Attention, Men: The Fashion Industry Wants You to Embrace Your Inner Thot

#ThotBoySummer is upon us

Rick Owns, Etro, AMI, Fendi Menswear Spring 2022
Vogue Runway

This summer was destined to be defined by horniness. With the arrival of the vaccine (and thus #HotVaxSummer), it wasn’t long before people began relishing a season largely unhindered by masks and social distance rules, celebrating the return of normalcy with some very abnormal behavior, even going so far as to risk public sex in the name of a TikTok challenge. But one might argue people have been petitioning for hornier summers since before the pandemic, largely through clothing trends like the demand for shorts with a 5-inch inseam (and shorter).

And if the Spring/Summer 2022 Menswear shows were any indication, things are only going to get hornier.

To put it bluntly, the fashion industry wants you to embrace your inner thot, not just this summer but for next summer. as well. While the trends of last year required effort on the part of designers to adapt their collections to a moment that very much did not require nice new clothes, this menswear season allowed for full exercise in creativity. Rather than go in the overtly opulent direction one might expect after a year inundated with athleisure and sweats, designers eschewed any inclination towards decadence, heeding the call for more exposed skin and giving us pure, unadulterated thottiness. 

Not to be confused with sexiness, thottiness differs in that there’s no mistaking it for anything other than what it is, as it abandons any attempts demureness or subtlety. Where something as simple as a white T-shirt can be perceived as sexy, a floral silk shirt left unbuttoned to reveal the entirety of one’s chest and torso is definitively thotty. The fashion industry is obviously no stranger to sexiness, but thottiness feels like foreign territory, certainly for brands at the pinnacle of luxury. But there comes a time when understated sexiness isn’t enough, when the situation calls for nothing less than a mesh tank. We’ve all wasted too much time over the past year and a half. Now is not the time to beat around the bush.

One collection built around a thotty sensibility was from the Dark Lord of Fashion himself, Rick Owens, who’s no stranger to provocative looks, having sent models down the runway in tighty whities for F/W 2021. For this collection there were no models in underwear, but instead they were clad in delicate bodysuits that revealed more than they covered, low slung denim that threatened to fall at any moment, heavily distressed sweaters clearly not designed to provide warmth and diaphanous fabrics that clung to the skin. Instead of adhering to the traditional idea of thottiness — those being obscenely short shorts, cropped tops and skin-tight fabric — Owens expanded on the aesthetic possibilities of what it means to dress like a thot.

Even “tamer” brands whose design ethos seems entirely antithetical to thottiness couldn’t resist indulging in their own more risqué looks, like a cardigan sans shirt underneath at Hermès or blazers cropped so severely at Fendi they looked like they had literally been cut in half.

As with most designer trends, trying them for yourself can be intimidating, especially when, like in this case, the whole point is that the more exposed you are, the better. But dressing like a thot isn’t just about donning the skimpiest and most scandalous clothing you can find; it’s about embracing parts of your body you might have previously shunned and finding liberation in that acceptance, whether it’s through a navel-grazing tee or finally making the switch to shorts that show off those thighs of yours.

And if you’re still too nervous to try you hand at dressing thottily this summer, don’t worry. There will be plenty of #ThotBoySummers to come.

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