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Cleavage is the narrow depression or hollow between the
breast The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and sec ...
s of a
woman A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardle ...
. The superior portion of cleavage may be accentuated by clothing such as a low-cut
neckline The neckline is the top edge of a garment that surrounds the neck, especially from the front view. Neckline also refers to the overall line between all the layers of clothing and the neck and shoulders of a person, ignoring the unseen undergarmen ...
that exposes the division, and often the term is used to describe the low neckline itself, instead of the term décolletage.
Joseph Breen Joseph Ignatius Breen (October 14, 1888 – December 5, 1965) was an American film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America who applied the Hays Code to film production.Staff report (December 8, 1965). Joseph I. ...
, head of the U.S. film industry's
Production Code Administration The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
, coined the term in its current meaning when evaluating the 1943 film ''
The Outlaw ''The Outlaw'' is a 1943 American Western film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, and Walter Huston. Hughes also produced the film, while Howard Hawks served as an uncredited co-director. The ...
'', starring
Jane Russell Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, singer, and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films. Russell moved from th ...
. The term was explained in ''Time'' magazine on August 5, 1946. It is most commonly used in the parlance of Western female fashion to refer to necklines that reveal or emphasize ''décolletage'' (display of the upper breast area). In many cultures, though not all, men typically derive
erotic pleasure Sexual stimulation is any stimulus (including bodily contact) that leads to, enhances and maintains sexual arousal, and may lead to orgasm. Although sexual arousal may arise without physical stimulation, achieving orgasm usually requires physic ...
from the visible display of cleavage. This tendency has been attributed to many reasons, including
evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolv ...
, a
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
revolution, and dissociation from
breastfeeding Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that brea ...
. Since at least the 15th century, women in the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
have used their cleavage to flirt, attract, make gender statements, and assert power. In several parts of the world, the advent of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism, monotheistic religion based on the Life of Jesus in the New Testament, life and Teachings of Jesus, teachings of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. It is the Major religious groups, world's ...
and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
saw a sharp decline in the amount of cleavage which was considered socially acceptable. In many cultures today, cleavage exposure is considered unwelcome or is banned legally. In some areas like European beaches and among many indigenous populations across the world, cleavage exposure is acceptable; conversely, even in the Western world it is often discouraged in daywear or in public spaces. In some cases, exposed cleavage can be a target for unwanted voyeuristic photography or
sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
. Cleavage-revealing clothes started becoming popular in the Christian West as it came out of the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the M ...
and enjoyed significant prevalence during Mid- Tang-era China,
Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personif ...
England, and France over many centuries, particularly after the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
. But in
Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardi ...
England and during the flapper period of Western fashion, it was suppressed. Cleavage came vigorously back to Western fashion in the 1950s, particularly through
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
celebrities and
lingerie Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fash ...
brands. The consequent fascination with the cleavage was most prominent in the U.S., and countries heavily influenced by the U.S. With the advent of
push-up The push-up (sometimes called a press-up in British English) is a common calisthenics exercise beginning from the prone position. By raising and lowering the body using the arms, push-ups exercise the pectoral muscles, triceps, and anteri ...
and underwired bras that replaced
corset A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...
s of the past, the cleavage fascination was propelled by these lingerie manufacturers. By the early
2020s The 2020s (pronounced "twenty-twenties" shortened to "the '20s" and referred to as the twenties) is the current decade, which began on January 1, 2020, and will end on December 31, 2029. The 2020s began with the COVID-19 pandemic — the first ...
, dramatization of the cleavage started to lose popularity along with the big lingerie brands. At the same time cleavage was sometimes replaced with other types of presentation of clothed breasts, like sideboobs and underboobs. Many women enhance their cleavage through the use of things like
brassière A bra, short for brassiere or brassière (, or ; ), is a form-fitting undergarment that is primarily used to support and cover breasts. It can serve a range of other practical and aesthetic purposes, including enhancing or reducing the appea ...
s,
falsies In fashion, falsies are paddings for use in a bra to create the appearance of larger breasts. The term has also, more rarely, been used for pads which create the appearance of larger buttocks. In both cases, there is a note of (more or less) am ...
and corsetry, as well as surgical breast augmentation using saline or silicone implants and
hormone therapy Hormone therapy or hormonal therapy is the use of hormones in medical treatment. Treatment with hormone antagonists may also be referred to as hormonal therapy or antihormone therapy. The most general classes of hormone therapy are oncologic h ...
. Workouts,
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-conscio ...
,
skin care Skin care is a range of practices that support skin integrity, enhance its appearance, and relieve skin conditions. They can include nutrition, avoidance of excessive sun exposure, and appropriate use of emollients. Practices that enhance appea ...
,
makeup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
,
jewelry Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry ( U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a west ...
,
tattoos A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing proc ...
and piercings are also used to embellish the cleavage. Male cleavage (also called heavage), accentuated by low necklines or unbuttoned shirts, is a film trend in Hollywood and
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (f ...
. Some men also groom their chests.


Etymology

The word '' cleavage'' was first used in the early 19th century in
geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
and
mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the pr ...
to mean the tendency of
crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macr ...
s,
mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ...
s, and rocks to split along definite planes. By the mid-19th century, it was generally used to mean splitting along a line of division into two or more parts. In the 1940s,
Joseph Breen Joseph Ignatius Breen (October 14, 1888 – December 5, 1965) was an American film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America who applied the Hays Code to film production.Staff report (December 8, 1965). Joseph I. ...
, head of the U.S.
Production Code Administration The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
, applied the term to breasts in reference to actor
Jane Russell Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, singer, and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films. Russell moved from th ...
's costumes and poses in the 1943 movie ''
The Outlaw ''The Outlaw'' is a 1943 American Western film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, and Walter Huston. Hughes also produced the film, while Howard Hawks served as an uncredited co-director. The ...
''. The term was also applied in the evaluation of the British films ''
The Wicked Lady ''The Wicked Lady'' is a 1945 British costume drama film directed by Leslie Arliss and starring Margaret Lockwood in the title role as a nobleman's wife who becomes a highwayman for the excitement. The film had one of the top audiences for a ...
'' (1945), starring
Margaret Lockwood Margaret Mary Day Lockwood, CBE (15 September 1916 – 15 July 1990), was an English actress. One of Britain's most popular film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1938), '' Night Train to Munic ...
and Patricia Roc; '' Bedelia'' (1946), also starring Lockwood; and ''
Pink String and Sealing Wax ''Pink String and Sealing Wax'' is a 1945 British drama film directed by Robert Hamer and starring Mervyn Johns. It is based on a play with the same name by Roland Pertwee. It was the first feature film Robert Hamer directed on his own. The t ...
'' (1945), starring
Googie Withers Georgette Lizette Withers, CBE, AO (12 March 191715 July 2011), known professionally as Googie Withers, was an English entertainer who was a dancer and actress with a lengthy career spanning some nine decades in theatre, film, and television. ...
. This use of the term was first covered in a ''Time'' article titled "Cleavage & the Code" on August 5, 1946, as a " Johnston Office (the popular name for
Motion Picture Association of America The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distrib ...
office at the time) trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress' bosom into two distinct sections." The word ''cleavage'' is made of the root verb ''cleave'' 'to split' (from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
and
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
; ''cleft'' in the past tense) and the suffix ''-age'' 'the state of, the act of'. While the division of the breasts is a cleavage, the opening of a person's garments to make the division visible is called a ''
décolletage Cleavage is the narrow depression or hollow between the breasts of a woman. The superior portion of cleavage may be accentuated by clothing such as a low-cut neckline that exposes the division, and often the term is used to describe the low neck ...
'', a French word that is derived from 'to reveal the neck'. The term was first used in English literature before 1831 and was the preferred term among educated people in the English-speaking world before cleavage became the popular term. Décolletage (or ''décolleté'' in adjectival form) refers to the upper part of the female torso, consisting of the neck, shoulders, back and chest, which is exposed by the
neckline The neckline is the top edge of a garment that surrounds the neck, especially from the front view. Neckline also refers to the overall line between all the layers of clothing and the neck and shoulders of a person, ignoring the unseen undergarmen ...
, the edge of a dress or shirt that goes around the neck, especially at the front of a woman's garment. The neckline and collar are often the most attention-grabbing parts of a garment, effected by bright or contrasting colors, or by décolletage. The term is most commonly applied to a neckline that reveals or emphasizes cleavage and is measured as extending about two hand-breadths from the base of the neck down; both in the front and the back. In anatomical terms, the cleft in the human body between the breasts is known as the intermammary cleft or ''intermammary sulcus''.


Typology

While there has been much work done to classify breasts based on their shapes, contours and sizes, there has not been much work done to classify the cleavage, despite its prominence in aesthetic determination.


Culture

In most cultures, men typically find female breasts attractive. Women sometimes use décolletage that exposes the cleavage to enhance their
physical Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally cons ...
and sexual attractiveness, and to improve their sense of femininity. Display of cleavage with a low neckline is often regarded as a form of
flirting Flirting or coquetry is a social and sexual behavior involving spoken or written communication, as well as body language. It is either to suggest interest in a deeper relationship with the other person or, if done playfully, for amusement. It ...
or
seduction Seduction has multiple meanings. Platonically, it can mean "to persuade to disobedience or disloyalty", or "to lead astray, usually by persuasion or false promises". Strategies of seduction include conversation and sexual scripts, paralingual ...
, as much as for its aesthetic or erotic effect. According to ''
Kinsey Reports The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' (1948) and ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Female'' (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and (for ''Sexual Behav ...
'', most men derive erotic pleasure from seeing a woman's cleavage. When designing costumes, creating shapes that draw attention to the face or the chest helps distract the gaze from body parts that are considered less desirable. Male
cross-dressers Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...
and
trans women A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...
often want female-like cleavage to make their bodies look more feminine. Convincing cleavage may distract attention from less-feminine aspects of the appearance and improve the ability to pass. The amount of cleavage exposure that is acceptable in public differs significantly between cultures and societies. In contemporary Western society, the extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on the social and cultural context. Displaying any part of the female breast may be considered inappropriate and may be prohibited in some settings, such as workplaces, churches, and schools, while in other spaces, such as parties, beaches and pools, it may be permissible to show as much cleavage as possible. Art historian James Laver noted the changing standards of cleavage are mostly applicable to evening wear rather than to day wear. The exposure of
nipple The nipple is a raised region of tissue on the surface of the breast from which, in females, milk leaves the breast through the lactiferous ducts to feed an infant. The milk can flow through the nipple passively or it can be ejected by smooth ...
s and
areolae The human areola (''areola mammae'', or ) is the pigmented area on the breast around the nipple. Areola, more generally, is a small circular area on the body with a different histology from the surrounding tissue, or other small circular a ...
is almost always considered immodest and in some instances is viewed as indecent behavior.


