"Desire only exists if you are alive.”—Spinoza. And nothing feels more alive than the raw, unpolished texture of the human form—Editorial internal note.

The gloss is cracking. For decades, the high altar of beauty demanded a sterile, hyper-polished surface, a vacuum-sealed femininity where the body was a smooth, hairless terrain of silicone and laser-burned skin. But the 2020s are experiencing a seismic fishtail. Once again, we are trying to move away from the "Pharmacopornographic" void and return to the unfiltered body.

The 80s are not just back in the shoulder pads of Versace’s Spring 2026 collections; they have also arrived in our intimate wardrobes. From the representation of women's bodies in art history and the raw screens of the latest Berlin Porn Film Festival to the viral drop of Skims’ faux-hair micro string thong, the message is clear: the bush is back.
Aphrodite of Knidos. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE by Praxiteles. 

The Glabrous Ghost: From Greek Marble to Victorian Collapse

The hairless marble figures of ancient Greece functioned as a primitive software update for the collective eye, cementing the smooth female form as an undeniable standard of beauty. This erasure of texture began with the fourth-century Aphrodite of Knidos, which established a pose designed to simultaneously point to and sanitize the sex. While male figures were permitted a stylized biological reality, the female body was polished into a vacuum by artistic censure.

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Titian’s Venus of Urbino extended this aesthetic delusion into the Renaissance, carefully rendering the area between the legs as a play of shadow rather than actual growth. During this era, any hint of the hirsute was branded as wild or dangerous - a stigma that drove an explosion in treatments for hair removal. The goal was to maintain a marble-like surface that kept the biological reality of womanhood at a safe and sterile distance.

By the 19th century, this Greco-Roman ghost had fully possessed the Victorian mind, leading to the infamous aesthetic collapse of John Ruskin. Having spent a lifetime worshiping the hairless ideals of Neoclassicism, Ruskin reportedly fled his marriage bed when confronted with the reality of an unshaved body. It was a terminal collision between the messy truth of the human form and a man who could only recognize desire if it looked like a museum piece.

While many corridors of art history have undergone a collective, sterile wax, a defiant lineage of artists has always chosen to represent the female body with the raw, biological texture it was born with - from "oldies but goodies" by Henri Matisse and Gustave Courbet (L'Origine du monde, 1866) to the artworks of Egon Schiele, one of the biggest inspirations for Rick Owens. Here’s the proof that Rick wants his models to inhabit the energy of Schiele’s women; if you have a casting coming up, take note.

Schiele's Reclining Nude In Green Stockings (1914) is a masterclass in this unpolished aesthetic.

The Berlin Pulse: The Radical Performance

If you want to see the future of the body, look at the fringes. At the most recent Berlin Porn Film Festival - a space dedicated to the dismantling of the "male gaze" and the celebration of queer-aligned autonomy and the art of sex performance - a startling reality emerged on screen: the majority of performers appeared with full, natural body hair.

In a world increasingly dominated by AI-generated skin perfection, this is an act of Biological Resistance. As Veronika Yemelyanova noted in our previous archives, "polished perfection is becoming predictable and boring." The Berlin Porn Film Festival suggests a move toward a "joyful sleaze": a rejection of the pre-pubescent, waxed-clean aesthetic in favor of a textured, adult reality. It is the transition from the object to the subject.

Picture from the closing night of the 20th Berlin Porn Film Festival.

The Merkin: From Syphilitic Shame to Margiela Magic

The most provocative accessory of the legendary Maison Margiela 2024/25 runway - perhaps the loudest fashion statement of recent years - was not a handbag, but the merkin.

The historical lineage of the pubic wig is as tragic as it is fascinating. In the 15th through 19th centuries, merkins were a "clandestine breath" for sex workers. They were tools of survival used to hide the ravages of the syphilis epidemic and the hair-loss side effects of mercury-based treatments. To wear a merkin then was to camouflage a "psychological purgatory" of disease.

Public wig seller, 1860—“Serving the discerning pudendum since 1827”.

The Margiela runway treated the merkin simply as a visual detail. When John Galliano featured intimate wigs beneath sheer dresses, he wasn’t launching a manifesto; he was incorporating hair into the overall aesthetic. It framed the intimate area as just another space for personal styling—something that can be shaped, colored, and accessorized.

