The shapewear era is over. It’s time to embrace the singlet

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In this column, we deliver hot (and cold) takes on pop culture, judging whether a subject is overrated or underrated.

By Mali Waugh

September 20, 2025 — 5.30am

I turned 40 recently and have found, in the aftermath, that my face is beginning to sag and my vision beginning to falter.

My kids shove something in my face, and I find myself making that universal movement of ageing parents the world over – a backwards lurching of the neck, a squint, a closer squint, a confirmation that whatever the hell I am being shown is indeed interesting (Reader, it never is).

So practical. So sensible. So warm and comfortable.

I also now find myself feeling the elements in a way that I didn’t a few years ago. I’ve given up on being barefoot inside my house, and it is no longer enough to wear underwear and some top layer to work. These days I need insulation between shirt and underwear, and between skirt and stockings, in order to move about freely without complaining about the temperature.

With this deterioration of my faculties, a newfound grumpiness has emerged, too. For example, have you ever done that thing where you watch a group of teenagers on public transport and just, like, hate them on principle?

These young folk, with their earnestness and their phone addictions and their youthful, unblemished skin still have all the choices capitalism can buy. The decisions they still have ahead of them now speak to the passing of my time, the hurtling towards my end.

These symbols of ageing – the experiencing of the cold, and the intense envy and resentment of the young – leads me to my thesis. When I look at these teenagers wearing their ’90s clothes that we all wore in the actual ’90s, I feel irritated, but I also feel second-hand freezing and want them to wear more clothes. Thus, I have come to the conclusion that under-layers are underrated and that we should all be wearing singlets.

Zoe Kravitz and Austin Butler on the red carpet last month.

These simple items of clothing are practical and sensible. They are more comfortable than shapewear, they are cheaper, and they are intended to be private. Singlets make life warmer, snugger and smugger.

Remember a few years back when the Kardashian family were at the height of their powers and we were all being told to wear expensive shapewear and sparkle clothes that were 80 per cent gaps between pieces of fabric? The look of this period was very much about being as naked as possible without being naked, while also wearing a very expensive body stocking underneath.

Thanks Kim, but we don’t need [gestures dramatically] all this any more.

My experience with it was that it was an unflattering and uncomfortable affair. The day (or night) out would begin with the rearranging of the body so that the breasts were almost tucked into the armpits and the waist was grotesquely small. Once dressed, there was pain and hours of restrictive movement, and then at night’s end, the sight of oneself in the bedroom mirror slowly emerging from it all like a reverse Very Hungry Caterpillar situation.

Opting for something less revealing and instead wearing clothes that are not skintight with a singlet is eminently preferable. The kids of today are halfway there with the baggy jeans, but they are still leaning into the tank tops, which means, by extension, leaning into minimal warmth. They need a secret second layer. A secret singlet.

Serena Williams rocks a singlet on the way to the US Open in New York last month.

As someone who loves conspicuous consumerism, the shapewear era troubled me too, because I was expected to spend a lot of money on something that looked like a cross between a one-legged harness and a bagpipe and no one was meant to see it. The comparative modesty of the singlet, in contrast, is one of its charms.

It is cheap, and it is cheap because it is private and entirely unadorned. It is not an item of clothing that is intended for public consumption (as far as I am aware, although now that I think of it, I’m sure there are niche OnlyFans-type situations for those in need). It is a practical and a warming little secret! Kind of like drinking butter!

In the process of becoming a 40-something, I’ve also come to the conclusion that proper underclothes make people happier. In the same way that it’s hard to be nice while hungry, it is tricky to be patient or generous or smile while cold. There is no joy to be extracted from a world experienced with goosebumps and shaking teeth; there is, however, joy to be gained from observing the world from a place of literal warmth.

There is also the accompanying sensation of smugness that comes with being warm when others are not. You know when you are somewhere windy or miserable and there is that one person with mittens or a warm jacket, and they smirk to themselves while everyone else jumps up and down and blows on their hands? With the benefit of singlets, we could become a smug collective, the type that doesn’t even hate on teenagers!