Cultural distribution

The fascination with female breasts and cleavage is widespread but not universal. It is more prevalent in Western and Westernized cultures, particularly in the U.S. and countries that are heavily influenced by the U.S. Many people in Western culture, both male and female, consider breasts to be an important female
secondary sex characteristic Secondary sex characteristics are features that appear during puberty in humans, and at sexual maturity in other animals. These characteristics are particularly evident in the sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits that distinguish the sexes of ...
and an aspect of femininity. The flaunting of cleavage became an aggressive statement of gender. Films like ''
Erin Brockovich Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who, despite her lack of education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Compa ...
'', in which
Julia Roberts Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and thr ...
was required to wear a
silicone gel A silicone or polysiloxane is a polymer made up of siloxane (−R2Si−O−SiR2−, where R = organic group). They are typically colorless oils or rubber-like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking ...
-filled bra to increase her cleavage, demonstrated cleavage as a woman's right and an application of feminine attributes as "a source of power". Across history and cultures, other parts of women's bodies have sometimes been viewed as more enticing than breasts, including buttocks, legs, necks, ankles, hair, and feet. American anthropologist Clellan S. Ford and ethologist Frank A. Beach said in their 1951 book '' Patterns of Sexual Behavior'' that only 13 of 130 cultures in a cross-cultural survey perceived female breasts as sexually attractive. In some cultures, for example in African communities, it is not unusual to see uncovered breasts, which are not considered titillating. Documentarian Carolyn Latteier said in Dr. Jennifer and Dr.
Laura Berman Laura Berman is an American relationship therapist and television host. She is the host of ''In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman'' on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She is also a regular guest on '' The Dr. Oz Show'', and hosts her own nationa ...
's TV program ''All About Breasts'', "I interviewed a young anthropologist working with women in
Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
, a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts. They're always feeding their babies. And when she told them that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. According to Rosie Sayers, "Breasts have retained their primary biological function n Maliand hold no sexual connotations or stimulus." Evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss observed that "Americans are probably the most extreme in viewing the breast as a sexual signal." American cultural anthropologist
Katherine Ann Dettwyler Katherine Ann Dettwyler is an American anthropologist and advocate of breastfeeding. She was an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware. In 2017, she gained media attention for her comments regarding Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old college ...
, editor of ''Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives'' (
Aldine de Gruyter Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey-based publishing house that specialized in social science books and journals. It was located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University. Transaction was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and merged with ...
, 1995), found parallels between the modern American practice of breast enlargement and the past Chinese practice of foot binding. She suggests that both are "culturally sanctioned mutilations of the female body" for the purpose of "male sexual pleasure", and both "compromise a woman's health" and make her body "nonfunctional". During adolescence, some girls become obsessed with breast shape and cleavage, while others try to resist the growth of their breasts during
puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy ...
by binding down their breasts, wearing loose clothes that disguise them or adopting a hunched or stooped posture. A study found that girls whose breasts develop early may be ashamed and embarrassed because of unwanted staring. There is historical evidence that some cultures, including
classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations o ...
, strongly discouraged cleavage or any hint of a bosom. During the Middle Ages and up to the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
, a woman's stomach was often the central symbol of her sexuality, rather than the breasts. Early English Puritans used a tight
bodice A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to th ...
to completely flatten breasts, while 17th-century Spaniards put lead plates across the chests of pubescent girls to prevent their bosoms from developing.


India

In India, women's traditional clothing (
sari A sari (sometimes also saree or shari)The name of the garment in various regional languages include: * as, শাৰী, xārī, translit-std=ISO * bn, শাড়ি, śāṛi, translit-std=ISO * gu, સાડી, sāḍī, translit-std ...
s and
choli A choli (Hindi: चोली, Urdu: چولی, gu, ચોળી, mr, चोळी, Nepali: चोलो ''cholo'') (known in South India as ''ravike'' (Kannada: ರವಿಕೆ, Telugu: రవికె, Tamil: ரவிக்கை)) is a bl ...
s) generally exposes more midriff than cleavage. ''
Gagra choli Ghagra choli (also known as lehenga choli and locally as chaniya choli) is a type of ethnic clothing for women from the Indian Subcontinent, notably in the Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, P ...
'', a dress taken as very chaste in India, also exposes significant amount of midriff and cleavage. ''Cholis'' customized for
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (f ...
movies have particularly deep décolletage. Women of the Bishnoi people wear kanchli blouses with very deep necklines that are embellished with frills and bells to draw attention to their cleavage. Women of
Ahir Ahir or Aheer are a community of traditionally non-elite pastoralists in India, most members of which identify as being of the Indian Yadav community because they consider the two terms to be synonymous. The Ahirs are variously described as a ...
, Gadariya,
Jats The Jat people ((), ()) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and su ...
, Kamboj,
Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...
and
Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...
communities wear angia, a small, bikini-like top that is tied at the back with a string, often with the front open enough to show deep cleavage. In the late-20th-century India, cleavage became a staple point of attraction in
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (f ...
movies. In a 2006 study conducted among young people in
Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the '' de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...
, both male and female respondents believed that women wearing cleavage-revealing ''filmi'' (movie-like) clothes may be more prone to become victims of
sexual violence Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., World re ...
. By the 2010s, Indian men and women wearing décolleté clothes was seen as a fashion statement and not, as in the past, a sign of desperation. At the same time, the allure of on-screen cleavage waned as cleavage-revealing clothes became more commonplace.


Islamic view

The Muslim religious dress code for a woman's cleavage is derived from two Quranic verses () – verse 31, Sura 24 ( An-Nūr; ar, الْنُّور; "The Light") and verse 59, Surah 33 (
Al-Aḥzāb Al-Ahzab ( ar, الأحزاب, ; the confederates, George Sale translation or "the clans", "the coalition", or "the combined forces") is the 33rd chapter (''sūrah'') of the Quran (Q33) with 73 verses ('' āyāt''). The ''sūrah'' takes its n ...
; ar, الأحزاب; "The Clans"). Verse 31 of Sura 24 says, "Say to the believing women ..that they should draw their veils (''khumur'', ''
khimar In modern usage, hijab ( ar, حجاب, translit=ḥijāb, ) generally refers to headcoverings worn by Muslim women. Many Muslims believe it is obligatory for every female Muslim who has reached the age of puberty to wear a head covering. While s ...
'') over their bosoms (''juyub'', ''jayb'') and not display their beauty". Only the ''
mahram In Islam, a ''mahram'' is a family member with whom marriage would be considered permanently unlawful (''haram''). One's spouse is also a mahram. A woman does not need to wear hijab around her mahram, and an adult male mahram may escort a woman ...
'' (unmarriageable) relatives are exempt from this strict code. Verse 59 of Sura 33 says, "Tell ..the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments (''jalabib'', s. ''
jilbāb The term jilbāb or jilbaab ( ar, جِلْبَاب) refers to any long and loose-fit coat or outer garment worn by some Muslim women. Wearers believe that this definition of jilbab fulfills the Quranic choice for a ''hijab''. ''Jilbab'', ''jubba ...
'') over their persons". ''Jilbab'' and ''khimar'' are the only two women's clothing items mentioned in the Quran. Women used to wear clothes that were parted at the front to expose the breasts when the verses were revealed. These verses were later interpreted as requiring the complete covering of women's bodies. Some Islamic clerics and scholars, including
Ibn Taymiyyah Ibn Taymiyyah (January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328; ar, ابن تيمية), birth name Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī ( ar, تقي الدين أحمد بن عبد الحليم � ...
, argued that the entire female body is "a shameful part" (''
awrah The intimate parts ( ar, عورة ', ar, ستر, ') of the human body must, according to Islam, be covered by clothing. Exposing the intimate parts of the body is unlawful in Islam as the Quran instructs the covering of male and female genitals ...
'') and therefore is to be covered entirely, with a niqab or
burqa A burqa or a burka, or , and ur, , it is also transliterated as burkha, bourkha, burqua or burqu' or borgha' and is pronounced natively . It is generally pronounced in the local variety of Arabic or variety of Persian, which varies. Examp ...
, centuries after the time of
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...
. According to Egyptian historian Sayyid-Marsot, male Islamic scholars (''
ulama In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'', s. ''alim'') since the 18th century started interpreting that a woman's whole body needs to be entirely covered. But as late as in the 1980s, women of the ''
Al-Akhdam The Al-Muhamashīn ( ar, المهمشين, link=yes), "the marginalized ones"); previously called The ''Al-Akhdām'', ''Akhdām'' or ''Achdām'' ( ar, الأخدام) ("the servants", singular Khadem, meaning "servant" in Arabic, are an Arabic-spea ...
'' (servant) class in Yemen and ''
baladi Baladi ( ar, بلدي ' relative-adjective 'of town', 'local', 'rural', comparable to English ''folk'', with a lower-class connotation) can refer to an Egyptian musical style, the folk style of Egyptian bellydance (Raqs Baladi), or the Masmou ...
'' (folk) women of Egypt still wore cleavage revealing clothes as the Islamic dress codes were not universally applied. In the early 21st century
Muslim world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, there is a popular consensus that modesty requires coverage of any cleavage.


Breastfeeding practices

Breastfeeding advocate Maria Miller argued that the American obsession with breasts is caused by American men's and women's unfamiliarity with the extraordinary variety of normal breasts and their ignorance of "what the breast is really for". In Alexandre Guillaume Mouslier de Moissy's 1771 play ''La Vraie Mère'' ("The True Mother"), the title character rebukes her husband for treating her as an object for his sexual gratification; "Are your senses so gross as to look on these breasts—the respectable treasures of nature—as merely an embellishment, destined to ornament the chest of women?". In the 18th century, biologists and philosophers like
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...
attempted to popularize the idea of breastfeeding of one's own children as natural and fashionable. According to Valerie Steele, director of
Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...
, "For centuries (even in the
Judeo-Christian The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together, either in reference to Christianity's derivation from Judaism, Christianity's borrowing of Jewish Scripture to constitute the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible, o ...
and Islamic worlds), the sight of a woman nursing was accepted as normal. This factor contributed to the fairly rapid acceptance of dresses with low necklines, which were introduced in the fifteenth century." Since emerging in the Christian West, the early décolleté dresses—which were termed by French court historian
Jean Froissart Jean Froissart (Old and Middle French: ''Jehan'', – ) (also John Froissart) was a French-speaking medieval author and court historian from the Low Countries who wrote several works, including ''Chronicles'' and ''Meliador'', a long Arthurian ...
as "the smile of the bustline"—had increasingly plunging necklines because the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
celebrated the beauty of the unclothed human body. Moralists, who blamed any number of chest illness on bare cleavage, were shocked by the development.


Downblouse

"Downblouse" is the act of looking down a woman's dress or top to observe or photograph her cleavage or breasts. It may occur as a form of
voyeurism Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...
or
sexual fetishism Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regard ...
. In some jurisdictions it is a
sexual offense Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes. Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...
. The issue has been publicly discussed during the 21st century, although the term ''downblouse'' has been used in English since 1994. The popularity of
covert Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...
downblouse and
upskirt Upskirting or upskirt photography is the practice of taking nonconsensual photographs under a person's skirt or kilt, capturing an image of the crotch area, underwear, and sometimes genitalia. An "upskirt" is a photograph, video, or illustrat ...
photography has increased with the proliferation of
camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color cam ...
s since 2000. NASUWT, a UK teachers' union, reported an upward trend in such pictures at schools in 2018. Many of these covertly taken pictures are uploaded to websites, including
pornographic websites Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the internet, primarily via websites, FTP servers peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The availability of widespread public access to the World Wide Web in late 1990s ...
like
Pornhub Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography website. It is one of several pornographic video-streaming websites owned by MindGeek. , Pornhub is the 10th-most-trafficked website in the world and the second-most-trafficked adult website afte ...
,
XVideos XVideos, stylized as XVIDEOS, is a pornographic video sharing and viewing website. Founded in Paris in 2007, the website is now registered to the Czech company WGCZ Holding. , it is the most visited pornographic website and the tenth most visite ...
and
xHamster xHamster is a Cypriot pornographic media and social networking site headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. xHamster serves user-submitted pornographic videos, webcam models, pornographic photographs, and erotic literature and incorporates social ...
, as well as
subreddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
s like r/CreepShots. Some websites host tutorials on taking downblouse and upskirt pictures. As early as 2004,
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronic ...
listed about four million websites that were tagged with "upskirt" and "downblouse". Some jurisdictions, including the UK, Germany, and a number of American and Australian states, have statutes that prohibit such covert photography. In the UK, people who take such pictures and post them online can be listed on the
sex offender registry A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration i ...
, and in Japan the government has pressured mobile phone manufacturers to make their phones produce a warning sound whenever such pictures are taken. These types of offenses "largely ounreported" and, according to
Maria Miller Dame Maria Frances Miller'MILLER, Rt Hon. Maria (Frances Lewis)', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012; online edn, November 2012 ...
, chair of the
Women and Equalities Committee The Women and Equalities Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was established following the 2015 general election to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Governme ...
, the legal provisions are inadequate.


