It was in 1990 that Madonna emerged onto the stage at the dawn of her Blond Ambition tour, shrugging off a sharply tailored pinstripe jacket to reveal a pink satin corset with exaggerated conical cups underneath. It was the show—and the garment—that saw her go stratospheric: no longer merely a chart-topping artist but a pop-culture icon—one who is still synonymous with that pointy Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra 34 years on.
This year, Simone Rocha made her even spikier take on the piece central to the “playfully provocative” haute couture collection she guest designed for Gaultier (“like rose thorns!” she told Vogue’s Sarah Mower of those upturned tips), after immersing herself for months in all of the Breton stripes, sailor hats and ribbons in l’enfant terrible’s archive.
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A few short months later, when the red carpet was unfurled for the 2024 Met Gala, Vogue proclaimed a bullet bra revival, with Kylie Jenner, Charli XCX, and Paloma Elsesser among the stars arriving in… not to put too fine a point on it… nipple-centric gowns. Alexa Chung later brought Simone’s couture thorns to Cannes Film Festival (“I won’t lower the tone by going on about my horny dress,” she said), and now model Cara Delevingne has brought a nautical but nice look—complete with killer conical points—from the collection to Vogue World: Paris.