A campaign may feature one plus-size model, one disabled model, one Black model, one hijab-wearing model and one older model and then present the entire group as evidence of inclusion.
But people are not categories.
A person can belong to several identities simultaneously.
Someone can be plus-size and disabled.
Black and Muslim.
Older and queer.
South Asian and gender-nonconforming.
A person can also belong to none of the categories that marketers have selected.
This is why intersectionality matters.
Representation should not become a checklist.
The goal is not to collect identities.
The goal is to understand consumers as complex people.
From Casting Diversity to Design Diversity
The next stage of lingerie representation should therefore move beyond casting.
Brands need to ask different questions.
Are bras constructed for a genuinely wide range of bust shapes?
Are straps, closures and support systems adaptable?
Are nude colors sufficiently varied?
Are larger sizes engineered with the same design attention as smaller ones?
Are disabled consumers consulted during development?
Are campaigns created with cultural sensitivity?
Are modest options treated as fashionable rather than secondary?
Are older bodies represented without turning age into a problem to be disguised?
Are trans and gender-diverse consumers able to find products that work for their bodies and identities?
And perhaps most importantly:
Are these questions being answered before the campaign is photographed?
That is where representation becomes structural.
The Emotional Meaning of Fit
Fit is often discussed as a technical matter.
But fit is emotional.
A bra that digs into the body can make someone feel uncomfortable throughout the day. A garment that finally fits correctly can produce an entirely different relationship with clothing.
For people who have historically struggled to find lingerie that accommodates their bodies, finding a well-fitting garment can feel like recognition.
Not because the garment “fixes” the body.
Because the garment acknowledges it.
This is an important philosophical reversal.
Traditional fashion often asks bodies to adapt to clothes.
Inclusive design asks clothes to adapt to bodies.
That may sound like a small difference.
It is not.
It changes who is considered the standard customer.
Social Media Has Changed the Power Balance
The rise of social media has also shifted the politics of lingerie representation.
Consumers are no longer dependent entirely on editorial magazines or brand advertising to see themselves.
They can post their own images.
They can review fit.
They can expose missing sizes.
They can compare skin tones.
They can praise brands.
They can organize communities around specific needs.
They can make exclusion visible.
This has weakened the industry’s ability to control the narrative.
A company may describe itself as inclusive, but consumers can immediately ask whether the largest advertised size is actually available, whether the darker shade is stocked, whether the adaptive product works or whether a campaign is simply seasonal marketing.
The democratization of visual culture has therefore made representation harder to fake convincingly.
Yet Visibility Can Also Become Surveillance
There is a darker side to this visibility.
Social media can turn representation into another demand placed on the body.
A person may feel pressured to display their body publicly in order to prove confidence.
Plus-size creators can become expected to educate audiences constantly.
Disabled creators may be asked to explain their bodies repeatedly.
Muslim women may be expected to defend their clothing choices.
People from marginalized communities can become representatives even when they simply want to live.
This is why inclusion should not mean compulsory visibility.
A society can become more inclusive without requiring marginalized people to constantly display themselves.
Sometimes the most respectful form of representation is simply making room.
What Genuine Progress Could Look Like
The future of lingerie representation is unlikely to be one perfect campaign.
It will be more mundane—and more meaningful.
It could look like a customer opening a website and finding her size without searching through a special “extended” category.
It could mean seeing several skin-tone options labeled precisely rather than calling one beige shade “nude.”
It could mean adaptive underwear appearing beside conventional designs instead of being isolated in a medical-looking section.
It could mean modest lingerie being treated as beautiful rather than as evidence of repression.
It could mean older women appearing in campaigns without their age being presented as a shocking revelation.
It could mean trans and gender-diverse customers being considered during product development rather than being invited only for publicity.
It could mean plus-size customers receiving the same aesthetic range—romantic, minimalist, playful, luxurious, provocative—as everyone else.
Most importantly, it could mean that representation becomes so normal that it stops requiring a headline.
The Politics May Never Disappear—and That Is Not Necessarily Bad
Lingerie will probably remain politically charged because the body itself remains politically charged.
Societies continue to debate sexuality, gender, religion, race, aging, disability, beauty and bodily autonomy.
Lingerie sits at the center of those conversations because it is both intimate and visible.
The answer is not to make lingerie politically neutral.
That would be impossible.
The more constructive goal is to make its politics more expansive.
Instead of asking whether a body is worthy of being shown, ask whether the person has agency over how it is shown.
Instead of asking whether lingerie is empowering, ask who has access to it.
Instead of asking whether a campaign looks diverse, ask whether the company is structurally inclusive.
Instead of treating modesty and sensuality as opposing camps, recognize that both can exist within personal choice.
Instead of demanding that people love their bodies, create a culture in which their bodies do not have to earn dignity.
Conclusion: From Being Seen to Being Considered
The history of lingerie representation is ultimately a history of who gets to occupy desirability.
For decades, the industry often presented one narrow body as the natural home of sexiness. The rise of more diverse campaigns has challenged that assumption, from Savage X Fenty’s expansive casting to the growing visibility of adaptive lingerie, broader skin-tone ranges and modest-fashion consumers.
But the next chapter requires more than putting different people into the same photographs.
Representation must become practical.
It must reach the fitting room, the size chart, the product-development meeting, the price point, the shade range, the adaptive closure and the cultural assumptions behind the campaign.
Most of all, it must make room for contradiction.
A woman can want lingerie that makes her feel sensual and still reject public sexualization. A Muslim woman can value modesty and fashion simultaneously. A plus-size consumer can want glamorous lingerie without wanting to become a symbol of body positivity. A disabled consumer can want adaptive design without wanting disability to define the entire campaign. A person can enjoy traditional beauty ideals while still believing that other bodies deserve equal visibility.
Human beings are rarely as simple as advertising categories suggest.
That is why the most meaningful future for lingerie is not a world where every campaign looks identical in its diversity. It is a world where difference no longer has to be justified before it is accommodated.
The real measure of inclusion will not be how many kinds of bodies can appear under studio lights.
It will be how many kinds of people can walk into a store, open a website, choose something beautiful, find their size and feel that the product was made with them in mind.
When that happens, lingerie will still be intimate. It will still be sensual. It will still be culturally complicated.
But it will no longer need to ask who deserves to be seen.
It will begin with a more fundamental assumption:
Everyone deserves to belong.
Sources: Vogue, Reuters, The Guardian