Controversies

Despite a long history, display of cleavage can still be controversial. UK women's magazine '' Stylist'' in 2017 and Indian newspaper ''
Mid-Day ''Mid-Day'' (stylised as mid-day) is a morning daily Indian compact newspaper owned by Jagran Prakashan Limited. Editions in various languages were published in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. In 2011, the Delhi and Bangalore editions ...
'' in 2019 reported " cleavage shaming" was commonplace in news and social media. Female
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (f ...
actors
Disha Patani Disha Patani (; born 13 June 1992) is an Indian actress who is known for her work in Hindi films. She began her acting career with the Telugu film ''Loafer'' (2015). She had her first Hindi film release with the biopic '' M.S. Dhoni: The Unto ...
,
Deepika Padukone Deepika Padukone ( or ; born 5 January 1986) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. She is one of the highest-paid actresses in India, and her accolades include three Filmfare Awards. She features in listings of the nation's most pop ...
,
Priyanka Chopra Priyanka Chopra Jonas (; ; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer. The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Aw ...
,
Nargis Fakhri Nargis Fakhri (born October 20, 1979) is an American actress and model who primarily works in the Indian Hindi-language films. Her first role in film came with the 2011 romantic drama '' Rockstar'', for which she was nominated for Filmfare Award ...
and others were trolled and shamed for wearing cleavage-baring outfits in social and new media, including newspaper ''
Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
''. Extraordinary attention was generated when politicians
Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...
,
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senat ...
and
Jacqui Smith Jacqueline Jill Smith (born 3 November 1962) is a British broadcaster, political commentator and former Labour Party politician. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Redditch from 1997 to 2010. She served as Home Secretary from 2007 to 2009 ...
wore cleavage-revealing outfits even from media outlets ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. As late as the 2010s, reports from Langley, British Columbia;
Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is ...
;
Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...
;
Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
;
Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...
;
Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
;
Thunder Bay, Ontario Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...
; Kerikeri, New Zealand and elsewhere showed female students, especially non-white students, had been expelled and banned from schools, and punished for wearing dresses that reveal cleavage and legs. At the same time, there also has been reports of passengers of airlines, including
Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...
,
Spirit Airlines Spirit Airlines Inc. (stylized as spirit) is a major ultra-low-cost U.S. carrier headquartered in Miramar, Florida, in the Miami metropolitan area. Spirit operates scheduled flights throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Latin Ameri ...
and
EasyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airli ...
, were instructed against and evicted for showing "too much cleavage". In 2014, a television series called ''
The Empress of China ''The Empress of China'' () is a 2014 Chinese television series based on events in 7th and 8th-century Tang dynasty, starring producer Fan Bingbing as the titular character Wu Zetian—the only female emperor (empress regnant) in Chinese his ...
'' was taken off-air in China days after its premier because of too much cleavage; the show was aired again after much censorship. In the next year, organizers of
ChinaJoy ChinaJoy or China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference () is a digital entertainment expo held annually in Shanghai, China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of c ...
, the largest gaming and digital entertainment exhibition held in China, levied a fine of US$800 on women who revealed "more than two centimeters of cleavage". , women in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan were required to completely cover their bodies; Iranian law required the wearing of a ''
chador A chādor ( Persian, ur, چادر, lit=tent), also variously spelled in English as chadah, chad(d)ar, chader, chud(d)ah, chadur, and naturalized as , is an outer garment or open cloak worn by many women in the Persian-influenced countries of Ir ...
'' (over-cloak) or a ''
hijab In modern usage, hijab ( ar, حجاب, translit=ḥijāb, ) generally refers to headcoverings worn by Muslim women. Many Muslims believe it is obligatory for every female Muslim who has reached the age of puberty to wear a head covering. While s ...
'' (head scarf), and in Egypt, the exposure of cleavage in the media was considered to be nudity. Various other presentation of clothed breasts, like side cleavage and bottom cleavage, are also regulated by law in some U.S. counties. Both were banned by
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
as "bare sides or under curvature of the breasts is also problematic" at the
55th Annual Grammy Awards The 55th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 10, 2013, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. The show was broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. E ...
in 2013. Underboob was banned in
Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County, Missouri, Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Sp ...
in 2015 after a
Free the Nipple Free the Nipple is a topfreedom campaign created in 2012 during pre-production of a 2014 film of the same name. The campaign highlights the general convention of allowing men to appear topless in public while considering it sexual or indecent ...
rally. Thailand banned selfies showing underboob with provisions for up to five years in jail in 2016.
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
subsidiary
Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...
, a live video streaming service, banned underboobs and instructed on the amount of cleavage permissible in 2020.


Theories

Hypothetically, non-
paraphilic Paraphilia (previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as sexual interest in anything ot ...
sexual attraction to breasts is a result of their function as a
secondary sex characteristic Secondary sex characteristics are features that appear during puberty in humans, and at sexual maturity in other animals. These characteristics are particularly evident in the sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits that distinguish the sexes of ...
. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction. According to the
American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involve ...
's
DSM-5 The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition'' (DSM-5), is the 2013 update to the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric ...
, sexual attraction to breasts is normal unless it is highly atypical and is therefore a form of partialism. According to psychiatrist Larry Young, attraction to breasts "is a brain organization effect that occurs in straight males when they go through puberty." According to sociologist Anthony Joseph Paul Cortese, the cleavage area between the breasts is "perhaps the epicentre" of display of female sexual attractiveness and stimulation of male sexual interest. According to social historian David Kunzle, waist confinement and décolletage are the primary
sexualization Sexualization (or sexualisation) is to make something sexual in character or quality or to become aware of sexuality, especially in relation to men and women. Sexualization is linked to sexual objectification. According to the American Psycholo ...
devices of Western costume. According to music writer Ben Watson in ''Art, Class and Cleavage'' (
Quartet Books Naim Ibrahim Attallah ( ar, نعيم إبراهيم عطالله, 1 May 1931 – 2 February 2021) was a Christian Palestinian-British businessman and writer. He was the publisher of Quartet Books and the owner of The Women's Press. The Pales ...
, 1998), the deployment of the cleavage punctures through art's "spiritual pretensions" and alerts about the bodily roots of all culture.
Vincenz Czerny Vincenz Czerny (19 November 1842 – 3 October 1916) was a German Bohemian surgeon whose main contributions were in the fields of oncological and gynecological surgery. Czerny was born in Trutnov, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He initially ...
, one of the early surgeons to perform a breast surgery, believed the aesthetics of cleavage to be a sign of symmetry and hence beauty. A study published in 2020 found intermammary distance (IMD), or cleavage gap, is one of the major influences on people's perception about a woman's fertility, health and age; accordingly, surgeon Gregory Evans recommends an intermammary distance between . Another study found women who display cleavage are more often identified as "voluptuous" than women who do not.


Evolutionary perspective

Zoologist and ethologist
Desmond Morris Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book '' The Naked Ape'', and for his televi ...
, author of ''The Naked Ape'' (Jonathan Cape Publishing, 1967), theorized that female human breasts as a sexual signal imitates the cleft between the buttocks that is a prevalent signal among other apes. Evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss explains that female humans evolved to have permanently enlarged mammary glands, unlike all other 222 primates. Functional anatomist
Owen Lovejoy Owen Lovejoy (January 6, 1811 – March 25, 1864) was an American lawyer, Congregational minister, abolitionist, and Republican congressman from Illinois. He was also a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. After his brother Elijah Lo ...
("The origin of man", 1981) suggests, partly based on speculations by Morris, that prominent breasts among female
Australopithecine Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally ''Australopithecus'' ( cladistically including the genera ''Homo'', '' Paranthropus'', and '' Kenyanthropus''), and it typically inclu ...
s helped attract males and cement the pair-bond necessary for further physical and cultural evolution toward modern humanity. Evolutionary psychologists theorize humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other primates' breasts—which only become enlarged during
ovulation Ovulation is the release of eggs from the ovaries. In women, this event occurs when the ovarian follicles rupture and release the secondary oocyte ovarian cells. After ovulation, during the luteal phase, the egg will be available to be fertilize ...
—allowed females to "solicit male attention and investment even when they are not really fertile". Hence breast and buttock cleavages, sharing a similarity between their appearances, are considered to be erotic in many societies.


Historical perspective

American cultural anthropologist
Katherine Ann Dettwyler Katherine Ann Dettwyler is an American anthropologist and advocate of breastfeeding. She was an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware. In 2017, she gained media attention for her comments regarding Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old college ...
, editor of ''Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives'' (Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), proposed that men aren't necessarily biologically drawn to breasts as "humans can learn to view breasts as sexually attractive." Author Elizabeth Gould Davis said breasts, along with phalluses, were revered by the women of
Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' " tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from ...
as instruments of motherhood but after a "
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
revolution", when men had appropriated both phallus worship and "the breast fetish" for themselves, these organs "acquired the erotic significance with which they are now endowed". Some scholars argue that it is important that the breast is partly or fully covered to be erotic. French semiotician
Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...
observed, "Woman is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked"; while historical commentator Susan L. Stanton observes, "There is no mystery in a naked breast, there is no need to fantasize about what is beneath the clothing." According to author
Marilyn Yalom Marilyn Yalom (March 10, 1932 – November 20, 2019) was a feminist author and historian. She was a senior scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, and a professor of French. She served as the institute's direct ...
in ''A History of the Breast'' (
Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains ...
, 1998), around these times, male thinkers decided a nursing mother's breasts were both erotic and a source of nourishment for future citizens of the nation. According to psychologist Richard D. McAnulty, when breasts are hypersexualized, they are not perceived as a body part to breastfeed infants. Therefore, exposure of the breast, such as in public breastfeeding, is considered embarrassing. Science journalist
Natalie Angier Natalie Angier /ænˈdʒɪər/ (born February 16, 1958 in the Bronx, New York City) is an American nonfiction writer and a science journalist for ''The New York Times''. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 1991 and the AA ...
shifts from using the term "functional" to using the term "maternal" to describe the "non-aesthetic breast" in her book ''Woman: An Intimate Geography'' (1999). In the same book, she argues human fascination with full cleavage may be a result of our fascination with round objects and attraction towards well-defined curves.


History


Ancient

In 2600 BCE, princess
Nofret Nofret was a noblewoman and princess who lived in Ancient Egypt during the 4th dynasty of Egypt c. 2613 to 2494 BC. ''Nefert'' means "beautiful". Nofret is alternatively known as Nefert or Neferet. Biography Nofret's parents are not known. ...
of the
Fourth Dynasty of Egypt The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a " golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other ...
was depicted wearing a V-neck gown with a plunging neckline that exposed ample cleavage that was further emphasized by an elaborate necklace and prominently protruding nipples. In ancient
Minoan culture The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 14 ...
, women wore clothes that complemented slim waists and full breasts. One of the better-known features of ancient Minoan fashion is breast exposure; women wore tops that could be arranged to completely cover or expose their breasts, with bodices to accentuate their cleavage. In 1600 BCE,
snake goddess A snake goddess is a goddess associated with a snake theme. Examples include: *Meretseger ("She Who Loves Silence"), Egyptian snake goddess * Minoan snake goddess figurines, a type of figurine in Minoan archaeology *Renenutet, Egyptian snake goddes ...
figurines with open dress-fronts revealing entire breasts, were sculpted in
Minos In Greek mythology, Minos (; grc-gre, Μίνως, ) was a King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eat ...
. By that time, Cretan women in
Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the n ...
were wearing ornamental fitted bodices with open cleavage, sometimes with a peplum. Another set of Minoan figurines from 1500 BCE show women in bare-bosomed corsets. Ancient Greek women adorned their cleavage with a long pendant necklace called a ''kathema''. The ancient Greek goddess
Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...
is described in the ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' to have worn something like an early version of a push-up bra festooned with "brooches of gold" and "a hundred tassels" to increase her cleavage to divert
Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...
from the
Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ha ...
. Women in Greek and Roman civilizations had at times used breastbands like ''taenia'' in Rome to enhance smaller busts but more often, women of the masculine Greco-Roman world, where unisex clothes were often preferred, used breastbands like ''apodesmes'' in Greece, and ''fascia'' or ''mamillare'' in Rome to suppress their breasts. Among these ''mamillare'' was a particularly strict leather corset for suppressing women with big busts. A silver coin that was found in South Arabia in the 3rd century BCE shows a buxom foreign ruler with much décolletage and an elaborate coiffure. Rabbi Aha b. Raba (circa 5th century) and
Nathan the Babylonian Nathan the Babylonian (Hebrew: רבי נתן הבבלי), also known as Rabbi Nathan, was a '' tanna'' of the third generation (2nd century). Biography He was the son of a Babylonian exilarch. For unknown reasons he left Babylonia, and his brig ...
(circa 2nd century) measured the appropriate size of the cleavage as "of one hand-breadth between a woman's breasts".


