Apr 30 2004
The bubble boobs are upon us
Two years ago I reported on the (then) emerging trend in women’s fashion towards low waistlines. As predicted, it has been the biggest trend in bad clothing for the past two years. Even the medical community got into it, reporting a phenomenon in which too-tight low-waisted jeans caused numbness in the legs of the trendy girls who wore them.
That trend followed that of the bare midriff, which has been with us since the mid-to-late 90s. In combination, it revealed way more waist, hip, back, and ass than one would think is socially acceptable. Apparently there are many budding nudists among the younger generation.
The low waist is already old. The movement now is a couple of feet higher, on the bosom. Yes, boobs are the new waist. In particular, plunging necklines combined with pushed-up boobs — enhanced via lacy push-up bras and other augmentations. In other words, bubble boobs.
On my daily walkabout today I spotted at least four very blatent cases of bubble boobage out on rue Ste. Catherine. No, these weren’t just strippers on a smoke break. Watch for this trend to emerge this summer and to reach a fever pitch in 2005.
Sadly, the tasteless among us — those who can only follow trends with no eye for context or subtlety — will combine the old bare midriff with last year’s low-cut waist and add this year’s bubble boob tops. As a result they will look like street hookers and will likely be completely unaware of it!
You can’t help but wonder what’s next. What else can be lowered? I expect that three or four years from now there will be a reversal — these things are cyclical, and without the cycles the fashion industry would not be able to manipulate us so. The next trend, then (after the boobies), will be towards covering up.
It won’t be in the manner of peasant skirts or hippy clothes. That simply isn’t fashionable enough. Perhaps it will be Victorian garb, or medieval-style dress with lush fabrics. Who knows? What I do know is that it will be a trend that sends the trendy off to the stores to once again replace their wardrobes. Some four or five years later, when bare flesh makes its comeback, the cycle will continue.
30 Comments on “The bubble boobs are upon us”
Any pics? Some of us work in “technology parks,” and don’t have access to such sights anymore, so I do not know of which you speak.
Yes, any pics?
And I thought tube tops were bad enough….
I was in line at the Pharmaprix downtown last night observing the post-hockey crowds (picking up Buckley’s for my annual case of bronchitis) and in my fogged-out state noted how there really is no sort of ‘dress casual’ anymore. It’s all extreme casual. And usually the people that are least physically able to wear the trendy clothes gravitate towards them…
Where do these people work that they can get away with wearing such tackiness (men as well as women?). It’s like, there’s so much flesh around these days, when you see someone in a trad skirt and black nylons — salesgirls at Simons, case in point — doesn’t it give you a bit of a frisson?
I think that the next big trend will be neck braces for men :-)
I don’t get it either. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining about revealing clothes. I’m complaining about (a) badly-worn clothes and (b) suckers who fall for whatever the fashion industry throws at them!
No, no pictures.
” I spotted at least four very blatent cases of bubble boobage out on rue Ste. Catherine” Only four?? ;)
I think the thong or string with the “straps” 4-6 inches above the pants are still the worst.
Strong disagreement with the sentence “As a result they will look like street hookers and will likely be completely unaware of it!”
I will try to explain why. The way choose to dress is a semi-problem, you can find it inappropriate with your tastes and it’s perfectly fair and reasonable. Though it doesn’t mean, it makes someone’s a whore or a hooker. It’s something that old generations have always used against new generations. When first women have wore jeans, you had exactly the same comments you just made.
Let’s change the peak of attention there. The problem is not in the way the people are dressing, but much more in the way the people are looking at them and respect them. There’s an excellent “Vagina Monologue” on this topic. I encourage you to read. So now, we have to identify if the problem to solve is to forbid people to dress with tissues size clothes or if minds have to be changed. One solution is easy, the other one is much more difficult, but in terms of society, I prefer the second one.
It reminds me a passage in a book of Duras, La vie Matérielle, approximate translation from memory “when a woman is alone at a cafe terrace, you’ll have often men thinking that is an invitation to share the table with her.” Men have tendency to think about women as a sexual object ready to be taken. Are the women wrong? I don’t think so.
All this flesh around in the city, why does it bother you? By the fact, they risk something? because of your criterias of esthetism (in this context, are the grunge/hippies of TamTam more acceptable)? Is a woman in boubou in Africa with the breasts sometimes obviously visible is less shocking? Is a woman breastfeeding in the street more respectable?
