What Does This $700 Shirt Have in Common With All Art Ever?

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Yesterday, I noticed a new shirt on Net-a-Porter that caused me immediate alarm. Not because of its nearly $700 price tag — the shirt is Alexander Wang and it’s made of a lovely pink satin and also, this is Net-a-Porter, and shirts cost $700 here. And not even because since I began writing this post, the shirt has already sold out.

No: The shirt caused me alarm because it looks exactly like every single work of art in the entire Western canon.

This shirt looks like the biblical figure Rebecca:

Photo: DeAgostini/Getty Images

It looks like the biblical figure Mary Magdalene:

Photo: De Agostini/Getty Images

It looks like the biblical figure Judith:

Photo: De Agostini/Getty Images

It looks like Lady Justice:

Photo: Ashmolean Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images

It looks like Liberty leading the people:

Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

It looks like Cleopatra:

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

It looks like Agnes Sorel, mistress of King Charles VII:

Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

It looks like this woman:

Photo: Mondadori via Getty Images

And this woman:

Photo: Imagno/Getty Images

And this woman:

Photo: Mondadori via Getty Images

And this woman:

Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

And this woman:

Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

And this woman:

Photo: UIG via Getty Images

In short, this shirt has captured something seemingly inherent in the human condition: that artists love it when women have one breast covered and one exposed.

Why? There are a lot of possible reasons besides simple voyeurism, from breasts acting as an external symbol of the female heart in Italian art, or to connote breastfeeding and motherhood. In some cases, like that of Judith, the exposed breast is a depiction of the story in which she seduces (and then decapitates) the evil soldier Holofernes. In others, it may be a sign of vulnerability — a woman in such an emotional state that she “cannot attend to her dress or in other ways discourage the potentially less-than-pious thoughts of those who gaze upon her.”

Yet the motif doesn’t solely apply to art — not one but two of our most important living musicians have worn this exact look IRL. And now, thanks to this shirt, you too can place yourself in the storied lineage of women with just one boob out while also abiding by your city’s toplessness laws. Should you wish to buy it, there are still a precious few sizes left at Alexander Wang. Even better news: It also comes in dress form.