Medieval

During the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingd ...
(7th to 9th centuries), women in China were increasingly freer than before and by the mid-Tang, their décolleté dresses became quite liberated. The Tang women inherited the traditional ''
ruqun (;) is a set of attire in which consists of a short jacket typically called () worn under a long Chinese skirt called (). However, when use as a general term, can broadly describe a set of attire which consists of a separated upper garment an ...
'' gown and modified it by opening up the collar to expose their cleavage, which had previously been unimaginable. Rather than the conservative garments worn by earlier Chinese women, women of the Tang era deliberately emphasized their cleavage. The popular style of the era was long gowns of soft fabrics that were cut with a pronounced décolletage and very wide sleeves, or a décolleté knee-length gown that was worn over a skirt. Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the prevailing décolleté clothes of women of
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
,
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth- ...
and
Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...
in India were replaced with covered bosoms and long veils as the region increasingly came under foreign control. During this period, elaborate, opulent courtly dresses with wide décolletage became popular in the Italian maritime states
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isl ...
,
Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of G ...
and
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
. Until the 12th century, the Christian West was not cleavage friendly but a change in attitude occurred by the 14th century with France leading the way, when necklines were lowered, clothes were tightened and breasts were once again flaunted. Décolleté gowns were introduced in the 15th century. In a breast-rating system that was invented at the time, the highest rating was given to breasts that were "small, white, round like apples, hard, firm, and wide apart". Women started squeezing the breasts and applying makeup to make their cleavage more attractive; cleavage was termed the "smile of the bustline" by contemporaneous Belgian chronicler
Jean Froissart Jean Froissart (Old and Middle French: ''Jehan'', – ) (also John Froissart) was a French-speaking medieval author and court historian from the Low Countries who wrote several works, including ''Chronicles'' and ''Meliador'', a long Arthurian ...
. A contemporaneous French courtesy manual ''La Clef d'Amors'' advised, "If you have a beautiful chest and a beautiful neck do not cover them up but your dress should be low cut so that everyone can gaze and gape after them". Contemporaneous poet
Eustache Deschamps Eustache Deschamps (13461406 or 1407) was a French poet, byname Morel, in French "Nightshade". Life and career Deschamps was born in Vertus. He received lessons in versification from Guillaume de Machaut and later studied law at Orleans Univer ...
advised "a wide-open neckline and a tight dress with slits through which the breasts and the throat could be more visible". The French Catholic Church, however, tried to discourage the flaunting of cleavage. It mandated the cleavage, which it referred to as "the gates of hell", and the opening on woman's bodices be laced. French priest Oliver Maillard said women who exposed their breasts would be "strung up in hell by their udders". Monarchs like
Charles VII of France Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious (french: le Victorieux) or the Well-Served (), was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of ...
ignored the church. It was common for women in his court to wear bodices through which their breasts, cleavage and nipples could be seen. In 1450,
Agnès Sorel Agnès Sorel (; 1422 – 9 February 1450), known by the sobriquet ''Dame de beauté'' (Lady of Beauty), was a favourite and chief mistress of King Charles VII of France, by whom she bore four daughters. She is considered the first officially r ...
, mistress to Charles VII, started a fashion trend when she wore deep, low, square décolleté gowns with fully bared breasts in the French court.


Early modern

Across Europe, décolletage was often a feature of the dress of the late Middle Ages; this continued through the
Victorian period In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
. Gowns that exposed a woman's neck and the top of her chest were very common and uncontroversial in Europe from at least the 11th century until the mid-19th century. Ball gowns and evening gowns especially had low, square décolletage that was designed to display and emphasize cleavage. In many European societies between the Renaissance and the 19th century, wearing low-cut dresses that exposed breasts was more acceptable than it is in the early 21st century; bared female legs, ankles and shoulders were considered to be more risqué than exposed breasts. In aristocratic and upper-class circles, the display of breasts was at times regarded as a status symbol; a sign of beauty, wealth and social position. The bared breast invoked associations with nude sculptures of
classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...
that influenced the art, sculpture and architecture of the period. In mid-16th-century Turkey, during the reign of
Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...
, respectability regulations allowed "respectable" women to wear fashionable dresses with exposed cleavage; this privilege was denied to "prostitutes" so they could not draw attention to their livelihoods. The '' entari'', a popular women's garment of the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, resembled the corseted bodice of Europe without the corset; its narrow top and narrow, long, plunging décolletage exposed a generous cleavage. Around this time, cleavage-revealing '' gambaz'' gowns became accepted among married women in the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
, where bosoms were regarded as a sign of maternity. In 16th-century India, during the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
, Hindu women started emulating the overdressed conquerors by covering their shoulders and breasts, though in contemporaneous paintings, women of Mughal palaces were often portrayed wearing
Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...
-style
choli A choli (Hindi: चोली, Urdu: چولی, gu, ચોળી, mr, चोळी, Nepali: चोलो ''cholo'') (known in South India as ''ravike'' (Kannada: ರವಿಕೆ, Telugu: రవికె, Tamil: ரவிக்கை)) is a bl ...
s and breast jewelry.
Mughal painting Mughal painting is a style of painting on paper confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums ( muraqqa), from the territory of the Mughal Empire in South Asia. It emerged from Persian miniature pain ...
s often portrayed women with extraordinarily daring décolletage. Contemporaneous
Rajput painting Rajput painting, also called Rajasthan painting, evolved and flourished in the royal courts of Rajputana in northern India, mainly during the 17th century. Artists trained in the tradition of the Mughal miniature were dispersed from the imperia ...
s often depict women wearing semi-transparent cholis that cover only the upper part of their breasts. In the 16th century, when Spanish
conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...
s colonized the
Inca Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts",  "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
, traditional cleavage-revealing and colorful Inca dresses were replaced by high necks and covered bosoms. In European societies during the 16th century, women's fashions with exposed breasts were common across the class spectrum.
Anne of Brittany Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning List of rulers of Brittany, Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and List of French royal consorts, Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. ...
has been painted wearing a dress with a square neckline. Low, square décolleté styles were popular in 17th-century England;
Queen Mary II Mary II (30 April 166228 December 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, William III & II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. Mary was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife ...
and
Henrietta Maria Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...
, wife of
Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...
, were depicted with widely bared breasts. Architect Inigo Jones designed a
masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A mas ...
costume for
Henrietta Maria Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...
that widely revealed both of her breasts. Cleavage-enhancing corsets, which used
whalebone Baleen is a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales. To use baleen, the whale first opens its mouth underwater to take in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and r ...
and other stiff materials to create a desired silhouette—a fashion that was also adopted by men for their coats—were introduced in the mid-16th century. Throughout the 16th century, shoulder straps stayed on the shoulders but as the 17th century progressed, they moved down the shoulders and across the top of the arms, and by the mid-17th century, the oval neckline of the period became commonplace. By the end of the century, necklines at the front of women's garments started to drop even lower. During the extreme décolletage of the
Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personif ...
, necklines were often decorated with frills and strings of pearls, and were sometimes covered with tuckers and partlets (called a ''tasselo'' in Italy and ''la modiste'' in France). Late Elizabethan corsets, with their rigid, suppressive fronts, manipulated a woman's figure into a flat, cylindrical
silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...
with a deep cleavage. Around 1610, flat collars started replacing neck trims, allowing provocative cleavage that was sometimes covered with a handkerchief. During the
Georgian era The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of Will ...
, pendants became popular as décolletage decoration.
Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 un ...
, along with female members of her court, was known for wearing very tight
bodice A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to th ...
s and
corset A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...
s that forced breasts together to make deeper cleavage, very low necklines that exposed breasts almost in entirety above the areolae, and pendants lying on the cleavage to highlight it. After the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
décolletage become larger at the front and reduced at the back. During the fashions of 1795–1820, many women wore dresses that bared necks, bosoms and shoulders. Increasingly, the amount of décolletage became a major difference between day-wear and formal gowns. Cleavage was not without controversy. In 1713, British newspaper ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' complained about women forgoing their
tucker Tucker may refer to: Places United States * Tucker, Arkansas * Tucker, Georgia * Tucker, Mississippi * Tucker, Missouri * Tucker, Utah, ghost town * Tucker County, West Virginia Outer space * Tucker (crater), a small lunar impact crater in ...
s, and keeping their necks and tops of breasts uncovered. English poet and essayist
Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard ...
complained about décolletage so extreme "the neck of a fine woman at present take in almost half the body". Publications advised women against "unmasking their beauties". 18th-century news correspondents wrote that "otherwise polite, genteel women looked like common prostitutes". During the French Enlightenment, there was a debate about whether female breasts were merely a sensual enticement or a natural gift to be offered from mother to child. Not all women in France wore the open-neck style without modifications; a self-portrait by
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (née Labille; 11 April 1749 – 24 April 1803), also known as Adélaïde Labille-Guiard des Vertus, was a French miniaturist and portrait painter. She was an advocate for women to receive the same opportunities as men ...
(France, 1785) shows the painter in a fashionable décolleté dress while her pupils have their bosoms accessorized with gauzy handkerchiefs. Nearly a century later, also in France, a man from the provinces who attended a court ball at the
Tuileries The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
in Paris in 1855 was disgusted by the décolleté dresses and is said to have said; "I haven't seen anything like that since I was weaned!". In 1890, the first breast augmentation was performed using an injection of liquid paraffin.


