Boom and buts

Breasts have always been political - and now they're front and centre, with boob jobs up, bullet bras on the catwalk and cleavage making headlines.

- By Jess Cartner-Morley

IT WAS, ALMOST, A PROUD FEMINIST MOMENT. On inauguration day in January, the unthinkable happened. President Trump, the biggest ego on the planet, was upstaged by a woman in a white trouser suit - the proud uniform of Washington feminists, worn by Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in solidarity with the traditional colour of the suffragettes. In the event, the white trouser suit barely got a mention.

The show was stolen by what was underneath: Lauren Sánchez's cleavage, cantilevered under a wisp of white lace. The breasts of the soon-to-be Mrs Jeff Bezos were the ceremony's breakout stars. The only talking point that came close was Mark Zuckerberg's inability to keep his eyes off them.

Call it a curtain raiser for a year in which breasts have been - how to put this? - in your face. Sydney Sweeney's pair have upstaged her acting career to the point that she wears a sweatshirt that says “Sorry for Having Great Tits and Correct Opinions”. Bullet bras are making a sudden comeback, in sugar-pink silk on Dua Lipa on the cover of British Vogue and nosing keen as shark fins under fine cashmere sweaters at the Miu Miu show at Paris fashion week. Perhaps most tellingly, Kim Kardashian, whose body is her business empire, has made a 180-degree pivot from monetising her famous backside to selling, in her Skims lingerie brand, push-up bras featuring a pert latex nipple - with or without a fake piercing - that make an unmissable point under your T-shirt. Not since Eva Herzigova was in her Wonderbra in 1994 - Hello Boys - have boobs been so, well, big.