The penis dress has fashion in a chokehold

Photography Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty ImagesJanuary 29, 2026Fashion / So Hot Right Now Fashion / So Hot Right Now The penis dress has fashion in a chokehold

From Charli xcx and Teyana Taylor to Jonathan Anderson’s Dior, fashion has taken a turn for the phallic

ShareLink copied ✔️January 29, 2026January 29, 2026TextElliot HostePenis couture

Gallery / 7 images

As Madonna once said in her seminal work “Die Another Day” – from the motion picture soundtrack of Die Another Day – “Sigmund Freud… analyse this!” While not a single day goes by that I’m not thinking about Madonna’s performance in that film, the lyric becomes particularly important to me today, as I gaze upon an image of the musician Charli xcx. She is standing on a red carpet. She is at the premiere of Wuthering Heights. She is wearing a dress that is shaped like a penis.

For this particular moment, Ms. xcx enlisted the dab hands at Vivienne Westwood – who’ve famously never shied away from an X-rated gesture – but they’re not the only ones taking phallic forms to new heights. Just two weeks ago, Teyana Taylor arrived at the premiere of her new film The Rip in an Ashi Studio couture gown, two globular protrusions jutting from its hips. Last September, Jonathan Anderson made his long-awaited womenswear debut for Dior, and that collection included a similarly designed dress – a draped and knotted cream creation with bouncing bags jiggling at the hips.

Always ahead of the curve, Daniel Roseberry presented a gown on his AW 24 Schiaparelli runway well over a year ago that had a touch of the peen to it, which was then quickly followed by a similar Christian Siriano dress Kate Beckinsale wore on the red carpet. In London, Simone Rocha delivered a lime green take on the shape for SS26, and even up to this week’s couture shows, brands like Zuhair Murad offered up their own interpretation of the silhouette.

Teyana Taylor in Ashi StudioPhotography Stephanie Augello/Variety via Getty Images

So, what’s behind the dick and balls? Over the last few years, women’s hips have become a continued point of fascination for designers across ready-to-wear and couture, exaggerating them to inhuman proportions. Whether they’re sharp and angular or soft and rounded, everyone’s got in on the act, from independent designers like Duran Lantink and Yuhan Wang, to Alaïa, Bottega Veneta and, of course, Roseberry’s Schiaparelli. The current phallic forms we see today seem to be an evolution of that trend, as designers exaggerate the female form to such a degree that it ironically ends up looking more like a penis. Paging Dr Freud!

Of course, like with all trends, these dresses have historical precedence. In the 17th and 18th centuries, side hoops called panniers were used to horizontally extend skirts and dresses at the hips, and bustles were used in the 19th century to make bums look bigger. Not only did the proportions of these undergarments make historical baddies look more snatched, the clothes also physically took up more space, displaying more of their expensive fabrics for everyone to see. If the past is anything to go by, maybe the modern-day penis dress is just another instance of fashion bravely taking up space – valiant, fearless and an enduring example to us all.

Scroll through the gallery above to see more examples of the trend

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Privacy policy ShareLink copied ✔️More on these topicsFashionSo Hot Right Now Charli XCXVivienne WestwoodTeyana TaylorSchiaparelliDaniel RoseberryDiorJonathan AndersonSimone Rocha