Late modern

By the end of the 18th century in
Continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
, cleavage-enhancing corsets grew more dramatic, pushing the breasts upward. The tight lacing of corsets worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized both cleavage and the size of the bust and hips. Evening gowns and ball gowns were especially designed to display and emphasize the décolletage. Elaborate necklaces decorated the décolletage at parties and balls by 1849. There was also a trend of wearing
camisole A camisole is a sleeveless undergarment or innerwear typically worn by women, normally extending to the waist. The camisole is usually made of satin, nylon, silk, or cotton. Historical definition Historically, ''camisole'' referred to jackets ...
-like clothes and whale-bone corsets that gave the wearer a bust without a separation or any cleavage. Despite the contemporaneous popularity of décolletage dresses, complete exposure of breasts in portraits was limited to two groups of women; the scandalous (mistresses and prostitutes), and the pure (breastfeeding mothers and queens). In North America, the
Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and West ...
saw women adorning their cleavage with flowers attached to clothes and carefully placed jewelry. During the
Victorian period In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
of the mid-to-late 19th century, social attitudes required women to cover their bosoms in public. High collars were the norm for ordinary wear. Towards the end of this period, the full collar was in fashion, though some décolleté dresses were worn on formal occasions. For that purpose, the Bertha neckline, which lay below the shoulders and was often trimmed with of lace or other decorative material, became popular with upper and middle-class women but it was socially unacceptable for working-class women to expose that much skin. Multiple pearl necklaces were worn to cover the décolletage. Along with the Bertha neckline, straps were removed from corsets and shawls were made essential. By 1904, necklines of evening attire were lowered, exposing the shoulders, sometimes without straps but the neckline still ended above the cleavage. Clergymen all over the world were shocked when dresses with modest round or V-shaped necklines became fashionable around 1913. In the German Empire, Roman Catholic bishops joined to issue a pastoral letter attacking the new fashions. In the
Edwardian era The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victor ...
, extreme uplift with no hint of cleavage was as common as a bow-fronted look that was also popular. In 1908, a single rubber pad or a "bust form" was worn inside the front of the bodice to make cleavage virtually undetectable. The
Flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered accepta ...
generation of 1920s flattened their chests to adopt the fashionable "boy-girl" look by either bandaging their breasts or by using bust latteners. Corsets started to go out of fashion by 1917, when metal was needed to make tanks and munitions for World War I and due to the vogue for boyish figures. In New Zealand, the early appearance of décolleté clothes in 1914 was soon superseded by the "flat" fashion. Breast suppression prevailed in the Western world so much the U.S. physician Lillian Farrar attributed "virginal atrophic prolapsed breasts" to the fashion imperatives of the time. In 1920, paraffin was replaced for breast augmentation with fatty tissue taken from the abdomen and buttocks. In 1914, New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob (better known as
Caresse Crosby Caresse Crosby (born Mary Phelps Jacob; April 20, 1892 – January 24, 1970) was the first recipient of a patent for the modern bra, an American patron of the arts, publisher, and the "literary godmother to the Lost Generation of expatriate wr ...
) patented the garment as "the backless brassiere"; after making a few hundred garments, she sold the patent to The Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1,500. In the next 30 years, Warner Brothers made more than US$15 million from Jacob's design. During the next century, the brassière industry went through many ups and downs, often influenced by the demand for cleavage. With a return to more womanly figures in the 1930s, corsetry maintained a strong demand, even at the height of the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The Financial contagion, ...
. From the 1920s to the 1940s, corset manufacturers constantly tried training young women to use corsets but fashions became more restrained in terms of décolletage while exposure of the leg became more accepted in Western societies during World War I and remained so for nearly half a century. In the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
in the early 20th century,
qipao ''Cheongsam'' (, ), also known as the ''qipao'' () and sometimes referred to as the mandarin gown, is a Chinese dress worn by women which takes inspiration from the , the ethnic clothing of the Manchu people. The cheongsam is most often see ...
, a dress that shows the legs but no cleavage, became so popular many Chinese women consider it as their national dress. In the 1940s, a substantial amount of fabric in the center of brassières created a separation of breasts rather than a pushed-together cleavage. In 1947, Frederick Mellinger of
Frederick's of Hollywood Frederick's of Hollywood is an American lingerie brand formerly with stores in shopping malls across the United States. In 2015, all 111 retail stores were closed in advance of a bankruptcy filing. The brand was acquired by Authentic Brands Gr ...
created the first padded brassière followed a year later by an early push-up version dubbed "The Rising Star". In that decade,
Christian Dior Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE, which is now owned by parent company LVMH. His fashion houses ...
introduced the " New Look" that included elastic corsets, pads and shaping girdles to widen hips, cinch waists and lift breasts. Under the
Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
, which was in effect in the U.S. between 1934 and 1968, the depiction of excessive cleavage was not permitted. Many female actors defied those standards; other celebrities, performers and models followed suit and the public was not far behind. Low-cut styles of various depths were common. In the post-war period, cleavage became a defining emblem; according to writer Peter Lewis; "The bust, bosom or cleavage was in the Fifties the apotheosis of erogenous zones. The breasts were the apples of all eyes." Around this time, the American word "cleavage" started to be used to define the space between the breasts.


Early contemporary

According to an urban American woman, during the 1950s, "At night... our shoulders were naked, our breasts half-bare". Dramatic necklaces that emphasized the cleavage became popular at balls and parties in France. In the U.S., television shows tried to mask exposed cleavage with
tulle Tulle (; ) is a commune in central France. It is the third-largest town in the former region of Limousin and is the capital of the department of Corrèze, in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Tulle is also the episcopal see of the Roman Cath ...
and even sketches, illustrations and short stories in ''
Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his w ...
'' and ''
Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'' depicted women with tiny waists, big buttocks and ample cleavage. In this decade, Hollywood and the fashion industry successfully promoted large, cloven bustlines and
falsies In fashion, falsies are paddings for use in a bra to create the appearance of larger breasts. The term has also, more rarely, been used for pads which create the appearance of larger buttocks. In both cases, there is a note of (more or less) am ...
, the brassière industry started experimenting with the half-cup bra (also known as demi-cup or shelf bra) to facilitate décolletage.
Polyvinyl In polymer chemistry, vinyl polymers are a group of polymers derived from substituted vinyl () monomers. Their backbone is an extended alkane chain . In popular usage, "vinyl" refers only to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples Vinyl polymers a ...
sacs were often the preferred implant to augment breasts into a fuller, more projected appearance. Despite these developments, open presentation of cleavage was mostly limited to well-endowed female actors like
Lana Turner Lana Turner ( ; born Julia Jean Turner; February 8, 1921June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Over the course of her nearly 50-year career, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a film actress, as well as for her highly publicized per ...
, Marilyn Monroe (who was attributed with the revelation of America's "mammary madness" by journalist Marjorie Rosen),
Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer and producer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years. The press coined th ...
,
Jane Russell Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, singer, and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films. Russell moved from th ...
,
Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...
,
Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and ''Playboy'' Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Man ...
and
Sophia Loren Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (; born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren ( , ), is an Italian actress. She was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest female stars of Classical Hollywood cin ...
, who were as celebrated for their cleavage as for their beauty. While these movie stars significantly influenced the appearance of women's busts in this decade, the stylish 1950s sweaters were a safer substitute for many women. Lingerie manufacturer Berlei launched the "Hollywood Maxwell" brassière, claiming it to be a "favourite of film stars". Modern augmentation mammaplasty began when Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow developed the first
silicone gel A silicone or polysiloxane is a polymer made up of siloxane (−R2Si−O−SiR2−, where R = organic group). They are typically colorless oils or rubber-like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking ...
-filled breast prosthesis with
Dow Corning Corporation Dow Corning Corporation, was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Originally established as a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Corning Incorporated, Dow bought out Corning and ...
, and the first implanting operation took place the following year. In the late 1960s, attention began to shift from the large bust to the trim lower torso, reasserting the need to diet, especially as new clothing fashions—brief, sheer, and close fitting—prohibited heavy reliance on foundation lingerie. Legs were comparatively less emphasized as elements of beauty. In the 1960s, driven by
second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. W ...
, liberal politics and the
free love Free love is a social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo on ...
movement, a bra burning movement arose to protest against—among various patriarchal imperatives—constructed cleavage and disciplined breasts. Yves Saint Laurent and U.S. designer
Rudi Gernreich Rudolf "Rudi" Gernreich (August 8, 1922 April 21, 1985) was an Austrian people, Austrian-born American fashion designer whose avant-garde clothing designs are generally regarded as the most innovative and dynamic fashion of the 1960s. He purposef ...
experimented with a bra-less look on the
runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete, ...
. The increasingly casual styles of the 1960s led to a bra-less look when women who were unwilling to give up bras turned to soft bras that did not lift and "were as light and discreet as possible" but still provided support. From the 1960s, changes in fashion leaned towards increased displays of cleavage in films and television; Jane Russell and
Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
were the biggest stars who led the fashion. In everyday life, low-cut dress styles became common, even for casual wear. Lingerie and shapewear manufacturers like Warner Brothers, Gossard, Formfit and
Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and ...
took the opportunity to market plunge bras with a lower gore that was suitable for low-cut styles. In the early 1970s, it became common to leave top buttons on shirts and blouses open to display
pectoral muscles Pectoral muscles (colloquially referred to as "pecs") are the muscles that connect the front of the human chest with the bones of the upper arm and shoulder. This region contains four muscles that provide movements to the upper limbs or ribs. Pe ...
and cleavage. Daring women and men of all ages wore tailored, buttoned-down shirts that were open from the breast-point to the navel in a " groovy" style, with pendants, beads or medallions dangling on the chest, displaying a firm body achieved through exercise. As a new masculine style evolved, gay men adopted a traditionally masculine or working-class style with "half-unbuttoned shirt above the sweaty chest" and tight
jeans Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and pate ...
. During the 1980s, deep, plunging cleavage became more common and less risqué as the popularity of work-outs and masculine shoulder-padded blazers increased. In 1985, designer
Vivienne Westwood Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood (née Swire; born 8 April 1941) is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. Westwood came to public notice when she m ...
re-introduced the corset as a trendy way to enhance cleavage. It was followed in 1989 by
Jean Paul Gaultier Jean Paul Gaultier (; born 24 April 1952) is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, ...
, who dressed
Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
in a pink corset. Soon, Westwood introduced an elastic-sided variant that worked as a balcony to push up the cleavage. The push-up bra and exaggerated cleavage became popular in the 1990s. In 1992, the bra and girdle industry in America posted sales of over US$1 billion. The
Wonderbra The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1955, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majori ...
brand, which had existed elsewhere, entered the U.S. market in 1994 with a newly designed, cleavage-enhancing bra. Driven by a controversial advertising campaign that featured model
Eva Herzigova Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in ...
's cleavage, one Wonderbra was sold every 15 seconds shortly after the brand's launch, leading to first-year sales of US$120 million. The hypersexualized styles of
Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest re ...
became a "
zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. ...
" in the 1990s. By 2013, Victoria's Secret had captured one-third of the women's underwear market in the U.S. In the early 1990s,
Sara Lee Corporation The Sara Lee Corporation was an American consumer-goods company based in Downers Grove, Illinois. It had operations in more than 40 countries and sold its products in over 180 countries. Its international operations were headquartered in Utrech ...
—hen owner of the Wonderbra and
Playtex Playtex is an American brand name for undergarments, baby products, gloves, feminine hygiene products, and sunscreen. The brand began in 1947 when International Latex Corporation (ILC) created a division named Playtex to produce and sell latex p ...
brands—along with UK lingerie manufacturer Gossard, introduced a bra for Asian women who, according to Sara Lee, are "less buxom nd havenarrower shoulders". Traditional brands like
Maidenform Maidenform Brands is a manufacturer of women's underwear, founded in 1922 by seamstress Ida Rosenthal; Enid Bissett, who owned the shop that employed her; and Ida's husband, William Rosenthal. They rebelled against the flat-chested designs of ...
produced similar styles.


