Boobs are back – and it’s official! According to fashion bible Vogue, tits are trending.
On catwalks, on celebrities, and in the sales figures for push-up bras, the signs are there that buoyant breasts are this season’s style essential.
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As a woman who delights in my own assets, this is fabulous news!
My childhood role models were Wonder Woman and She-Ra – strong women with fabulous figures and killer cleavages.
They created the blueprint for what I wanted to look like when I grew up.
So of course, as a teenager in the 90s, Wonderbras seemed like they’d been sent from heaven to help me achieve my destiny.
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I think we all remember the massive billboards of supermodel Eva Herzigova looking overjoyed at the sight of her resplendent rack.
Catwalk models weren’t known for being buxom – but wearing a Wonderbra, Eva Herzigova suddenly sported a bosom that could have starred in a Carry On film.
It seems I’m not the only one, because multiple famous faces have lauded the return of boobs.
In a string of photos posted from Coachella this summer, Kylie Jenner posed in just a bra and jeans – with her surgically enhanced chest pushed together.
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Recently, the mother of two, 29, said she wants them even bigger to “walk in the room before she does.”
And it seems ordinary people are following suit.
Victoria’s Secret say the sales of their push-up bra have increased year-on-year since 2024, and its chief creative officer Adam Selman declared in New York magazine’s The Cut this week: “Cleavage is big and back.”
Meanwhile, Vogue asked its readers: “Are you ready for the return of cleavage?” before revealing that it’s already everywhere, including on the catwalks of Versace, Givenchy, and Dolce & Gabbana.
Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand has six variations of push-up bras on its best-seller list, and M&S has over 50 push-up bras to choose from, while Lily Allen, Addison Rae, Olivia Rodrigo and Charli XCX have all appeared on stage with just a push-up bra covering their top half.
And I’m sure Sydney Sweeney’s recent run of success has certainly helped anyone who’s been too shy to show their boobs off.
As a skinny teenager, I had several Wonderbras and was determined to turn myself into Pamela Anderson or She-Ra.
Having failed my A-levels with an “F” and two “U”s, slouching around at university wasn’t an option.
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Instead, I trained as a croupier and went to work in a Mayfair private members’ club, I dealt roulette, blackjack, poker and punto banco, wearing high heels and an evening dress designed to be distracting.
Mental arithmetic mattered, but tits, teeth and charm were the cherries on the cake, and I was once tipped £11,000 in just 45 minutes.
I can’t say I would have made that much without a push-up bra. And it wasn’t just Wonderbras lifting our, ahem, spirits.
Ultimo, the rival push-up bra brand by the glamorous (but now disgraced) Michelle Mone, was apparently worn by Julia Roberts when she starred as the busty one-woman lawsuit tsunami Erin Brockovich.
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Ultimo was modelled by glamazonian goddesses Rachel Hunter and Penny Lancaster – so of course I had to have Ultimo too.
I worked with lots of beautiful older women who had been Bunnies at the Playboy Club on Park Lane until it closed in 1981.
They were so glamorous, and I decided at the age of 18 that if Playboy reopened in London, I would be a Bunny.
So when it opened again in 2011, that’s what I did. I wore the classic black Bunny costume.
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These were tailored to fit in a corner of the staff canteen, sectioned off by a bit of bamboo screening.
Standing by a window, overlooked by the office opposite, the seamstress would get you to raise your arms to see if your nipples rose above the cups of the Bunny costume.
Being long in the body, mine always did, so the seamstress would promise to “let out the crotch” to increase the length of the costume.
Unfortunately, this never worked. It just left the costume with an impractically narrow crotch – so I took to wearing long hair extensions to keep my nipples covered.
I wasn’t the only one at risk of nip-slips – another Bunny I worked with would camouflage her nipples with concealer, as a matter of course.
The costumes were made with cavernous cups, and we would stuff these full, at the start of each shift, with loo roll and socks.
It didn’t matter what size your breasts were to start with – the cups were always made bigger, to be filled with whatever you could get your hands on, so we all looked like we had massive breasts, bursting out of our Bunny costumes.
It looked fabulous, but dear God, I was cold, with air conditioning freezing the cherries off my Belgian buns.
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Anyone who says you lose the most heat from your head hasn’t spent the week with their tits out.
Leaving Playboy after less than a year, I swung to the other extreme and turned to yoga bras.
Yoga bras are comfortable and cosy, and they keep my nipples covered – which was everything I wanted after having my breasts hoiked up under my chin for 40 hours a week.
I still owned a few push-up bra sets, but I only wore them for work.
I was presenting a roulette show on Sky, and we were expected to look glamorous.
I also did some other on-screen bits and bobs, and sometimes lingerie was the entire outfit – like the time I did the Harlem Shake with Stephen Mulhern in an advert for Britain’s Got Talent.
However, outside work, I only ever wore yoga bras – or no bra at all, if the top or dress provided enough support.
Switching to journalism, where I could make my living at my laptop, I threw away all my push-up bras.
Sitting at home behind a screen, I didn’t need them anymore.
It didn’t matter what I looked like, so I could prioritise being comfortable, and quite frankly, I wanted to keep my tits to myself.
A few years later, in 2016, Vogue declared in 2016 that cleavages were out.
This death knell for knockers was echoed all over the media, and it suited me just fine.
The next time I was seen on screen, on BBC News, it was 2017, and I wore a loose-fitting unisex style shirt buttoned almost up to my neck.
As a journalist, I’m often photographed for my features, so push-up bras had a brief reprieve in 2019 when I spent a week as bra tsar Michelle Mone.
Ultimo had stopped trading by then, but I managed to source some Ultimo sets to emulate a photoshoot that Michelle Mone had done in her lingerie range.
Wearing a matching push-up bra set for the first time in years, it struck me that I’d been living in goblin mode, mismatching multipack knickers with random yoga bras.
However, I wasn’t ready to give up my comfortable underclothing, and a year later, lockdown struck – so we were all living in goblin mode.
I sometimes felt bad for boyfriends who never saw me in anything sexy, but I didn’t want straps and underwiring digging into my skin.
Soft fabrics with gentle support had become my staple – and besides, these were not boobtastic times.
In summer I wore loose linen shirts; in winter I wore big jumpers.
Whatever the occasion, “the girls” were not in view.
However, recently I’ve found myself drawn to dresses that display a hint of décolletage.
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Wearing them, I feel feminine – and I don’t mind if someone gets a glimpse of cleavage.
It’s been a dreary decade covering up my assets, so I’m more than ready for the return of the rack.
And after all the Brazilian Butt Lifts that we’ve seen in tight leggings on Instagram, isn’t it so much more civilised to bare a bit of cleavage than it is to walk around presenting swollen buttocks like baboons?
Now I’m in my 40s; I want to make the most of my figure and celebrate my feminine curves – on my own terms.
I’m yet to shop for new uplifting lingerie, but with the Baywatch reboot soon coming to our screens, and in tribute to the late, great Dolly Parton, I might just buy a new push-up bra.
Because you’re never fully dressed without – no, not a smile – cleavage!