So it's curious that a bra with imitation hard nipples by shapewear brand Skims (the "Nipple Push-Up Bra," priced at $62) sold out in less than a month. An otherwise standard padded nylon and spandex underwire specimen, the bra promises "a perky, braless look that makes a bold statement."

In a video announcing the launch, Skims co-founder Kim Kardashian put on the ribald air of satirical corporate scientist to decry the effects of global warming on nipple hardness. "Some days are hard, but these nipples are harder," she proclaims. "And unlike the icebergs, these aren't going anywhere." (Many commenters were disturbed by her waggish framing of climate change, though Skims said from the start that it would donate 10 percent of the bra's sales to the environmental organization 1% for the Planet.)

Purchasers say that the bra's appeal is its ability to offer a sort of controlled bralessness - that it enhances the bust such that you look like you're wearing a T-shirt over a pristine breast augmentation or "idealized" pair of natural breasts. "I'm someone who typically goes braless," said Bunny Hedaya on TikTok. ". . . I don't know what I was expecting. It kind of looks the same?"

Several wearers emphasized the subtlety of the nipples themselves: "It's not, like, super out there, which I feel like is actually so cute," said creator Chloe Gottschalk Bounds in her TikTok review. "You get lifted, but you still get the, like, mystery of being braless."

For others, the lack of mystery was exactly the point. "It's giving lift and poke!" said creator Brynn Baker, adding: "The girls are girling!"

It seemed Kardashian had once again worked her social media magic, creating a viral product that turns something the world considers tacky into something irresistible.

Most of the buyers seemed to see the gimmick for what it was; it's not as if stigma around the nipple has disappeared. "If you're going to wear that bra, you're going to get some looks," says Liana Satenstein, a fashion writer who frequently goes braless. "You're going to get attention. It is what it is!" Still, Satenstein says she isn't really bothered by people staring at her chest: "I guess if someone's leering, of course it makes me feel a little self-conscious. But usually I don't. Usually, I'm honestly so in my own world, I don't even notice."

"I don't feel exposed, because these are not my nipples. Do you know what I mean?" said another purchaser in a TikTok review, who said she bought the bra because she had to have her implants removed.

Is the nipple now a fashion statement? A locus of activism? Or is it - as it is on a man's body - just a projection of skin? And what does it say about what we find sexy?

The Skims bra joins a lengthy history of garments that imitate or emphasize the breast, intended to highlight our hypocrisies or worries about the human body.

"There is a kind of anxiety about female bodies" in particular, says fashion historian Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at FIT. Designers have often created garments that respond to or even criticize assumptions that "female bodies are wet, and the boundaries are blurry and they're soft, and what you really need is things that will harden them up, whether it's corsets or bras or girdles or pantyhose that will make it clear that there is a second skin there that keeps it from getting out of line, out of order, [and] uncontrollable and messy."

Steele points to pieces such as Yves Saint Laurent's bustiers made in collaboration with the artists Les Lalanne in the late 1960s, and Issey Miyake's plastic bustier from the early 1980s, which featured nipples, "because that's a realistic construction of a breast." Saint Laurent's design was created in an era that celebrated bodily autonomy and freedom, while Miyake's questioned the functionality of fashion as a medium designed to mask the body.

More recently, actress Florence Pugh wore a sheer Valentino gown that revealed her nipples, a choice she vehemently defended. "Unfortunately, we've become so terrified of the human body that we can't even look at my two little cute nipples behind fabric in a way that isn't sexual," she told Elle UK. "We need to keep reminding everybody that there is more than one reason for women's bodies [to exist]."

Steele says that, to her knowledge, the Skims bra is the first undergarment with a false nipple.

That the bra's ad takes place in the office makes it all the more tantalizing, by focusing on the place where the nipple causes perhaps the most anxiety and making it a punchline.

Despite the headlines, bra sales have not declined - in fact, underwire and push-up styles have surged in popularity - but changes in workplace social norms and the growing acceptance of showing one's body (or refusing to cover it) suggest that the social contract inherent in fashion, especially in the United States, has fundamentally shifted. Breastfeeding in public has become more accepted as doctors and academics emphasize the mother's comfort over onlookers' uneasiness. And recently, conversations have resurfaced around the infamous moment in the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show in which Janet Jackson's breast was revealed, noting co-performer Justin Timberlake's role in the stunt and the unfair villainization of Jackson.

And as those in Gen Z move from working from home to working from the office, many for the first time, they are calling into question assumptions about appropriate attire. "I've definitely seen people questioning why business casual ended up as what it was," says Morgan Sanner, a human resources and organization design strategist at Honda who also provides résumé-writing and career advice as an independent consultant. "There's no rule book that business casual has to be any one thing, but we've kind of taken it as such, kind of like the 40-hour workweek, where we've taken it as law," even though it isn't.

Our relationship to clothes - that we wear them for the comfort of others - is changing as younger generations enter the workforce. "For me, #MeToo had a lot to do with [this change]," says Sanner, 26, "where women were saying: 'Okay, well, my shirt's making you uncomfortable. You're making me uncomfortable by taking the shirt that I'm wearing as a sexual advance, and you're taking it in a way that is not what I am trying to put across.' And so instead of saying, 'Okay, you need to change your shirt,' it was like, 'Okay, why don't you stop staring at her?'"

For some activists, the Skims bra is one small step to nipple emancipation. "Anything to help get the nipple to be finally free is important," says Lina Esco, an actress and director and one of the architects of the "Free the Nipple" movement, which launched in 2012. "It's not about going topless at the end of the day. It's about having the same rights as men, right? If a man's topless, that's considered toplessness. If a woman is topless, that's considered nudity. And I have a problem with that."

Though Free the Nipple was founded after Esco directed a feature film on the subject, much of her work has taken place on Instagram, where female nipples are a violation of Meta's censorship rules.

"In America, we can objectify a woman's body if she has pasties on her nipples," Esco says, "but the moment she takes those off, it's considered obscene." Esco recalls that, while filming the CBS series "S.W.A.T.," in which she appeared from 2017 to 2022, she was asked to wear pasties to disguise her nipples, which were visible because of the cold weather - even though her male castmates' nipples were also visible.

In early 2023, the oversight board at Meta, which owns Instagram, recommended that the company revise its rules regarding nipples, stating that its policy "is based on a binary view of gender and a distinction between male and female bodies."

Under its current community guidelines, Instagram states that it does not allow nudity on the platform. "This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks," the guidelines state. "It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos in the context of breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness or gender confirmation surgery) or an act of protest are allowed."

In Kardashian's post, as well as those from presumably satisfied customers, the nipple remains unblurred.