MetaChat - Butt-baring formal wear?

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

06 October 2012

Butt-baring formal wear? When I was twelve or thirteen, I was at a friend's bar mitzvah party in the southern U.S.→[More:], a very ritzy affair because my friend's parents were very wealthy and his father was a prominent businessman.

My friends and I were astonished to see a woman dancing in a black lace-backed dress with no panties on. We saw her buttcrack. It was plain as day. We did a double-take, triple-take, quadruple-take. There was no mistaking what we were seeing. I don't recall seeing her "front" and I'm assuming it was not as revealing. This woman was conducting herself as if there was nothing inappropriate about her outfit.

My question: Is it considered appropriate to show your butt in a formal setting if it is at least covered with very transparent lace? Is a butt-baring women's formal dress "a thing"?

I ask this because I was at a wedding reception tonight and this memory, long forgotten, came back to me. Neither I nor my girlfriend could fathom this being an acceptable mode of dress in polite society ... but maybe we are wrong?

post by: jayder at: 21:35 | 9 comments

Maybe she didn't realize it was so sheer in the back? Some clothes only become transparent in certain light. Showing your rear is not really appropriate in any circumstance, and most people are glad to keep it covered, but there seem to be exceptions to every rule!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 06 October | 21:40

Funny, TPS, in years of pondering this strange incident, that explanation had never occurred to me. It's definitely plausible. The only reason I still wonder is that it was very sheer.

posted by jayder 06 October | 22:57

TPS is likely right - she probably had no idea of the transparency of the fabric in certain lighting conditions.

posted by gomichild 06 October | 23:35

Black is particularly bad for it - it can honestly look absolutely normal, or at most slightly sheer at some angles, then with the right lighting it is as sheer as stockings.

It's also possible that it was meant to be worn with a slip but the slip got misplaced/forgotten.

posted by geek anachronism 07 October | 03:31

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1188

posted by galadriel 07 October | 09:29

Wow, galadriel, that's perfect. Ha ha.

posted by jayder 07 October | 13:02

What a huge oops. Hope she didn't find out . . . that sort of thing can make you want to crawl under a rock, even many years later.

posted by bearwife 07 October | 15:14

I wonder too if she didn't realize just how low the back went. As in, she thought it ended higher up than it did (or she was shorter than the dress was designed for, since so many dresses seem to be made for women 5'7" or taller). Perhaps she thought she was going for sexy, but ended up scandalous?

posted by redvixen 07 October | 17:38

What a huge oops. Hope she didn't find out . . . that sort of thing can make you want to crawl under a rock, even many years later.

I wonder too if she didn't realize just how low the back went. As in, she thought it ended higher up than it did (or she was shorter than the dress was designed for, since so many dresses seem to be made for women 5'7" or taller). Perhaps she thought she was going for sexy, but ended up scandalous?

Typical of my tendency to overthink things while ignoring the obvious, I tentatively concluded that this was some rarefied, high-class allowance for showing a butt as long as it was in the context of elegant eveningwear. I even tied it to the scene in The Man With One Red Shoe where Lori Singer's character wears a formal dress showing a bit of crack. (Screenshot can be found in this blog post.)

I do find it somewhat reassuring that this was likely no arcane high class thing, just an accident. I hope the woman would be amused that it is being debated thirty years later on the web.

posted by jayder 09 October | 20:32

← Kim Boekbinder's latest single "Sky Is Calling" || [courtesy of reddit] I dare you not to squee: interspecies snorgling! →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN