The bandage dress, first created by Herve Leger in the 1980s and relaunched circa 2007, has been seen hugging the bodies of everyone from Kim Kardashian to Caitlyn Jenner for the past thirty years.
Why? Well, the clue is in the name. The bandage dress is made from bands of a thick, stretchy material that acts kind of like Spanx. It sucks you in in all the right places and makes your boobs spill out of your top. If that’s the look you’re after.
Women love what it does for their bodies, but the UK boss-man of Herve Leger, now owned by Max Azria, does not like what women do for his dresses.
In my ignorance, I figured Patrick Couderc, UK director of Herve Leger, would be ecstatic at his products’ near ubiquity on red carpets worldwide.
Not so.
He’s taken time out of his busy schedule to explain: the insanely popular bandage dress is not meant to be worn by women with “prominent hip bones” or “flat chests”.
Confusingly, the dress is also verboten for “voluptuous” women. And lesbians. And “lower class” women.
Couderc recently told the Daily Mail that the dress had become a victim of its own success.
Couderc said he “refuses to give free dresses to celebrities if they are judged to lack sufficient class,” and believes that “if you’re a committed lesbian and you are wearing trousers all your life, you won’t want to buy a Leger dress. Lesbians would want to be rather butch and leisurely.”
Oh yes, and older women? “You should not display everything like you’re 23.”
Top Comments
This must be a joke. How can you say you won't “give free dresses to celebrities if they are judged to lack sufficient class,” when Kardashians / Jenners wear them constantly? Can one get much tackier or more classless than that family?
Oh look, another fashion designer!