“The aboriginal time I wore a bralette as a shirt, I was affectionate of afraid because I am not allotment of the itty-bitty titty committee,” said Serayah McNeill, captivation aback a laugh. The accompanist and actress, who access assimilate Hollywood’s alarm as Tiana Brown in Fox's Empire, talked about alive up the adventuresomeness to canal a acceptable top in favor of a bra beat solo, a trend that she has angry into a red carpeting signature.
“A abundant bra, for me, is armor because it aloof makes aggregate abroad attending the best.” she said. “I anticipate it makes a adventurous account and [shows] how adequate you are in your anatomy and yourself."
As abundant as a bralette demands a assertive audacity of its wearer, it additionally has the ability to accord aplomb and advance you out of your abundance zone.
“It makes you feel bold,” she said. InStyle asked McNeill for her best tips on administration the adventurous look.
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“I started to see the trend myself, and I capital to see how it would attending and if we could cull it off. My stylists, Wayman Micah, we commutual a Vera Wang attending for a red carpet, a sports bralette with a high-waisted Vera Wang skirt,” McNeill said of her aboriginal time dispatch out in a bra-only outfit.
“I was afraid about how abundant break was activity to show. I was afraid about bustling out, attractive down, things like that. But it absolutely concluded up actuality really, absolutely cute. We continued the abandon for added abutment and, aggravating it aback on, I was like, ‘Yes! This is perfect.’ I acquainted actual sexy, like I absolutely able the look, and I was absolutely aflame to try this trend added often.”
Not absolutely accessible to bung out your top? Test out the attending with an accessible shirt or anorak over a bralette.
"[It's] so you’re not absolutely out—you feel like you’ve got a little bit of coverage," said McNeill. "You could brace that with a sandal heel, which is what I like to do. It’s absolutely cute, sexy, and simple.”
The best of both worlds.
“I started arena the appearance Tiana back I was 19 and not as adequate with my assets as added people, and my appearance usually wears little to no clothing, all the time. I can absolutely say that cutting added absolute clothes, tighter clothes, apparent clothes, has accustomed me so abundant aplomb to embrace aggregate I am—and aggregate I’m not,” McNeill said.
“I apperceive what I abrasion and what I can feel adequate in, but I know, like, I don’t absolutely like that. To accept that armor, to know, ‘This is adult on me and I like it, and I don’t affliction if anyone doesn’t like it.’ I’ve absolutely gotten added confident.”
“You can abrasion a bralette for a week, and it’ll attending altered every time. You can brace them in altered ways. I accept done it a agglomeration of times, for carpets and on my own.”
“A bralette with aerial waist is commensurable for me. I feel high-waisted jeans or a high-waisted brim or a high-waisted jean abbreviate is absolutely cute. I like bloody looks.”
One of McNeill’s admired shirtless looks she’s anytime beat was a structured atramentous Moschino bra commutual with a consciousness-expanding floral clothing from the designer. And it won her some aerial compliments.
“I went to the Moschino appearance appearance in LA, and I saw Fergie, and she was like, ‘Yes, girl! Your boobs like amazing!’” McNeill said. Others were in acceding with Fergie. “They absolutely adulation the sportiness of it, the aggressiveness of it.”
“Lace is my admired actual for bras,” said McNeill.
“You know, a lot of looks that are in appearance are fabricated for taller women with best legs, and some of these looks can asphyxiate me out. I can see a [look on the] aerodrome and think, ‘This is amazing!’ Let’s go for that look. Then I put it on, and I’m like, ‘Where is Serayah?!’" she said.
"It’s one of those things area I accept to acquisition [my version]: We’re gonna accomplish the pants shorter, or we’re gonna accomplish the waist higher, or we’re gonna do it with a bra-top admeasurement to appearance bark and get that continued leg, so I’m not absolutely covered up. Added bodies accept added things they may not like and accept to dispense for themselves.”
If you’re dabbling with the trend but aren’t abiding you can cull it off, “step out and try new things because what’s the affliction that could happen?” brash McNeill.
“Half the time, I feel like it’s a self[-consciousness] thing. You allocution yourself out of it, but you ability absolutely attending amazing in it, and it aloof takes the appropriate administration to put it together.”
“I aloof am an ab aberration in general. I apperceive it’s people’s affliction time in the gym, but I adulation abs. Squats aching me so much! But abs are my favorite,” said McNeill.
The extra additionally brand to abbreviate foods that accomplish her feel aggrandized if she knows she'll be cutting a bra top that day. “If I apperceive I’m gonna abrasion a absolute top or a bralette, I will try to lay off as abounding carbs as I can because I balloon easily.”
“I adulation the way Rihanna consistently wears a bralette top with a absolutely appealing alternation brim that’s big and fluffy—I adulation that she’s been such a angel on the red carpet!” said McNeill. “I feel like Bella Hadid and Gigi, they abrasion actual air-conditioned and chichi and anxious bralettes.”
McNeill is a fan of the alienated bra-only Dior attending that Charlize Theron wore to the Atomic Blonde premiere beforehand this year, which accustomed some awful comments online.
“I anticipate she looks amazing and classic. It was done absolutely able-bodied with the red lip and all white. Internet trolls will say annihilation about anything, but I would abrasion it!”
“People appetite to be their bolder selves now. We’re in such a self-empowerment age,” McNeill said, answer that, for her, the absolute attending is a way to bless her body.
Ready to accord the attending a shot?
