By Jane Creveling DeVoe
My sorority used to award a ginormous bra…you know one of the ones with perhaps a Z cup, which the proud or humiliated recipient would be expected to hang from her door knob until another week, another party or two and yet another unsuspecting collegiate would be able to collect the…pardon the pun….the booby prize.
Really?
It appears that the summer of 2013 is the summer of the side-boob. What is a side-boob you ask? Something one sees at the big box super store known for its fashion faux sightings or at the beach or at the pool? This question has even been asked on Facebook this week by women old enough to have passed the half- century mark and no, the side-boob of 2013, is not caused by ill-fitting brassieres! Our mothers were wrong!
Side-boob showings are all the rage with young celebrities everywhere and in fact, have been a hot topic, so hot that even The Huffington Post has entered into the commentary and publishing the photo-documentary evidence of the side-boob trend.
According to the Urban Dictionary, the definition of side-boob is as follows: “A view of the female breast seen from a side; generally under loosely-fitting clothes. Very titillating and sexual without showing any overt nudity.”
What happened to less is more? How long will it take this fashion statement to reach the mass clothing market and reach young girls who learn to exploit their bodies or worse…to reach the market of women trying to dress like their daughters, which are always the women who should never be doing so in the first place?
At fifty, I am old enough to remember my mother’s efforts in social and political reform. I remember having to wear a dress or a skirt to school each day and as a student who walked to school, that meant no snow pants or anything to cover your legs, while you walked to and from school or at recess, unless of course, you were a male student. By 1968, the mothers of the female students who entered my elementary school in my kindergarten class were leading the charge on equal opportunity dressing. As I recall the story, the principal would hear nothing of a change in dress code. Eventually, those young vocal mothers were able to get a policy which allowed pants on the way to school and at recess, under our dresses, until we got a new, young principal who allowed girls to wear pants in school the year I was in third grade.
There are fashion icons, who never aspire to boobyliciousness. Consider three recent first ladies, not in chronological order.
The ever classic Laura Bush. Tex-Mex never had such a lovely hostess and she is just the classic example of always put together, just right.
Or Michelle Obama. A woman of my own fashion stream of consciousness. J Crew and Anthropologie with high end sale rack pieces and some vintage and it all just works.
Or Hillary Clinton, who at the June 2013 CFDA Awards joking made remarks about herself as a fashion icon and pondered whether there could be a fashion reality show inspired by her fashion sense, entitled, “Project Pantsuit.” Her love for the fashions of Oscar de la Renta is well known, as he designed to flatter, and created inaugural, ball and wedding gowns for her and daughter Chelsea.
Speaking of first ladies, those of us who have seen their Inaugural Dresses exhibited in The Smithsonian Museum experienced a first-hand visual at Scarlett O’Hara’s 18 inch waist and the contraptions women submitted themselves to in order to become a vision of physical perfection. Whether it be foot binding or corsets or boob jobs…young women who seemingly have had boob jobs and who become the vision our young girls aspire to emulate in order to seek validation in today’s society…I am so glad my mother is not here to see this, as I know she would have something to say about it.
There is a reason why fashion icons such as Jackie Kennedy and Grace Kelley made legions of men salivate…they left lots to the imagination. Even Marilyn Monroe did so, with all of her smoldering sex appeal.
Young women, in my opinion need to learn to keep it a secret….do you wear matchy matchy perfection or are you laissez-faire? And for heaven’s sake, not everyone needs to know!
Jane Creveling DeVoe is an educator, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, God-Mother, friend and self-proclaimed foodie. She relies on Sueanne Shirzay to keep her in line, advise her on the latest fashion and jewelry trends and to just generally be the sister she never had, thus telling her when she is wrong when she least wants to hear it and allowing Sueanne to be her biggest fan when it is deserved.
Once a Hoosier, always a Hoosier. Visit Jane on her food blog, www.hoosiergurl.wordpress.com.
Photo Courtesy The Bikini Open
Does this look good on me? 