A backless dress is a dress designed to expose the wearer's back. A backless dress is most commonly worn on formal occasions or as evening wear or as wedding dresses and can be of any length, from a haltertop to a miniskirt-length to floor-length.

Evolution

Backless dresses first appeared in the 1920s. In the 1930s, the style became associated with the sun tanning fashions of the time, and the backless dress was a way of showing off a tan, usually without tan lines. The wearer usually had to be slim to be able to pull off the effect. In December 1937, the actress Micheline Patton was controversially filmed from behind while wearing a backless dress in the final episode of the early BBC fashion documentary Clothes-Line. The illusion of nudity led to outraged viewers writing in to complain, and Pearl Binder, who co-presented the show, quipped "Grandmamma looks back but Micheline has no back to be seen."

Styles

A backless dress can be held up in a number of ways. The most common is by a single piece of cloth or strap which passes behind the wearer's neck, halterneck-style. The neck strap can itself be covered by the wearer's hair, leaving the impression from behind that nothing is holding the dress up. Alternatively, the dress may be held up by short sleeves or by a single or two spaghetti straps, which hold the dress up at the shoulders. A stick-on dress or nude netting are other ways that a dress can be held up.