Late contemporary

Underwire bra An underwire bra (also under wire bra, under-wire bra, or underwired bra) is a brassiere that utilizes a thin, semi-circular strip of rigid material fitted inside the brassiere fabric to help lift, separate, shape, and support a woman's breasts. ...
s, the most popular cleavage-boosting lingerie, accounted for 60% of the UK bra market in 2000 and 70% in 2005. About 70% of women who wear bras wear a steel underwire bra according to underwear manufacturer S&S Industries of New York in 2009. In 2001, 70% (350 million) of the bras sold in the U.S. were underwire bras. As of 2005, underwire bras were the fastest-growing segment of the market. Corsets also experienced a resurgence in the 2010s; this trend was driven by photographs on social media. According to fashion historian Valerie Steele, "The corset did not so much disappear as become internalised through diet, exercise and plastic surgery". By the turn of the 21st century, some of the attention given to cleavage and breasts started to shift to buttocks, especially in the media, while corsetry returned to mainstream fashion. According to dietician Rebecca Scritchfield, the resurgent popularity of corsets is driven by "the picture on Instagram of somebody with a tiny waist and giant boobs". At the same time alternatives to décolletage, which were often still called cleavages, emerged from Western cleavage culture. By the early 2000s, "sideboob" (also known as "side cleavage"), i.e. the exposure of the side of the breast had become popular. One writer called it the "new cleavage". In 2008, Armand Limnander wrote in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' the "underboob" (also known as "bottom cleavage" and "reverse cleavage") was "a newly fetishized anatomical zone where the lower part of the breast meets the torso, popularized by 80s rock chicks in cutoff tank tops". It was further popularized by dancer-singer Teyana Taylor in the music video for
Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the e ...
's 2016 song " Fade". Supermodels, including
Bella Hadid Isabella Khairiah Hadid (born October 9, 1996) is an American model. In 2016, she was voted "Model of the Year" by industry professionals for Models.com. Over the span of four years, Hadid has made twenty-seven appearances on international '' ...
,
Gigi Hadid Jelena Noura "Gigi" Hadid ( ; born April 23, 1995) is an American model and television personality. In November 2014, she made her debut in the Top 50 Models ranking at Models.com. In 2016, she was named International Model of the Year by the ...
, and
Kendall Jenner Kendall Nicole Jenner (born November 3, 1995) is an American model, media personality, and socialite. She is a daughter of Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner, and rose to fame in the reality television show ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians.'' ...
, contributed to the trend, which has appeared at beaches, on the
red carpet A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events. History The earliest known reference t ...
, and in social media posts. In the 2010s and early 2020s, cleavage-enhancing bras began to decline in popularity.
Bralette A bralette is a lightweight bra without an underwire, designed primarily for comfort. Bralettes are also sometimes worn as outerwear top,Linda DyettThe Bralette Is Back. This Time Blouses Are Optional ''The New York Times'', 2019-07-31 and are ...
s and soft bras gained market share at the expense of underwire and padded bras, sometimes also serving as outerwear. Some bralettes have plunging designs, light padding or bottom support. In November 2016, the UK version of fashion magazine '' Vogue'' said "Cleavage is over"; this statement was widely criticized. Soft bras and sideboobs became popular over prominent cleavages. Soft bras consisted 30% of online retailer
Net-a-Porter YOOX Net-a-Porter Group S.p.A. is an Italian online fashion retailer created on 5 October 2015 after the merger between Yoox Group and Net-a-porter Group (NAP). Yoox was originally founded by Federico Marchetti in Milan in 2000, and Net-a-Porte ...
's bra sales by 2016. In 2017, the sales of cleavage-boosting bras fell by 45% while at
Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...
, sales of wire-free bras grew by 40%. Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor of ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', reported in 2018 many women were dressing without bras, producing a less-dramatic cleavage, which she called "quiet cleavage". According to Sarah Shotton, creative director of
Agent Provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the ...
, "Now it's about the athletic body, health and wellbeing" rather than the
male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterose ...
. According to lingerie designer Araks Yeramyan, "It was #MeToo that catapulted the bralette movement into what it is today". During the
COVID-19 lockdowns Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions colloquially known as lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar societal restrictions) have been implemented in numerous countri ...
,
CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
reported a drop of 12% in bra sales across 100 retailers while
YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influen ...
s made tutorials on re-purposing bras as face masks; this trend was sometimes called a "lockdown liberation".


Enhancement

Throughout history, women have used many methods, including accentuation and display of breasts within the context of cultural norms of fashion and modesty, to enhance their
physical attractiveness Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are man ...
and femininity. Fetishization of breasts results in significant anxiety in women about having the correct breasts and resulting cleavage. All kinds of exercises, brassières and other methods of bust improvement have been recommended and advertised to cater for this need.


Corsetry and bras

Corsetry and bras are often used to enhance cleavage; author Nan McNab claims that “it has been said the quickest way for a woman to change her breasts is to buy a bra”. Before the brassière became popular, the bust was encased in corsets and structured garments called " bust improvers", which were made of boning and lace. When corsets became unfashionable, brassières and padding helped to project, display and emphasize the breasts. These were initially manufactured by small companies and supplied to retailers. Women had the choice of long-line bras, built-up backs, wedge-shaped inserts between the cups, wider straps, Lastex, firm bands under the cup, and light boning. In 2020, several lingerie and shapewear manufacturers, among them
Wonderbra The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1955, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majori ...
,
Frederick's of Hollywood Frederick's of Hollywood is an American lingerie brand formerly with stores in shopping malls across the United States. In 2015, all 111 retail stores were closed in advance of a bankruptcy filing. The brand was acquired by Authentic Brands Gr ...
,
Agent Provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the ...
and
Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest re ...
, produce bras that enhance cleavage and offer more than 30 types of bra, including underwire, padded, plunge and push-up bras. Development of
underwire bra An underwire bra (also under wire bra, under-wire bra, or underwired bra) is a brassiere that utilizes a thin, semi-circular strip of rigid material fitted inside the brassiere fabric to help lift, separate, shape, and support a woman's breasts. ...
s started in the 1930s but they did not gain widespread popularity until the 1950s, when the end of World War II freed metal for domestic use. In an underwire bra, a thin strip of metal, plastic or resin—usually with a nylon coating at both ends—is sewn into the bra fabric and under each cup from the center gore to the armpit. The insert helps to lift, separate, shape and support the breasts. Underwire bras can rub and press against the breast, causing skin irritation and
breast pain Breast pain is the symptom of discomfort in either one or both breasts. Pain in both breasts is often described as ''breast tenderness'', is usually associated with the menstrual period and is not serious. Pain that involves only one part of a b ...
, and the wire of a worn bra can protrude from the fabric. Padded bras have extra material, which may be foam, silicone, gel, air or fluid, in the cups to help the breasts look fuller. Different designs provide coverage and support, hide nipples, add shape to breasts that are far apart, and add comfort. Graduated padding has more padding at the bottom of the cups and gradually tapers towards the top. Some padded bras are made to suit deep-neck dresses. Plunge bra covers the nipples and the lower part of the breasts while leaving the top part bare, making it suitable for low-cut tops and deep V-necks. Plunge bras also have a lower, shorter and narrower center gore that maintains support while increasing cleavage by allowing the gore to drop several inches below the middle of the breasts. Plunge bras may be padded or push the breasts together to create cleavage. Push-up bras, which emerged in the mid-20th century, are designed to press the breasts upwards and closer together to give a fuller appearance with help of padded cups, differing from other padded bras in location of the pads. It leaves the upper and inner area of breasts uncovered adding more cleavage. Most of the push-up bras have underwires for added lift and support, while the padding is commonly made of foam.
Wonderbra The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1955, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majori ...
used to have 54 design elements in their push-up bras, including a three-part cup, underwires, a precision-angled back, rigid straps, and removable "cookies". In some forms of exercise, breasts unsupported by a sports bra are exposed to greater risk of droopiness. Author Taffy Brodesser-Akner claims that long hours wearing a
sports bra A sports bra is a bra that provides support to the breasts during physical exercise. Sturdier than typical bras, they minimize breast movement and alleviate discomfort. Many women wear sports bras to reduce pain and physical discomfort caused b ...
or a
push-up bra There are a great many brassiere designs that are suitable for a wide variety of business and social settings and suitable to wear with a variety of outer clothing. The bra's shape, coverage, functionality, fit, fashion, fabric, and colour can ...
that presses breasts together can cause cleavage wrinkles, as does spending long hours sleeping on the side, during which the top breast bend past the body's midline. The deep vertical creases of these wrinkles stay longer as the
collagen Collagen () is the main structural protein in the extracellular matrix found in the body's various connective tissues. As the main component of connective tissue, it is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up from 25% to 35% of the whol ...
in skin start to break down with age and exposure to sun. Women with bigger breasts, either natural or surgically enhanced, suffer more from cleavage wrinkles. There have been claims of bra designs that minimize cleavage wrinkles. Cleavage wrinkles can also be reduced with
botox Botulinum toxin, or botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), is a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium ''Clostridium botulinum'' and related species. It prevents the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from axon endings at the neuromus ...
and, according to Samantha Wilson, founder of skincare product manufacturer Skin Republic, by intense pulsed light (IPM), collagen induction therapy (CIT) and high-intensity focused ultrasound. In 2009, Slovenian lingerie manufacturer Lisca introduced a high-tech "Smart Memory Bra" that was supposed to push breasts further when its wearer becomes sexually aroused.


Tape and inserts

Accessories, including lingerie tapes or duct tapes, removable gel pads, fabrics, silicone or microfiber inserts, and clothing—including socks—are used to enhance cleavage. Many women, such as beauty pageant participants and
transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through t ...
people, create cleavage by placing tape underneath and across their breasts, bending forward, tightly pulling them together and up. Types of tape used include lingerie tape,
surgical tape Surgical tape or medical tape is a type of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape used in medicine and first aid to hold a bandage or other dressing onto a wound. These tapes usually have a hypoallergenic adhesive which is designed to hold firmly on ...
and
athletic tape Athletic taping is the process of applying tape directly to the skin or over pre-wrap in order to maintain a stable position of bones and muscles during athletic activity. It is a procedure that uses athletic tape ( pressure-sensitive tape similar ...
. Some use a strip of
moleskin Moleskin is a heavy cotton fabric, woven and then shorn to create a short, soft pile on one side. The feel and appearance of its nap is suede-like, less plush than velour and more like felt or chamois. The word is also used for clothing made ...
under the breasts; this is held in place with tape. Use of the wrong techniques or tape with too strong an adhesive can cause injuries such as rashes, blisters and torn skin.
Falsies In fashion, falsies are paddings for use in a bra to create the appearance of larger breasts. The term has also, more rarely, been used for pads which create the appearance of larger buttocks. In both cases, there is a note of (more or less) am ...
, small silicone-gel pads that are similar to the removable pads sold with some push-up bras, are sometimes referred to colloquially as "chicken fillets". Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber. By the mid 1800s,"bust improvers" were made using soft fabric pads of cotton and wool or inflatable rubber. In 1896, celluloid falsies were advertised and in the 20th century, soft
foam rubber Foam rubber (also known as cellular rubber, sponge rubber, or expanded rubber) refers to rubber that has been manufactured with a foaming agent to create an air-filled matrix structure. Commercial foam rubbers are generally made of synthetic rubb ...
pads became available. Young women, some as young as 15, were expected to wear falsies to fill out their bodices. For cross-dressers or trans women who have not undergone
hormone therapy Hormone therapy or hormonal therapy is the use of hormones in medical treatment. Treatment with hormone antagonists may also be referred to as hormonal therapy or antihormone therapy. The most general classes of hormone therapy are oncologic h ...
or breast augmentation, semi-rigid pieces of material such as plastic is sometimes applied to the skin using surgical tape, surgical adhesive, specialist adhesives or even general-purpose craft glue to get a feminine cleavage.


