A wedding is the one day in your life that you are actively encouraged to give into all of your worst sartorial impulses: to Say Yes to a Dress so ostentatious that it borders on obscene.
This is mostly in order to prove to all your bitch cousins who you have a weird competitive thing with that it is you who is actually the most gorgeous and happy cousin, and also to indicate to everyone who lays eyes on you that it is “your special day, babe”. The wedding dress, with its tyrannical grip on the imaginations of many girls and women, is sacrosanct.
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Which is why some might consider this ASOS mesh wedding jumpsuit – which was recently posted on a wedding shaming Facebook group, as per Metro – a bit of a pisstake. But:
IS THIS ACTUALLY AN ENORMOUS VIBE?
The first thing to interrogate, of course, is the fact that pisstaking as a rule doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Taking the piss is frequently a great thing to do – firstly, because it is famously A Laugh, and secondly because (not to be grandiose, but this is true) it expands our perceptions of what is actually possible and allowed. This can be true on many levels: I once mildly took the piss in a Chilango by asking not for either black or pinto beans, but both, just to see if I could push my luck. Turned out I absolutely could, and in doing so improved the rest of my burrito-eating life. That wouldn’t have been possible had I not dared to take the piss in the first place.
In this case, the pisstaking item – the wedding jumpsuit – does certainly take the piss in terms of what people usually wear to their weddings, but that is actually probably good. Firstly, this is because it costs about £30, and fundamentally wedding attire is usually more expensive (that said, it’s important to bear in mind, as always with a fast fashion retailer, ASOS’s ethics). But: isn’t that sort of a snobby attitude? Shouldn’t people wear whatever they like to their wedding? Isn’t the Love the most important thing?*
Secondly, and more pressingly, this jumpsuit takes the piss because, well, it is a see-through jumpsuit for brides. It is described as “A little something for your lingerie drawer”, but it is also tagged on the site as “bridal jumpsuit” – so WHAT IS THE TRUTH ASOS? Is this for the ceremony or the bedroom? To be honest, it is fairly egregious in either setting (2 sexy for the church, 2 prim for the hotel suite, just in my opinion!)
*I mean, obviously it isn’t; the outfit is fundamentally the most important thing.
ARE WE LOOKING AT THE LOVE ISLAND-IFICATION OF SOCIETY?
You may remember that, a couple of years ago, Jess and Dom from Love Island joined in holy but ultimately fake matrimony on This Morning. Jess – god bless her – wore a white bikini to celebrate, and was every inch the blushing bride. There are probably some people who thought this was a stain on the institution of marriage, but I thought it was 1) incredible and b) hilarious, and only wish that this bridal jumpsuit had been available to Jess back then, to make her look really pop.
As Love Island’s influence on society grows, so does that of its style – meaning that the underwear as outerwear thing they started doing on the 2018 season is now all the rage. The mesh bridal jumpsuit is simply the next step. In many ways, we created this.
HAS ASOS SINGLEHANDEDLY REDEFINED THE WEDDING INDUSTRY?
I mean, no. Loads of people get married in clothes other than the traditional wedding dress or their culture’s equivalent, but it is simply beautiful to see it coalesce with Instagram fashion in this manner (I imagine the Mesh Wedding Jumpsuit Bride has the photos of her Big Day taken by the husband she has just married, on an iPhone 10 with a ring light attachment – the images are of just her, from a flattering arse-centric angle, and captioned with “Put a ring on it”). I hope, by pushing the boundaries of wedding acceptability, ASOS have opened the door to similar styles being repurposed for a wedding – those hats that say “ICON” but with a veil on the back, for example, or a range of Bridal Bodycon.
In all seriousness, though, whether worn as lingerie or actual wedding ceremony garb, this pisstaking jumpsuit is good for lots of reasons, including the fact that it challenges the respectability politics often attached to weddings and brides by essentially saying “It’s my wedding and I will have my almost bare arse out in front of my nan if I want to.”
Honourable mentions:
The dog who became a vegetarian. A legend taking the piss in the name of the climate.
