Instagram’s notorious censorship rules have alienated many artists from the app, with anything deemed too revealing or sexual in nature – infamously including women’s, but not men’s, nipples – banned from the feed. 

But despite the questionable regulations, today IG stays a spot of creativity, connection and discovery. For the artists and designers who use the body of their work, specifically the feminine form, creative solutions have been made to search out a approach to skirt the road between the erotic and the express – sliding (mostly) past IG’s watchful eye while doing so.

Below, try the accounts to follow for flesh-baring and bodies at their best.

THE HOTTEST INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS

JADE O’BELLE

Jade O’Belle, model, artist, creative director and now filmmaker – her short film Birthright was released in September – focuses on the body in all the things she does. Through using sculpture, costume and rituals, O’Belle explores feminine identity with the aim to reclaim, reintroduce and decolonise.

GAB BOIS

Orange – the fruit, not color – bras and lettuce shorts make up photographer Gab Bois’ Instagram account with the photographer and visual artist’s playful work, and the best way they use the body inside it, capturing the eye of brands from Balenciaga and Marc Jacobs to Isa Boulder.

MICHAELA STARK

Self-dubbed “that body morphing bitch”, London-based Australian artist Michaela Stark began creating lingerie to subvert the industry’s usual way of concealing and revealing flesh. Using her own body as her subject, Stark contorts her shape through using corsets, cutouts and chains, pushing flesh out in strange angles and turning her body into art. After years of build up a following online, Stark’s debut collection was released last week. 

G HARPS

Georgia Harper is an Australian stylist, costume designer, graphic designer, textile artist and occasional model who uses their multidisciplinary skills to create the type of unique, modern and transhumanist work the industry Down Under has long been craving.

MISHA JAPANWALA

Artist Misha Japanwala began creating her signature breastplates in her bedroom, painting silicone and plastic onto her naked form. As her work is sculptures, not nudity, they’re undetected by Instagram’s censors, meaning Japanwala’s account is filled with her unique way of mixing fashion and art with the feminine form.

BEKA MOORE

Recent Zealand-based designer Beka Moore created her namesake label with humour in mind, highlighting and revealing parts of the body clothing often covers up through cut-outs and paper-stuffed pouches that many ladies noted via Instagram should not only cheeky, but, on the subject of breastfeeding, practical too.

NUSI QUERO

Nusi Quero is best known by some for his 3D-rendered couture corsets; his part in Grimes’ “alien scars” back tattoo; and more recently, for adorning none apart from Beyoncé for none apart from her Renaissance album cover in chrome body armour. Surprisingly, Quero – who studied architecture and is a musician by trade – has no formal fashion training. Moderately, he began creating the futuristic couture pieces he’s grow to be known for simply via the mix of intuition and intention. 

FOXXATRON

Daniel Foxx, known within the industry by the Instagram handle @Foxxatron, has had his most up-to-date Instagram image removed thrice. “Reposting with no 🍑,” he wrote on the newest upload, showing two women embracing, naked but for the thigh-high patent boots they’re wearing. The photographer has made a reputation for themselves within the industry for the best way they photograph women’s bodies, recently working with Megan Thee Stallion and Future for the artwork on their song, “Pressurelicious”.

Who doesn’t love slime? The photographer and artist known only online by the name of ‘Slimelord’ makes vibrant versions of the sticky liquid substance at home, then uses it on models to photograph the best way the slime shapes across the figure because it softens from body heat. For many who want to do this at home, Slimelord also sells by the gallon.

JULIA SHOOTS

Swedish photographer and visual artist Julia SH has at all times been inquisitive about the geometry and textures that make up the body, portraying her subjects often as sculptures, paintings or as a part of the natural environment. Since relocating to Los Angeles, a city inside a rustic where women’s bodies are highly politicised, SH’s work has grow to be much more laser-focused.