The December 2016 issue of Vogue magazine made the ludicrous and frankly irresponsible declaration that “cleavage is over.” But if this year’s Golden Globes red carpet was any indicator of trending fashion guidelines, boobs are officially back (not that they were ever really out).
“The tits will not be out for the lads. Or for anyone else, for that matter. Rejecting the stereotypes of gender has been brought sharply into focus, with the days of women as eye-candy, their sexuality positively smouldering rather than subtly played out, officially over,” wrote Kathleen Baird-Murray, citing falling sales of the Wonderbra in department stores. She also held up styles like Alicia Vikander’s high-neck Louis Vuitton dress at the Golden Globes in 2016, which coincidentally was also hosted by Ricky Gervais.
I hope Baird-Murray was watching on Sunday, if only to learn that the tits are indeed still out. From the pre-ceremony red carpet to the Globes award-winners, necklines plunged.
Patricia Arquette, who won “Best Actress in a Limited Series,” embodied the look Vogue described as “magnificent mounds pushed together to display sexual empowerment.”
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Salma Hayek got the nod from Barstool Sports, possibly the antithesis of Vogue in the media landscape, but an impartial judge of boobs nonetheless.
https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1214211269793697792
The 37-year-old Priyanka Chopra oozed old Hollywood glamour, proving boobs can be great without the trendy “to the navel” neckline other stars such as Scarlett Johansson went for.
Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas are always on point. #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/NpZSY1PPp5
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) January 6, 2020
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Actress Kerry Washington perhaps went the furthest with her completely topless blazer look.
Although we can always expect feminists to decry women’s bodies as overtly sexualized objects, we know from history, art, and, yes, even the red carpets of Hollywood, that boobs are popular because they are beautiful. Consider the hilarious results of a poll Vogue conducted shortly after publishing the Baird-Murray hypothesis.
Is The Cleavage Over? As @KathleenBM explores the topic in #decembervogue, what’s your take on covering up? https://t.co/Yk7QVcoHt8
— British Vogue (@BritishVogue) November 2, 2016
As my colleague Mollie Hemingway wrote so eloquently at the time of Vogue’s anti-boob pitch, “Cleavage is a beautiful gift from God. Cleavage is not over. Cleavage is not going anywhere. Cleavage is just another way of saying ‘women’s bodies.’ And women’s bodies never — I repeat, never — go out of style.”
