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The phrase cellar door finally has competition for the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Let me introduce: Full bush in a bikini.
Those words—repeated over and over again with varying emphasis—are currently trending on TikTok in what may be the app’s final days. It started with a video by artist Sujindah that has been viewed more than 14 million times. But this is just the latest sign that pubic hair styles are swinging back toward au naturel. Full bush in a bikini simply puts the idea into a lush, assonant phrase. In other words, the bush is back.
Just under a year ago, Maison Margiela sent models down the runway wearing faux pubes for the brand’s spring 2024 couture show. (Björk wore one of the looks—merkin included—soon after for the cover of Vogue Scandinavia.) These pubes are truly couture: They were made of real human hair carefully embroidered onto silk tulle to create underwear, and they could be glimpsed through the sheer skirts of the Victorian-inspired gowns that Maison Margiela sent down the runway.
In an interview with System magazine, creative director John Galliano explained he was inspired by “the stillness and stylized photography of Brassaï, some characters of low-life Parisian society of that time.” Brassaï captured images of 1920s and ’30s Parisian nightlife, including plenty of bushy nudes—so shocking that they could not be published when he first took them.
While models walked down the runway in merkins, Emma Stone was wearing one on the big screen in the 2023 Yorgos Lanthimos movie Poor Things, in which her character, Bella Baxter, worked in a Parisian brothel of the type that Brassï photographed. “All the women [in the brothel] had these bodices with these big huge sleeves, but the breasts were exposed,” costume designer Holly Waddington told Coveteur. “And then my team made them all a pair of these little hot pants. They had a very deep V in the crotch that had lacing and were worn open so that you could see the pubic hair. In our culture, we don’t want to see pubic hair. So we made a thing of seeing pubic hair.”
The Paris art exhibit “Motherland” by Guen Fiore, Lynski, Yumiko Hikage, and Nastya Klychkova, also took a look at—well, more like took a rhinestoner, braider, and more to—pubic hair late last year. Exhibited in September 2024, the show featured photographs of models wearing elaborately styled pubic hair, dyed bubble-gum pink, for example, or braided and tied with a tiny bow. “Pubic hair, often a subject of societal discomfort and taboo, is reclaimed here as a site of personal expression and empowerment,” read the show notes. “The project approaches this theme with a sense of humor and playfulness yet without losing its depth.”
Sure, pubes are haute couture and art world approved, but what about making it into everyday women’s underwear? Yes and no. Alita Terry, owner of Organic Skincare and Wellness NYC, tells Vogue that she hasn’t seen a change in the types of hair removal her clients are requesting, apart from the fact that business usually upticks with warmer weather. However, she has noticed that more members of Gen Z are choosing to eschew body-hair removal—pubes included, as well as leg hair and happy trails. “They have completely redefined gender and beauty,” she says. “So I’m not surprised they have redefined what their private areas should look like.”
Body-hair removal has a longer history than many might think, and changes in trends are complicated, says Mithu Sanyal, author of the nonfiction book Vulva. “The idea that we just started doing Brazilians in the ’90s, it’s just not true,” she says. “Even in ancient Greece, people were doing things to their pubic hair.” Pubic hair also has a physical function, she adds: to protect the vulva and to spread your pheromones. “It’s there for a reason.”
Which leads us back to TikTok. While the pubes exhibited in the Maison Margiela show and Poor Things were merkins, the full bush Sujindah talks about in their viral video is homegrown, not hand-embroidered. Over the summer, Sujindah saw an Etsy review modeling a bikini with a full bush, and it struck a nerve. “When I stumbled upon her review under a listing, it changed my perspective on public beach attire,” they tell Vogue. “I’ve never really been a frequent beachgoer until last year, and her presentation of swimwear truly stripped everything I’ve seen while being in that space. I’ve always been an advocate for showing up the way you feel like, and I was just in awe that someone showed up that way in their bikini. Very cunt. It reminds me that we often do not see it as much as we really should.”
The image even inspired some art of their own: Sujindah sent it to their creative partner, Evangeline, as a creative reference for their project Epicene. “I’ve always adored the inclusion of pubes in high fashion and photographs I grew up seeing on Tumblr, so I found it also very artistically inspiring,” Sujindah says. Take it as a reminder that art and life inspire each other, even when it comes to pubes.