Surgery

Cleavage, from a surgical perspective, is a combination of the intermammary distance and the degree of "fill" in the medial portion of the breast. Some flat-chested women feel self-conscious about their small breasts and want to improve their sexual attractiveness by seeking
breast augmentation Breast augmentation and augmentation mammoplasty is a cosmetic surgery technique using breast-implants and fat-graft mammoplasty techniques to increase the size, change the shape, and alter the texture of the breasts. Augmentation mammoplasty is ...
. According to plastic surgeon Gerard H. Pitman, "you can't have cleavage with an A cup. You have to be at least a B or a C." It is easier to push big breasts together to accent the hollow between them. Implants filled with sterile
saline solution Saline (also known as saline solution) is a mixture of sodium chloride (salt) and water. It has a number of uses in medicine including cleaning wounds, removal and storage of contact lenses, and help with dry eyes. By injection into a vein it ...
and implants filled with viscous
silicone A silicone or polysiloxane is a polymer made up of siloxane (−R2Si−O−SiR2−, where R = organic group). They are typically colorless oils or rubber-like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooki ...
gel are used for
breast reconstruction Breast reconstruction is the surgical process of rebuilding the shape and look of a breast, most commonly in women who have had surgery to treat breast cancer. It involves using autologous tissue, prosthetic implants, or a combination of both wi ...
, and for the augmentation and enhancement of aesthetics—size, shape, and texture—of breasts. Plastic surgeons changed from using bodily tissues to these newer technologies in the 1950s. Sometimes, fat is injected into the subcutaneous plane to narrow the gap of the cleavage and is grafted onto wide-chested individuals. During
breast reconstruction Breast reconstruction is the surgical process of rebuilding the shape and look of a breast, most commonly in women who have had surgery to treat breast cancer. It involves using autologous tissue, prosthetic implants, or a combination of both wi ...
, surgeons are normally careful to preserve the natural cleavage of the breasts. Attempts to create or increase cleavage by loosening the medial borders of the breasts could result in symmastia (also called a "uniboob"), a confluence of the breast tissue of both breasts across the midline in front of the sternum, creating a lack of defined cleavage. About 3 cm of cleavage distance is recommended while augmenting breasts, to avoid medial perforation, compromised soft tissues, visible implants, rippling and symmastia. A high surgical release of pectoralis major muscles can enhance cleavage at the risk of the implant showing through soft tissues. A 2016 paper reported breast augmentation was one of the most common aesthetic surgery procedures performed by plastic surgeons. Annually, an estimated 8,000–20,000 surgeries are done in the UK and over 300,000 in the U.S. According to the paper, in the U.S., 4% of women had breast implants at the time. It reported annual sales of 300,000 implants in South America and estimated the global number of women with breast implants to be between five and ten million. Women seeking breast augmentation often request a specific form of cleavage enhancement and often produce photographs of desired cleavage shapes and appearances. Many of those who seek breast augmentation want "full cleavage" which, according to plastic surgeon Jeffrey Weinzweig, "in reality results only from external forces, such as a brassier. Attempts to create such full cleavage require unacceptable compromise to other aesthetic factors of the breast." The width of cleavage is determined at the point at which the breast tissue attaches to the periosteal bone membrane that covers the sternum and by the medial attachments of the
pectoralis major The pectoralis major () is a thick, fan-shaped or triangular convergent muscle, situated at the chest of the human body. It makes up the bulk of the chest muscles and lies under the breast. Beneath the pectoralis major is the pectoralis minor, a ...
(chest muscle). By modern cultural values, cleavage is considered more attractive when breasts are close together. A narrow cleft between the breasts is identified as unusual anatomy. Plastic surgeon John B. Tebbetts finds creating a narrow intermammary distance is not a priority over other aspects. He says if a patient wishes a gluteal appearance for her cleavage, she should use "an appropriate push up brassiere", avoiding "the temptation to create it surgically". Because large breasts are not always closer together than smaller ones, and because implants change only the volume of the breasts, not their position, implants cannot produce a tight cleavage if the gap between the breasts is wide. Wide-set breasts will have a wide cleavage even after surgery because implants cannot correct the condition. It is difficult to produce sufficiently feminine cleavage for transwomen, even with breast augmentation surgery, because people
assigned male at birth Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of bi ...
have nipple-areolar complexes set farther apart on their chests than those
assigned female at birth Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of bi ...
do. Fat grafting may be used to reduce the width of cleavage in transwomen.


Exercise and supplements

Regular exercise of the muscles and fibers of the pectoral complex, which lies just under the fatty tissues of the breast, helps prevent droopiness, creates the illusion of larger and firmer breasts, and enhances cleavage. Exercise does not enlarge the breasts but developing the pectoral muscles on the chest can give them a fuller appearance. Training the chest does not change the structure of the breasts because breast tissue is fat, which cannot be shaped; chest training can, however, prevent breasts from drooping and sagging by firming the muscles that surround the sternum. Even in moderately athletic women, the
pectoralis major The pectoralis major () is a thick, fan-shaped or triangular convergent muscle, situated at the chest of the human body. It makes up the bulk of the chest muscles and lies under the breast. Beneath the pectoralis major is the pectoralis minor, a ...
muscles on either side of the cleavage become more prominent with exercise. The most effective exercises for developing breasts and improving cleavage are incline chest press,
chest fly A fly or flye is a strength training exercise in which the hand and arm move through an arc while the elbow is kept at a constant angle. Flies are used to work the muscles of the upper body. Because these exercises use the arms as levers at t ...
and chest dip.
Weight training Weight training is a common type of strength training for developing the strength, size of skeletal muscles and maintenance of strength.Keogh, Justin W, and Paul W Winwood. “Report for: The Epidemiology of Injuries Across the Weight-Train ...
, nautilus machines, push-ups and chest presses are helpful, as are exercise balls,
dumbbell The dumbbell, a type of free weight, is a piece of equipment used in weight training. It can be used individually or in pairs, with one in each hand. History The forerunner of the dumbbell, halteres, were used in ancient Greece as lifting w ...
s, rowing and basketball. Flat chest dumbbell pullovers and dumbbell flyers on incline bench is recommended for beginners, while the advanced exercisers may include bench press movements, flyers, pullovers, Pec Decs and push-ups at least twice a week.
Pilates Pilates (; ) is a type of mind-body exercise developed in the early 20th century by German physical trainer Joseph Pilates, after whom it was named. Pilates called his method "Contrology". It is practiced worldwide, especially in countries su ...
,
tai chi Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called "shadowboxing", is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and meditation. T ...
and
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-conscio ...
boost cleavage by improving posture and strengthening the chest muscles. Hunching, tightening and closing off of the chest in yoga ''
asana An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga ...
s'' are particularly helpful, along with breathing exercises like deep breathing ('' sama vritti'' or '' kapalabhati'') and retention (''
kumbhaka ''Kumbhaka'' is the retention of the breath in the yoga practice of pranayama. It has two types, accompanied (by breathing) whether after inhalation or after exhalation, and, the ultimate aim, unaccompanied. That state is ''kevala kumbhaka'', the ...
''). The most recommended ''asanas'' to develop cleavage are backbends like cobra, bow,
camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
, bridge and
locust Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin ''locusta'', meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstanc ...
; twisted poses like cow face and lord of the fishes; front bends like
plough A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
and resting child; standing poses like
tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that ar ...
and
warrior A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal society, tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, social class, class, or caste. History ...
; and leg stretches like raised leg and inverted leg stretch. Supplements are frequently portrayed as natural means to increase breast size with the suggestion they are free from risk. Commonly used ingredients include black cohosh, (shown to have no estrogenic effect) ''
dong quai ''Angelica sinensis'', commonly known as ''dong quai'' () or female ginseng, is a herb belonging to the family Apiaceae, indigenous to China. ''Angelica sinensis'' grows in cool high altitude mountains in East Asia. The yellowish brown root of th ...
'',
hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...
,
kava Kava or kava kava ('' Piper methysticum'': Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a crop of the Pacific Islands. The name ''kava'' is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning 'bitter'; other names for kava include ''ʻawa'' (Hawaiʻi ...
(may cause
liver damage Liver disease, or hepatic disease, is any of many diseases of the liver. If long-lasting it is termed chronic liver disease. Although the diseases differ in detail, liver diseases often have features in common. Signs and symptoms Some of the sig ...
) and
zearalenone Zearalenone (ZEN), also known as RAL and F-2 mycotoxin, is a potent estrogenic metabolite produced by some ''Fusarium'' and '' Gibberella'' species. Specifically, the ''Gibberella zeae ,'' the fungal species where zearalenone was initially detecte ...
(increases probability of estrogen-dependent breast cancer and may reduce fertility) among others. Despite folklore about using herbs for breast enlargement, there is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of any breast enlargement supplement. In the United States, both the
Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
and the
Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...
have taken action against the manufacturers of these products for fraudulent practices.


Grooming and makeup

According to Samantha Wilson of Skin Republic, dermatologist Paul Jarrod Frank, and Philippa Curnow of Elizabeth Arden, compared with the
epidermis The epidermis is the outermost of the three layers that comprise the skin, the inner layers being the dermis and hypodermis. The epidermis layer provides a barrier to infection from environmental pathogens and regulates the amount of water relea ...
on the face, the epidermis on the cleavage and neck has fewer
hair follicle The hair follicle is an organ found in mammalian skin. It resides in the dermal layer of the skin and is made up of 20 different cell types, each with distinct functions. The hair follicle regulates hair growth via a complex interaction between h ...
s and oil glands, little
subcutaneous fat The subcutaneous tissue (), also called the hypodermis, hypoderm (), subcutis, superficial fascia, is the lowermost layer of the integumentary system in vertebrates. The types of cells found in the layer are fibroblasts, adipose cells, and macr ...
cushioning the area, a limited number
melanocyte Melanocytes are melanin-producing neural crest-derived cells located in the bottom layer (the stratum basale) of the skin's epidermis, the middle layer of the eye (the uvea), the inner ear, vaginal epithelium, meninges, bones, and heart. M ...
s, and is much thinner and more fragile. Skin in these areas can suffer from damage resulting in cleavage wrinkles, uneven skin tone, age spots, scars from heat rash, and female chest hairs, and may show loss of elasticity sooner. Some perfumes and colognes can cause a
phototoxic Phototoxicity, also called photoirritation, is a chemically induced skin irritation, requiring light, that does not involve the immune system. It is a type of photosensitivity. The skin response resembles an exaggerated sunburn. The involved chem ...
rashes on the neck, wrists and cleavage that leaves patterned hyperpigmentation when healed. According to Curnow, the skin of the cleavage area often ages more quickly because it experiences more exposure to
ultraviolet radiation Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30  PHz) to 400 nm (750  THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiatio ...
(UV) and environmental factors like pollution than skin that remains covered in many cultures, while moisturizers and sunscreens are used more on the face and neck. According to Marnina Diprose, founder of skin care clinic Aroze Dermal Therapies, ultraviolet radiation can break down
collagen Collagen () is the main structural protein in the extracellular matrix found in the body's various connective tissues. As the main component of connective tissue, it is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up from 25% to 35% of the whol ...
and cause
pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...
deposition, leading to mottled pigmentation on the cleavage. The skin of the cleavage area may also show loss of elasticity more quickly. Dermatoheliosis (photo aging) is a problem when cleavage skin is exposed for prolonged periods to UV radiation in sunlight; it is characterized by
hyperpigmentation Hyperpigmentation is the darkening of an area of skin or nails caused by increased melanin. Causes Hyperpigmentation can be caused by sun damage, inflammation, or other skin injuries, including those related to acne vulgaris.James, William; Berg ...
, leathery texture, roughness, wrinkles,
lentigines A lentigo () (plural lentigines, ) is a small pigmented spot on the skin with a clearly defined edge, surrounded by normal-appearing skin. It is a harmless (benign) hyperplasia of melanocytes which is linear in its spread. This means the hyperplasi ...
(age spots),
actinic elastosis Actinic elastosis, also known as solar elastosis, is an accumulation of abnormal elastin (elastic tissue) in the dermis of the skin, or in the conjunctiva of the eye, which occurs as a result of the cumulative effects of prolonged and excessive su ...
and
telangiectasia Telangiectasias, also known as spider veins, are small dilated blood vessels that can occur near the surface of the skin or mucous membranes, measuring between 0.5 and 1 millimeter in diameter. These dilated blood vessels can develop anywhere on ...
s (spider veins). For protection, regular use of high-factor sunscreen on the cleavage area is recommended by reconstructive surgeon Dr Anh Nguyen and others. Products routinely used on the face, including
vitamin A Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and an essential nutrient for humans. It is a group of organic compounds that includes retinol, retinal (also known as retinaldehyde), retinoic acid, and several provitamin A carotenoids (most notably ...
,
vitamin B3 Vitamin B3, colloquially referred to as niacin, is a vitamin family that includes three forms or vitamers: niacin (nicotinic acid), nicotinamide (niacinamide), and nicotinamide riboside. All three forms of vitamin B3 are converted within the ...
, and
vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...
,
mask A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practi ...
s,
cleanser The term cleanser refers to a product that cleans or removes dirt or other substances. A cleanser could be a detergent, and there are many types of cleansers that are produced with a specific objective or focus. For instance a degreaser or carbu ...
s, moisturizers, and exfoliators, are also applied to the cleavage, though products specifically designed for the cleavage and neck and also available. Additionally body oils like
shea butter Shea butter (, , or ; ) is a fat extracted from yellow the nut of the African shea tree (''Vitellaria paradoxa''). It is ivory in color when raw and commonly dyed yellow with borututu root or palm oil. It is widely used in cosmetics as a ...
, coconut oil and almond oil, and
bronzer Sunless tanning, also known as UV filled tanning, self tanning, spray tanning (when applied topically), or fake tanning, refers to the effect of a suntan without exposure to the Sun. Sunless tanning involves the use of oral agents (carotenids) ...
s are also used to achieve a "glowing" cleavage. Splashing cold water on the cleavage also helps. According to
Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest re ...
model Taylor Hill, most professional models use makeup to better define their cleavage. Makeup artist Stephen Dimmick recommends using a luminizer on the clavicle area. Makeup with
shading Shading refers to the depiction of depth perception in 3D models (within the field of 3D computer graphics) or illustrations (in visual art) by varying the level of darkness. Shading tries to approximate local behavior of light on the object's ...
effects is used to make cleavage appear deeper and the breasts look fuller. The middle of the cleavage is made to look deeper by using a shade of makeup color that is darker than the base color of the skin, while the most prominent areas of the breasts are made to look larger or more protruding by the use of a paler color. An illuminator on the collar bones and bronzing below them is used for more accent. Beauty journalist Zoe Weiner describes a more elaborate process of outlining the breasts with a contouring stick that is slightly darker than the skin tone then highlighting inside the contour lines with a
highlighter A highlighter is a type of writing device used to mark attention to sections of text by marking them with a vivid, translucent colour. A typical highlighter is fluorescent yellow, colored with pyranine. Different compounds, such as rhodamines ( ...
slightly lighter than skin tone, followed by blending with a contouring brush in circular motions.


