Red carpet attire is meant to be seen. Armor is also meant to be seen, with much of what we think of as “medieval” suits of armor having primarily ceremonial purposes. In recent years, armor has been worn by celebrities on the red carpet in ways that underscore the function of armor–and clothing generally–to both cover and display the body, to conceal and at the same time draw attention to what lies beneath it.
This essay will analyze high fashion armor outfits worn by the actress and singer Zendaya, and put them in conversation with the idea of nudity and naked dressing. Art historian John Berger has argued that nudity is a form of dress because it makes the skin of one’s own body into a display. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan has suggested that clothes are an extension of the skin. If clothing is an extension of the skin, and nudity is a form of dress, could dress also be a form of nudity? Could even armor, which we think of as the most dressed of all states of dress, also conjure a state of undress? Drawing on Rihanna’s Swarovski naked dress as a counterpoint to Zendaya’s armor, this essay seeks to understand armor as a fashion of visibility. It ends by questioning what armor as a fashion of invisibility might look like. Turning to the baggy T-shirt ensembles of Billie Eillish’s early aesthetic, I end by asking: how might dress actually function as armor against a gaze? What kind of clothes can do that, and for whom?