What is Cat Keyhole Lingerie?

A bra and underwear set by designer Nonori featuring a cat-head shaped cutout on the chest, a paw-print on the back of the panties, and a bell choker, sold on Taobao.

Where did Cat Keyhole Lingerie come from?

Nonori first listed the set on Taobao, and the earliest fanart appeared on Pixiv in July 2015 featuring Touhou Project characters Chen and Rin Kaenbyou.

What does Cat Keyhole Lingerie mean?

The Japanese name ねこランジェリー literally translates to "Cat Lingerie" (translated from Japanese), and the cat-face cleavage window was quickly framed as a follow-up to the Keyhole Turtleneck sweater trend from December 2014.

How do you use Cat Keyhole Lingerie?

As a fanart template, artists typically draw an anime character wearing the cat-cutout bra with the matching bell choker and paw-print underwear.

Is Cat Keyhole Lingerie still popular?

The main fad ran for a few weeks in January 2016, with Pixiv illustrations crossing 450 by January 27th before attention faded after the initial burst.

Cat Keyhole Lingerie

2016fashion trendclassic

Published August 16, 2026

Cat Keyhole Lingerie is a Nonori-designed bra set with a cat-face cutout across the chest that turned into a Japanese fanart fad in January 2016. Anime artists on Pixiv and Twitter drew hundreds of characters wearing it within days, and Sankaku Complex and RocketNews24 both wrote it up that month.

fashion aesthetic memes fan art memes anime manga hornyposting memes japanese internet memes

Overview

Cat Keyhole Lingerie (Chinese: 猫咪镂空刺绣荷花边抹胸, Japanese: ねこランジェリー, literally "Cat Lingerie") is a bra and underwear set with a cat-head shaped cutout across the chest, designed by Nonori and sold through Taobao2. The full set includes a cat paw print on the back of the underwear and a small bell choker, and shipped in black and white variants that Sankaku Complex jokingly labeled "chocolate" and "vanilla"1.

It turned into a fetish fad in late January 2016 after Japanese Twitter users started sharing anime fanart of characters wearing the outfit1. The cat-face cleavage window drew immediate comparisons to the Keyhole Turtleneck sweater trend that had gone viral in late 20143.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Taobao (product) / Pixiv + Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

Nonori

Date

2016

The set first appeared for sale on Taobao as part of the Nonori clothing collection2. The earliest known fanart went up on Pixiv in July 2015, an illustration of Touhou Project characters Chen and Rin Kaenbyou wearing the bra3. For the next six months the product mostly sat unnoticed outside its Taobao listing, with almost no fan art produced around it3.

How It Spread

Attention exploded on January 21, 2016, when Japanese Twitter user @pomupome1 4 posted about the lingerie with an invitation for artists to draw their favorite girls in it. Know Your Meme reports the tweet pulled in over 13,000 retweets and 12,000 favorites during its first three weeks3. By January 23rd, more than 100 fanart illustrations of anime characters in the outfit had appeared across Pixiv, Twitter, Tumblr and DeviantArt3.

English-language coverage arrived quickly. Sankaku Complex published a write-up on January 26, 2016 covering the design and the flood of illustrations it inspired1. RocketNews24 also picked the trend up, and its article became one of the site's most-read pieces that week3. Illustration counts kept climbing, passing 450 on Pixiv and 250 on both Danbooru and Gelbooru by January 27th3.

The bra set also went up for preorder that month on the international Japanese fashion website Pocket Tokyo, giving buyers outside China a way to order it without going through Taobao directly3.

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How to Use This Meme

The fanart format typically shows an anime or manga character wearing the cat-cutout bra, often with the bell choker and paw-print underwear from Nonori's original set as matching accessories1. Cat-coded characters were the common early pick, with Touhou Project's Chen among the first subjects3. Actual wearers are rare in the meme itself, which lived mostly as illustration and photo shares rather than cosplay.