Cleavage has returned to the red carpet – this time it’s classy

Eyes up here, please. Yes, breasts are back – boosted, lifted, hoisted and hoiked, they have returned from the flatlands of fashion exile and are ruling the red carpet once again.

There is something inherently optimistic about fashion’s sudden embrace of cleavage. A plunging dress is sexy, yes, but more importantly, it’s head-turning and rather cheerful. And yet, high fashion has always been wary of boobs. This is partly because top models tend to be very tall, very thin and decidedly lacking in cleavage, and partly because a particular type of silhouette does fall better on a long, narrow frame. As a result, many of us have been minimising and deflecting attention from our breasts for years, for fear of seeming milkmaid-y or blowsy.

Loading

But are our poor, ignored boobs finally being set free? It seems so. A growing push for a range of body shapes on the catwalk coupled with a general move towards extrovert dressing after two years of sofa-bound lockdown has put a spotlight on all things booby. As evidenced by the Screen Actors Guild and César Awards this weekend, for which stylists seemed to say goodbye to the high-necked Handmaid-style dresses they were so enamoured with pre-COVID, and hello to anything a bit plunging.

At the SAG Awards in particular, boobs were everywhere. Lady Gaga wore a white Armani Prive column gown with a low silver neckline that felt like a return to Old Hollywood dressing. The crystal bustier was designed to draw the eye, while its curve-accentuating design felt wonderfully feminine.

Cate Blanchett, meanwhile, provided a masterclass in cleavage-first dressing for the over-50s, not once but twice. Also in Armani Prive at the SAG Awards, she opted for a long, black column gown with bold jewellery-like details on the chest – and a neckline that began just above her navel. And yes, most women over 30, let alone over 50, might covet that gravity defying cleavage – but, still, nothing about her look appeared try-hard or attention-seeking, perhaps because her boobs were neither hoisted up nor manipulated to look bigger or smaller than they actually are. Instead she looked relaxed, stylish and almost incidentally sexy.

The same was true of her outfit at the César Awards in Paris. In a city that has always abhorred ostentatious displays of flesh, Blanchett opted for a very French approach to revealing dressing: an all-black Louis Vuitton suit that consisted of a blazer embellished with sequins and an embroidered black lace top with just one strategically placed button. These were paired with perfectly tailored black trousers and black heels.

Also at the César Awards was the ever-stylish Léa Seydoux. She too wore a custom piece from Louis Vuitton and her straight-but-low black corset neckline certainly showed off her cleavage, but subtly – and in a far more modern way than the V-neck and push-up bra designs of the past.

“The wonderful thing about the current trend for cleavage is that it’s all about individual choice and I think fashion is currently (hurrah) offering so many options,” says red carpet stylist Rachel Fanconi, who works with celebrities including Helen Mirren, Emily Watson and The Duchess of York.