B.A.: But what’s the joke? And didn’t they discuss this same blouse a few years ago? Janis blushes and says “Oh, I’m too old to wear that sort of thing”, and Arlo says “Good, because I want to use it to strain paint”, and Janis is upset.
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Comics I Don't Understand 
t was not too long ago that I learned there is a corresponding noun form, “diaphane”. (The same Greek root is in “epiphany”.)
There is a subtle bit of humor in Janice’s indecision about how she feels about the blouse: she insists that it was not a cheesy “see through” item (that some skank would wear), but an erudite article of beauty. Nevertheless, she felt it was too immature for a college graduate to keep, and unloaded it on someone who was less discerning.
This peasant blouse was featured in a strip a number of years ago when Janis and Arlo were reminiscing about their college days. Jimmy used the sheer quality of the blouse to slip a hint of nipple past the editors. I expect it’s somewhere in the Arlo File.
Melding this thread with a previous one . . .
It would be, Terrence, if not for Comicgeddon
Why do people hear keep looking for a joke when a strip like this is so intensely (and viscerally) entertaining. Not all laughter comes from jokes. Pure recognizable truth can leave people gasping for air, crying, and exhausted after a unstoppable laughing fit. (Now, in this case, I feel more of an aching empathy with Arlo. But that may fuel one of my own lol explosions some day.)
Terrence, wasn’t that strip not about the blouse but about their fantasy of living a Bohemian lifestyle (and obviously Bohemians don’t wear bras)?
I found an older reference to a similar blouse (April 2016), but there’s nothing Bohemian about it, nor anything suggestive in the artwork:
I read the comic and found myself infested by an earworm: “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac.