None of my Gen-Z friends wear bras – why do midlifers think that’s so odd?

From the red carpet to the runway to real life – it’s a bad day to be a bra, says Sapphire Hope

Gracie Withyman, 23, has not worn an underwired bra in five years.

“I literally threw out all of my wired bras when I left school and I’ve never looked back,” she says. The Gen Z psychology student prefers to call the undergarments by the feminist term: “The instruments of female torture.”

Withyman is far from alone. In recent years, many young people have been ditching the bra, including high-profile Gen-Zer Sydney Sweeney, whose nipples were visibly peeking through her sheer silver dress at Variety’s Power of Women gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel last week.

Actress Sydney Sweeney sparked headlines when she attended Variety’s 2025 Power Of Women event in a sheer silver dress last week - Getty

But not I and my fellow Gen Zs (born between 1997 and 2012). We hung up our bras years ago. Some had health concerns. A prominent myth during my own school years was that underwired bras restrict lymph fluid in your chest, which can lead to breast cancer, but it has since emerged that there is absolutely no truth behind this claim.

Alternatively, I had friends who chose to stuff socks or loo roll down their bras, just to give their boobs a perkier look. Others wore the thickest push-up bras they could get their hands on, desperately squeezing their boobs behind inches of artificial padding.

But those days have long gone – and the numbers prove it. British lingerie brand Dora Larsen has seen bra sales amongst 18 to 24-year-olds decrease by 10 per cent in the last two years.

Founder Georgia Larsen finds Gen Z customers are drawn to less restrictive bralettes, inspiring her to explore different options for unwired support. More people are opting to conceal just their nipples rather than use the full coverage of a bra, as Boots sales of nipple covers and body tape have increased by over a third in the last six months.

Young people choose not to follow the “Bra Advice 101” doled out by television fashion experts Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine in the early 2000s.

“When the boobs are lifted, magically, the waist appears” Trinny Woodall would say. Nor would the TV gardner Charlie Dimmock’s bralessness of the 1990s cause the same furore today.

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“I personally don’t think it is very attractive if I see someone on a cold day and it is obvious their nipples are sticking out,” my 53-year-old mother, Sarah, says when I ask her about the Gen Z phenomenon.

Older generations, it would appear, seem baffled.

She has worn a bra since the age of 13 and says she would feel “deeply uncomfortable” if she had to go a day without wearing one. Wired is her top choice.

Writer Sapphire Hope with her mother, Sarah, who says she’s worn a bra every day since the age of 13

My mother is convinced that the Gen Z braless mindset will change when they hit their 40s: “If only tits did go up, but unfortunately they go down. It’s all about the scaffolding,” she says.

After discussions with her fellow Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980), they feel that nipples should be concealed so as not to make other people feel uncomfortable.

Younger women think differently. For them, their own comfort comes first, not anyone else’s.

Going braless became fashionable during the ‘Free the Nipple’ movement of the early 2010s. ‘Free the Nipple’ is a feminist campaign that challenges censorship of the female nipple by encouraging women to exhibit their full boobs in public.

Older generations are perhaps less well-informed on this (my mother incorrectly calls the movement “the freedom of the nipple”).

Some businesses have even profited from this trend. Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, Skims sells a £72 “nipple push-up bra,” which features a “built-in raised nipple detail for a perky, braless look.”

The “pierced nipple push-up bra” goes one step further. It comes with a “removable nylon-coated nipple piercing for an unforgettable statement.”

Kim Kardashian modelling the Skims ‘nipple push-up bra’ - Skims

“Women’s nipples are still seen as inappropriate and distracting, in a way that men’s just aren’t,” Withyman tells me.

She says freeing the nipple dismantles the narrative that women’s breasts should be inherently sexualised.

She wants her body to “exist in its natural form, sitting how it’s meant to, comfortable and unrestricted.” She believes a lot of people are “desensitised” to the feeling of wearing bras.

“They don’t question it,” she adds. The only time she would consider a sports bra would be if she went on a run, but actively chooses not to wear one when in the gym or on hiking trips.

“Not wearing a bra can be an act of defiance, but it doesn’t have to be… For me it just comes down to being more comfortable.” She does not actually know her cup size because she has never had a bra fitting.

For Floss Hensel-Bishop, a 26-year-old nurse, bras are neither comfortable nor practical: “The wire digs in, they’re a pain to put on, they leave marks on your shoulders, and on me, there’s nothing much to hold up anyway. Why would I bother?”

Floss Hensel-Bishop says that as a physical garment, a bra is ‘neither comfortable nor practical’ - Floss Hensel-Bishop

Hensel-Bishop says her main issue with bras is the “societal pressure to wear one, not with the physical garment itself.” She has gradually given up wearing a bra over the last seven years and now says “if it’s cold I’ll wear a vest.”

Joanna Tarvet, 24, says she stopped wearing bras when she “realised I was doing it for everyone else and none of those reasons included my own comfort.”

The landscape architect has now not owned a single bra for three years.

Times have changed, she says, recalling “people in secondary school wearing two or three bras on top of each other,” just to make their boobs look bigger.

Joanna Tarvet, 24, stopped wearing bras when she realised that she was ‘doing it for everyone else’ rather than for her own comfort - Joanna Tarvet

“It just goes to show that comfort is subjective – up to a point,” The Telegraph’s head of fashion, Lisa Armstrong, comments.

“The idea of going braless all day makes me wince. What if you suddenly have to run for a bus? It’s true, a poor fitting bra is a mild form of torture, although the relief when you get home and take it off is almost worth it.”

Mr Debashis Ghosh, a consultant breast and oncoplastic durgeon at The London Clinic, says around one in three of the breast reductions he performs are for women who want to avoid bras altogether.

“For many women, particularly after breast reduction surgery, comfort and choice are the key priorities. Some simply want to feel confident wearing a dress without a bra.”

He adds that wearing a bra can help to “maintain a lifted shape.” He says a “well-fitted bra reduces gravitational pull and repetitive breast movement, which can stretch the skin and ligaments over time, especially in women with larger or heavier breasts.”

But for many Gen Zs, the positives of ditching the bra far outweigh the negatives when it comes to freeing the nipple.

As Hensel-Bishop says, if anyone did comment on her braless boobs, “I’d tell them where to get off.”

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