Vintage Moschino That Could Free the Nipple

Once again, I missed something great on 1stdibs.com. Check out this topless jacket by Moschino!

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If I had this, I’d wear my 2010 Lady Gaga concert t-shirt under it.

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This reminds me that I’ve been meaning to make some platinum nipple jewelry. Note to self!

UPDATED TO ADD: I can’t BELIEVE I wrote about this with no mention of Vivienne Westwood’s iconic 1970s “Tits” t-shirt, famously worn by punk goddess Siouxsie Sioux as well as many punk dudes.

Click for my 2007 post on Siouxsie.

My shoe-designing friend Terry de Havilland was the one who reminded me of the long history of the titty top. The Look blog has great information on this, reporting that tits-on-a-tee didn’t start when Westwood’s partner Malcolm McLaren found a boobacious t-shirt in a novelty shop in New Orleans in 1975. Janusz and Laura Gottwald, students at Rhode Island School of Design, made a tits tee back in 1969 (and drummer Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones can be seen wearing it on the cover of the 1971 live album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.) At the very same time, in London, artists John Dove and Molly White were doing a tits tee of their own. It was an incident of multiple discovery! (It was Dove’s and White’s Wonder Workshop that Terry pointed me to.) One thing I like about the Dove-White shirt is that the model is known: it was Pat Booth’s enviable torso, photographed by her boyfriend John Wedge, which was silkscreened onto a t-shirt.

Pat Booth on a t-shirt.

According to John Dove, Westwood and McLaren saw the Wonder Workshop shirt in 1974. So there you have it:  the long and winding history of topless tops.  Now I’m going to get lost in the Wonder Workshop site for a few hours! I mean … my almost-husband Paul McCartney in a strawberry jacket! This is a goldmine. I think John Dove and Molly White are my new obsession.