Embellishments

Bright colors, ornaments and accessories, including ruffles and
glitter Glitter is an assortment of small, reflective particles that come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Glitter particles reflect light at different angles, causing the surface to sparkle or shimmer. Glitter is similar to confetti, sparkle ...
s that add detail to the cleavage area, help to make breasts look bigger and draw attention to them. Using the cleavage as a canvass, a recommended way of adornment is to layer
necklace A necklace is an article of jewellery that is worn around the neck. Necklaces may have been one of the earliest types of adornment worn by humans. They often serve ceremonial, religious, magical, or funerary purposes and are also used as symb ...
s and
choker A choker is a close-fitting necklace worn around the neck, typically 14 inch to 16 inch in length. Chokers can be made of a variety of materials, including velvet, plastic, beads, latex, leather, metal, such as silver, gold, or platinum, etc. The ...
s with a
pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ...
as a centerpiece of the cleavage.
Georgian era The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of Will ...
-style rivière necklaces are also popular items with which to dress the décolletage. According to celebrity tattoo artist and tattoo historian
Lyle Tuttle Lyle Gilbert Tuttle (October 7, 1931 – March 26, 2019) was an American tattoo artist and historian of the medium, who had been tattooing since 1949. He tattooed Janis Joplin, Cher, Jo Baker, Paul Stanley, Jeff Scranton, and many other American ...
, sternum tattoos became popular with
women's liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
. Singer Rihanna was a major driver in popularizing cleavage tattoos. According to tattooist Mira Mariah, "Since most sternums are a flat plane, there are really good opportunities for detail". Underboob tattoos are generally done under the breasts but could wrap around the sternum, cleavage, side boob and ribs. Cleavage piercings, also known as chest piercings and sternum piercings—one of the most-admired
body piercing Body piercing, which is a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewelry may be worn, or where an Implant (medicine), implant could be inserted. The word ''pier ...
s—is done on the cleavage area vertically or horizontally. A sternum piercing can be located anywhere along the sternum and can be either a
surface piercing Surface piercings are piercings that are found on flat parts of the body, giving a double-pierced look that sits flat against the skin. A surface bar follows the plane of skin, while a standard piercing is pierced through the plane. Standard pierc ...
or a dermal piercing. The jewelry, generally flexible rods made of
hypoallergenic Hypoallergenic, meaning "below average" or "slightly" allergenic, is a term meaning that something (usually cosmetics, pets, textiles, food, etc.) causes fewer allergic reactions. The term was first used in 1953 in an advertising campaign for cos ...
metal like surgical titanium,
surgical stainless steel Surgical stainless steel is a grade of stainless steel used in biomedical applications. The most common "surgical steels" are austenitic SAE 316 stainless and martensitic SAE 440, SAE 420, and 17-4 stainless steels. There is no formal definition ...
,
niobium Niobium is a chemical element with chemical symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs hardness rating similar to pure titanium, and it has si ...
or gold ( 14 karat and above), is placed vertically or horizontally between the breasts.


Male cleavage

Male cleavage (also known as "heavage"), a result of low necklines or unbuttoned shirts, has been a movie trend since the 1920s.
Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thi ...
revealed his chest in films including '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1924) and ''
The Iron Mask ''The Iron Mask'' is a 1929 American part-talkie adventure film directed by Allan Dwan. It is an adaptation of the last section of the 1847-1850 novel '' The Vicomte de Bragelonne'' by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French ...
'' (1929), and
Errol Flynn Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Oliv ...
showed his male cleavage in movies like ''
The Adventures of Robin Hood ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a 1938 American Technicolor swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de ...
'' (1938). This aesthetic continued into the 1950s and 1960s with movie stars like
Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...
, who also displayed his chest in ''
The Adventures of Robin Hood ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a 1938 American Technicolor swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de ...
'', and
Sean Connery Sir Sean Connery (born Thomas Connery; 25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Origi ...
in his many
James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
movies. The fashion tapered out since the 1970s, which according to fashion historian Robert Bryan, was "the golden age of male chest hair", epitomized by
John Travolta John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He came to public attention during the 1970s, appearing on the television sitcom ''Welcome Back, Kotter'' (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes '' Carrie'' (1 ...
in ''
Saturday Night Fever ''Saturday Night Fever'' is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man from the Brooklyn borough of New York. Manero spends his we ...
'' (1977). This look was also popular with celebrities like
Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
and
Burt Reynolds Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture. Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as '' ...
in the 1970s, and
Harry Styles Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series ''The X Factor''. Following his elimination, he was brought ...
,
Jude Law David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor. He received a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2007, he received an Honorary C� ...
,
Simon Cowell Simon Phillip Cowell (; born 7 October 1959) is an English television personality, entrepreneur and record executive. He is the creator of '' The X Factor'' and ''Got Talent'' franchises which have been sold around the world. He has judged on ...
and
Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the e ...
in the 2010s. Throughout the 1970s, more men unbuttoned their shirts as both men and women took an anti-fashion approach to clothing and the rise of the leisure wear, and adopted comfortable, unisex styles. As a new masculine style evolved, gay men adopted a traditionally masculine or working-class style with "half-unbuttoned shirt above the sweaty chest" and tight
jeans Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and pate ...
, rejecting the idea that male homosexuals want to be female. In India, male cleavage became popular with
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (f ...
movie stars
Salman Khan Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan (; 27 December 1965) is an Indian actor, film producer, and television personality who works in Hindi films. In a film career spanning over thirty years, Khan has received numerous awards, including two Natio ...
(who was named "the king of cleavage" by '' The Economic Times''), Shekhar Suman in the 1990s, and
Shahid Kapoor Shahid Kapoor (; born 25 February 1981) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. Initially recognised for portraying romantic roles, he has since taken on parts in action films and thrillers, and is the recipient of several awards, inc ...
and
Akshay Kumar Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia (born 9 September 1967), known professionally as Akshay Kumar (), is an Indian-born naturalised Canadian Quote: "(Former prime minister Stephen) Harper campaigned in 2011 alongside one of Modi's biggest celebrity backe ...
in the 2000s. Many male
K-pop K-pop (), short for Korean popular music, is a form of popular music originating in South Korea as part of South Korean culture. It includes styles and genres from around the world, such as pop, hip hop, R&B, experimental, rock, jazz, go ...
stars are also known for their cleavage. Man cleavage came back into style in the 2010s, especially among hipsters and
Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify ...
. Stylist Christiaan Choy attributes its resurgence to fit physiques and the urge for personal styles. Fashion entrepreneur Harvey Paulvin said a men's V-neck should be between "two to four inches from the collar". Some men groom their chest hair to improve the male cleavage look (sometimes known as " manscaping"). Many still considered the look inappropriate for most situations.


Male bra

Some men who
crossdress Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...
choose to wear bras among other articles of clothing. Bras may be worn for the feel of it or the
silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...
it creates. A man bra may provide a "filling" inside the cups to create a cleavage, or work as a compression vest to flatten overgrown breasts in men. By the end of the 2000s, man bras were briefly popular with Japanese men as an online purchase item. Most cases of male breast development are attributed to
gynecomastia Gynecomastia (also spelled gynaecomastia) is the abnormal non-cancerous enlargement of one or both breasts in males due to the growth of breast tissue as a result of a hormone imbalance between estrogens and androgens. Updated by Brent Wisse ...
, an
endocrine disorder Endocrine diseases are disorders of the endocrine system. The branch of medicine associated with endocrine disorders is known as endocrinology. Types of disease Broadly speaking, endocrine disorders may be subdivided into three groups: # Endocrin ...
that causes breast development in males (also known as ''man boobs'' or ''moobs''). Seeing as how the disorder can cause psychological distress, some men wear a male bra (also known as "compression bra" or "compression vest"), to flatten the cleavage rather than giving it a lift. Exercises like cardio and
strength training Strength training or resistance training involves the performance of physical exercises that are designed to improve strength and endurance. It is often associated with the lifting of weights. It can also incorporate a variety of training te ...
are also recommended in reducing male breasts. In more severe cases, medical treatment may include surgical intervention. According to British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), 323 men had breast reduction surgery in 2008 in the UK, which is 44% more than in 2007.


See also

* * * * *


References


Further reading

* ''The Future of Reputation, Gossip, Rumour and Privacy on the Internet'', Daniel J. Solove,
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universit ...
, 2007, , p. 166 * ''Sex in Consumer Culture'', Tom Reichert, Jacqueline Lambiase, Routledge, 2006, * ''Sex Crimes Investigation: Catching and Prosecuting the Perpetrators'', Robert L. Snow, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, , p. 146 * Gernsheim, Alison (1981 963. ''Victorian and Edwardian Fashion. A Photographic Survey''. Mineola: Dover Publications. * *
Morris, Desmond Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book ''The Naked Ape'', and for his televisi ...
(1997). ''Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior''. New York: Harry N. Abrams. * Morris, Desmond (2004). ''The Naked Woman. A Study of the Female Body''. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.


External links

*
"Sargent's Portraits"
, an article including a mention of the scandal caused by the portrayal of cleavage in
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and mor ...
's " Portrait of Madame X".
"The Great Divide"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', August 28, 2005 * Sarah E. Reynolds
Boobs Out! A Perspective on Fashion, Sexuality and Equality
ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by '' Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education ...
{{Authority control 1940s neologisms Breast Human appearance Necklines Parts of clothing Sexual fetishism