When a breast is becoming respectable or is not?
Reason: The Breast? The clothes? The Men’s eyes? ;)
PS: On a more humoristic note, I don’t want them to disappear, you will kill my hormonosphere.
Karl, you are very wise. Please consider that — as I said — the revealing of flesh does not bother me, it’s badly-worn fashion that bothers me.
I tend to believe that “less is more.” In that sense, low-waisted pants can look both fashionable and sexy when they’re worn with a top that reveals only an inch or two of skin, way down low where we’re “not supposed” to see it. That engages the mind and makes one wonder about what we are not seeing. But when low-waisted pants are worn with a very short top it reveals (in my mind) too much, not leaving much for the imagination. In that sense it is less engaging.
It’s like the difference between sharing a bottle of nice wine and getting very drunk. When the wine starts to take effect it is tempting to keep going and to get wasted, but (for some) isn’t it nicer to drink slowly, enjoying the quality of the wine and the mild buzz?
Those who reveal too much have, in my mind, little sense of style or fashion. As such, there is nothing sublime about seeing them make their public mistakes, even if it shows a lot of skin. I’d rather see someone display both style and skin!
Incidently, I’m not complaining about the bubble boobies at all. I just think that it’s too much if you mix that with too much exposed waist.
I don’t want street flesh to disappear either, as it provides endless hours of amusement. However, for the sake of the people involved, I wish some of them would be a bit more mature in their tastes. It’s not about modesty, it’s about style.
Karl’s right to some extent. There is the Ashcroft / Taliban instinct within us that wants people to cover up because it makes *us* uncomfortable - and we males often view things through our particular lens, not asking what motivates the wearer of said scantiness to do so.
I have no problem with whatever people want to wear as long as the clothes fit properly and are appropriate for the setting / age / stated career aspirations of the wearer. If you’re a college student going out to Stereo, cool. If you’re working in a law office, maybe not the best choice of outfits. It’s all about context!
The grunge/hippies of the TamTams are *never* acceptable! :) Get me one of them Canadian Tire power-washer hose gizmos and something that neutralizes patchouli, please…
Hormonosphere. Good word. Got to work it into a posting sometime!
more flesh or less flesh?
*shrug*
It doesn’t matter much to me because it’s all in the way it is worn. The women blork has been seeing may be clueless when it comes to wearing the clothes and therefore drawn upon the memory of the streetwalker. if i remember correctly, the stereotypical image of a hooker is one is trying to wear something slinky, fashionable but comes off looking quite bad no matter how much is shown.
so it’s more about wearing slinky clothes badly than about wearing slinky clothes? not that it’s going to ever change. i guess the masses (young girls trying to be fashionable) just have difficulty pulling together a good look. it doesn’t matter if it was the covered up, baggy look of my college years or the boobs and bum of today — some girls just don’t know how to dress.
just be glad you are in Montreal where a significantly larger portion of people no how to dress.
I think we all agree here that everybody should have the right to wear whatever they want. And we should have the right to look if we feel like it (but men rarely expose their skin and who wants to see a shirtless man walk around? Even if he has a beautiful chest, the lack of taste makes me want to look away.) Nobody wants to go back to uptight dress codes but we can wish for better taste.
I don’t really have a problem with skin exposed but when I see a fit young girl whose flat stomach manages to hang over the waistline of her pants because she’s wearing them too low, I tell myself that this is a fashion that doesn’t do women justice.
But my biggest problem with these fashions is that they are uncomfortable! Low waist pants keep falling down and get in the way of walking. Tiny heels keep women from going where they want to go. T-shirts that reveal too much make you self-concious and force you to watch your every move so you don’t end up flashing someone. Girls are basically told to look desirable and sexy and to not move too much. Reminds me of the geisha, in a very different esthetic.
On a lighter note, if Blork is right and the boob thing is indeed the next fashion item, it’s at least a more democratic one. Cleavage can look good on most women (at least some amount of it), unlike the low waist pant thing… And showing a little skin on the neck doesn’t keep a girl from moving around as fast as she needs.
Hey, I know it’s a grey Saturday, people, but I at least have the excuse of being sick not to be outside at the moment enjoying a relatively nice spring day. Get off the computer and go outside!
NOW!
Ahem.
nono AJs boobs are coming home :p
hmmm I think my sentence might be misunderstood. Importance of punctuation.
“No, no! AJ. Boobs are coming home! :p”
I didn’t want to talk about AJ’s boobs.
