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Let’s be real: if anything was going to prove that “free the nipple” and “Brat season” are year-round movements, it would be Charli XCX‘s naked dress. The pop provocateur showed up to Variety’s 2024 Hitmakers Brunch in Los Angeles wearing what might just be the most perfectly calculated barely-there gown of the season—a sheer Saint Laurent number that took her signature shock value from summer straight into winter.
Related: Charli XCX’s Life in Outfits—From Indie Pop Princess to Rave Star
The dress, a completely see-through jersey creation by Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello, traded Charli’s now-famous “Brat green” for a sultry olive shade. With its halter neckline and backless silhouette, the dress managed to be both totally revealing and effortlessly chic—which, if we think about it, is pretty much Charli’s whole vibe these days.
Keeping true to the “less is more” philosophy (quite literally in this case), her stylist Chris Horan completed the look with just the essentials: matching pointy-toe heels and a Saint Laurent Vicky Miniaudiere plexiglass purse. Her glam followed suit with subtle waves and barely-there makeup that let the dress do all the talking.
Image: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic.
After a summer where Charli’s deliberately “offensive, off-trend shade of green” took over everything from street style to political campaigns, her latest look shows how she’s evolving it into something more subtle but equally subversive. As she told Vogue Singapore, her original color choice was meant “to trigger the idea of something being wrong.” She elaborated, “I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture—why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad? I’m not doing things to be nice.”
The occasion for the dress was major itself: Charli was being crowned Hitmaker of the Year, an honor that makes perfect sense given how Brat basically owned 2024. The album didn’t just spark countless memes and a whole “Brat summer” movement; it landed at #1 on Rolling Stone’s best albums of 2024 list.
When she took the stage (after an introduction from friend and Bodies Bodies Bodies star Rachel Sennott), Charli drew a cheeky parallel between her work and The Velvet Underground’s iconic 1967 album: “My album cover has not yet appeared at the Guggenheim or the Whitney or the Tate. However, some of my merch is able to be purchased at Urban Outfitters. I guess that means I’m halfway there.”
The celebration turned into something of an indie-pop dream team moment, with Olivia Rodrigo and Laufey joining Charli, Caroline Polachek, and Amy Allen for what Rodrigo later perfectly captured on her Instagram Story as “an actual photo of what my Spotify wrapped looks like.”
While naked dresses have been having their moment on runways from Prada to Givenchy, and are set to keep going strong through spring 2025 with designers like Khaite and Ralph Lauren, Charli’s take wasn’t just about following a trend—it made a statement that only she could make: Brat is a state of being, and she’s just getting started.