Photo: @maisonmargiela 

The Economics of the Bush: Freedom in One Click

Why the sudden surge on marketplaces? The 'Less is More' movement is no longer just about skincare; it’s about personal autonomy.

The Laser Debt: In Europe, a single bikini laser session now costs between $120 and $250 in major hubs like Berlin or Paris. Achieving the "vacuum-sealed" look requires a "ventricle-clenching" commitment to 8-10 sessions,often exceeding $1,500.

The Accessory Investment: By contrast, a merkin is a one-time "Creative Entanglement." Synthetic options on European marketplaces start as low as $25, while high-end, theatrical-grade natural hair pieces—crafted for durability and realism—range from $180 to $450.

Furthermore, we are seeing a "Dermatological Awakening." Many who underwent aggressive laser treatments in the 2010s are now realizing the permanent loss of their natural texture, as laser-burned follicles often refuse to return. For these women, the merkin is more than a novelty; it is a way to literally buy back the hair they were once told was a "mistake."

There is a deep irony in watching brands capitalize on the very hair they taught us to fear. Even Skims has jumped on the trend with a faux-hair micro string thong—available in 12 tones and already sold out. But this entry into the market isn't a manifesto for freedom; it’s a calculated trend-grab. Kim Kardashian has effectively commodified the "bush," proving that the industry isn't actually interested in the unfiltered body—it’s just thirsty for the buzz that comes with selling back the shame it created.

Photo: skims.com

We are seeing a "Curious Harmony" between the fake and the real. Whether it’s a "branded" 90s style or an "au naturel" Miranda Hobbes silhouette, the choice is finally in the hands of the wearer.

Censorship and the Feminine Grotesque: A Radical Pushback

The algorithmic censorship of the female form on social media acts as a digital seal of the same issue in a new era: a mainstream media culture that persists in sexualizing and silencing the body while ensuring it remains shaved, shamed, and stripped of its biological reality. When we reached out to a group of artists addressing the "feminine grotesque"—the systematic conversion of the female body into something monstrous or obscene—the responses were a visceral rejection of the "machine-object" aesthetic.

Katya Grokhovsky, One Fine Day, 2014, photo Yan Gi Cheng.

Katya Grokhovsky identifies the demand for a "hairless, ageless, shiny machine-object" as a tool of misogynistic oppression, a frantic attempt to erase the "visceral, bleeding, odor-and-noise-and-fluids-producing" reality of being a human woman. For Grokhovsky, the persistent removal of this reality by the media triggers a "volatile bout of extreme, nauseating patriarchy fatigue." 

Marilyn Minter, Plush #1, 2014.  Archival inkjet print.

Marilyn Minter views these interventions as a "punk rebellion" against the "impossible robotic ideals" manufactured by the culture industry’s obsession with Photoshopping the human form. Her own work, Plush, serves as a radical archival reclamation, transforming the pubic triangle into a "Brobdingnagian landscape of high-gloss glory" that replaces institutional censure with a sensory, kaleidoscopic truth.

CHEEKY LaSHAE + The Red Bath Mat, Performance at Mike Shultis Studio, Photo by: Jackson Ray Petty, 2014.

Kenya (Robinson), performing as CHEEKY LaSHAE, strips away the "period blood poetics" to reveal the unpolished reality of menarche—described bluntly as "melted chocolate in the crotch." It is a sharp critique of the "feminine powder" industry that attempts to sanitize the very biological markers that define the feminine experience.

Zhu Tian, Babe, 2013. Rubber, human hair, and pigment.

Zhu Tian offers the ultimate editorial pivot, opting for the silence of the object: "I think my work says better than I."

Editorial Summary: The Veil is Purposeful

The return of the 80s intimate aesthetic is not merely a nostalgic whim. It is a Sovereign Reclamation. By choosing to wear a merkin or to let the natural "Bone Marrow" growth return, we are practicing Erotic Living. We are approaching the "outside" by being exactly who we choose to be—completely smooth or with a new, curated haircut.

We are no longer victims of a 2000s-era "bikini-wax-industrial complex." We are the curators of our own "Spiritual Sensorium." Whether you choose the "Armor" of a Skims faux-hair panty or the "Sacred Distance" of your own natural growth, remember: The Mystery is in the Experience.

TEMPTRESSxKathe Pouli