Btw dressing code: I have never put a tie around my neck for a business meeting, I have always refused, even when I was a technical director.
And business “men in black” dressing code freak me out, a lot more than boobies in the streets ;)
tee hee..
Bubble boobs..
This week a colleague was trying to explain to a 17 year old girl what should have been obvious. The girl was wearing hipster trousers and a crop top with a hijab. My colleague’s point was: what is the point of wearing a hijab with her choice of clothes ? The girl did not get it.
Like it or not, conciously or not, what somebody wears will make a statement about them.
It is not fair to assume that all men are potential rapists and that women have to take be made resposible of men’s supposed lack of self control by covering up. On the other hand, I find disturbing the current offerings of little girl fashion (thongs for 7 year olds, trousers with SEXY in strass on the posterier for 10 year olds etc).
You tell ‘em pappy blork! Seriously, there was some point several years ago at which the young girls started dressing down and even young professional women started showing up at work dressed like a bunch of hookers. The Islamo-fascists have a point. And the young blorks do find them distracting. I watched a colleague unable to pay attention while speaking to an upper manager as one circulatorily challenged girl passed them in the hall. The manager was not amused.
I don’t know what this new fad stems from. I know that oriental girls are so small and slight that they can walk around in baggy pants and still make French Canadian chicks look fat. I know that rock videos present an altogether unreal version of reality where, I might add, women are mostly portrayed as whores.
So, OK, if today’s chicks want to constantly suffer from headaches and lethargy due to protein deficiency, if they want to be limited in where they can go and what they can do because of the impracticality of what they wear (it’s not the low-wasted booby bouncing babes who play Frisbee during lunch. They can barely totter back and forth to their cars). Then go for it sweetheart. It’s a free world. Or is it?
AJ, I have an iBook and wireless broadband. I was outside!
all your base belong to us.
even wireless
Okay, for chrissake: The problem with thong-three-inches-above-the-jean-line and pneumatic-breast-pushage is not the patriarchal ‘male gaze’ or any PoMo-feminist malarchy. The real epidemic is a *lack of taste*, among both wearer and observer. ;)
“patriarchal ‘male gaze’”? … “PoMo-feminist malarchy” ? Ohh ohhh! I’m wounded.
“Klunk” (Sound of PoMo feminist riddled with malarchy falling to the ground having been deeply wounded with the partiarchal skewer of a male gazer)
Thank you Optimus for bringing us back to earth (or would that be Cybertron?)
And that brings us back to what I said — taste is contextual. And it presupposes knowledge of some kind. Proportions, colours, patterns.
Dammit, where’s Stacey and Clinton (or Trinny & Susanna) when you need them?
bring on stacey and clinton indeed! however, i would rather be tasteless than tasteful…no patriarchial|normalizing|bourgeois constructs for this chick!
long live the new flesh!
i would be willing to call a compromise: the bubble-boobs can stay, as long as (1) i retain the right to laugh, and (2) we immediately decommission pink terrycloth sweatpants.
sound like a peace plan?
luke
ps: Those who oppose my plan will be skewered by the laser-powered Malegazeifier 3000. Blaw! Boom! Sh-bam!
Hey, yeah, sure! The thing is, I don’t have a problem with the bubble boobs. (In fact, I kinda like them. Shhhh!) What I don’t like is when people combine all the trends at the same time and end up looking ridiculous!
It’s like… imagine if STRIPES were the trend in men’s clothes last year, so I went out and bought striped pants. Then PLAID was the trend this year, so I bought a plaid shirt. And POLKA-DOTS are the trend next year, so I go out and buy a polka-dot jacket. Then one day I wear my striped pants, plaid shirt, and polka-dot jacket at the same time and strutted around thinking I was pretty hip. YOW!
HAHA if only I had the work clothes to show off a little cleavage I would. After work I like to dress to impress but yes I agree that some sublety looks more appealing than almost a nip slip.
What is this really talking about. I’m lost
300 is a great movie full of visual effects and graphics which made it different and much better.
Acting was great, director did a wonderful job and chose great actors, full of action, and it is based on a true story.
I think that the more revealing the outfits are the better, so long as you have the body to pull it off. Let’s go back to the early 2000’s when females would gladly bare their midriffs and weren’t afraid to show some bare hip.
Yes I would love it if women’s fashion went back to how it was in the early 2000’s, when females would gladly flaunt their midriff.