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The once-maligned tube top (and its full-length dress sibling) is officially having a moment. Kendall Jenner wore one this past weekend as she pet a giraffe. (Casual!) The optic white piece trimmed in ice blue fur was by Pearle Knits, a small knitwear label by Michaela Rechtschaffner that is aiming to redefine the silhouette through handicraft. A few weeks prior, Kourtney Kardashian wore a tube dress in a deep burgundy color by Area, a look that evoked the early-’00s little black tube dress that transformed Victoria Beckham into Posh Spice. Even Sarah Jessica Parker has been on the tube train. Less than a month ago, she posted a photo of herself from her Sex and the City heyday wearing a cropped slate gray tube top with low-slung white trousers. (She referred to them as “sailor pants” in the caption.) A little bit of her tummy was showing, and she was appropriately accessorizing the look with a cosmopolitan. It, in other words, was a look that exuded fun.
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I myself love a tube moment. I love how the structure defies gravity and sits on the body. I don’t mean a bustier shape, where the hold is focused around the waist, slightly cinched, flaring out and upwards—a modern-day corset. With tube dressing, the fabric clings and outlines, like body-positive Saran wrap. There is something fun and sexy about living on the edge of a wardrobe malfunction: It could fall down, but hopefully, it doesn’t.
My colleague Market Editor Alexandra Gurvitch also loves tube dressing. Our chat conversations have recently been focused on the brash, bold-shoulder allure of the look. “It’s sexy!” says Gurvitch. “It’s all about the body.” In other words, every little dip, love handle, and curve is embraced by the fabric—and, it follows, the wearer. We Slack images of SJP back and forth, a sprinkle of Cameron Diaz from her Charlie’s Angels years, and definitely Rose McGowan circa her mean streak in Jawbreaker. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy made a black tube dress look ever so elegant with a pair of velvet opera gloves at a gala in 1998.
That era—the late ’90s to the early ’00s—was peak tube dressing. The silhouette appeared on the runways of Calvin Klein between Spring 1997 and Spring 1999, as well as at Prada for Spring 1999 and on Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2000 runway. The body-skimming shape is currently making the rounds again, rearing its head at Spring 2018 shows via an asymmetrical banded tube top at Linder, a hot pink iteration at Brandon Maxwell, and even as a Lurex-flecked bodysuit at Missoni. Want to join in on the tubular fun? Here, see the best tube tops and tube dresses to buy now. No strings—or straps—attached.
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