Keeping Abreast of Fashion

Now, I know that I don't ordinarily comment on such things as women's fashion, (despite my status as one of Crapchester's leading metrosexuals), but I read something on the subject in the paper the other day that left me perplexed. It seems that cleavage is out. Well, front cleavage, so to speak is out with designers. Instead, the new trend is for 'side cleavage'. In practice, this means dresses that expose the side of the breast. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. Indeed, such a flash of 'side breast' can be highly attractive, if not erotic. My problem with this new development is that it appears to be inspired by an episode of Family Guy. You know the one: where Peter Griffin sets up his own local TV channel. Anyway, his idea of classy programming turns out to be the 'Side Boob Hour', which celebrates "all those episodes of partial nudity network TV used to show".

This, in turn, reminded me of the phobia US TV networks always seemed to have toward the female breast. Indeed, still do have, if the Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction' is anything to go by. It seems that they fear that the sight of a bared breast will turn the entire male population into slavering sex fiends. Actually, to be precise, it is certain areas of the breast they have problems with. I recall reading once that back in the 1960s the costume designers on Star Trek were told by the network that they could expose as much of the top breast as they liked (apart from the nipple), but under no circumstances could they have costumes which exposed the lower part of the breast. How true that is, I don't know, but it does seem somewhat bizarre. Did they really think that the bottom of a breast is a more arousing sight than the top? Perhaps they had the idea that seeing the bottom of the breast exposed implied that the woman it belonged to was bra-less, and therefore a feminist. Who knows? Anyway, perhaps this repression of everything except the tops of women's' breasts by US popular culture is what's now fuelling this side boob fashion fetish - designers see it as 'daring'. From a personal point of view, I don't have a problem with the side boob fashion. Indeed, much as I appreciate cleavage, speaking as a man, it can be distracting. I'm afraid that I find my eyes instinctively drawn to it, despite my metrosexuality. The side boob, by contrast, can only be glimpsed from angles at which the lady displaying it is unlikely to see you staring.