Profits are plunging at Victoria’s Secret as a proudly bra-less look takes hold. The most fashionable boobs are now no longer in your face

Victoria’s Secret has a whole bunch of problems right now. Last week’s New York fashion show has been overshadowed by comments made by its boss, Ed Razek (for which he has since apologised), about how it would be inappropriate to cast “transsexuals” in a show “about fantasy”. Profits, sales and market share have all fallen over the past year; most alarmingly, month-by-month breakdown shows the decline growing steeper still. But neither of these are the brand’s biggest problem. The real trouble for Victoria’s Secret is that it is selling the wrong kind of cleavage.

All breasts are beautiful, but some are more fashionable than others. The scaffolded cleavage – hoiked and cantilevered by a push-up bra, twin globes held rigid – is still the style at Victoria’s Secret. On the New York catwalk, Gigi Hadid wore a shiny blue check bra with matching knickers, a billowing tartan cape and a bumbag in the style of a sporran. Kendall Jenner was dressed in a black and silver glitter push-up bra with a multistrap knicker-harness hybrid and frilly wings. There was the odd legging-and-sports-bra concession to athleisure, but the hoisted boob reigned supreme. And, in 2018, this is the wrong kind.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The wrong kind of cleavage at the Victoria’s Secret show in New York. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

The right kind of boob, by contrast, can be seen on the cover of this month’s US Vogue, where Lady Gaga leans towards the camera in a low-cut Brandon Maxwell dress, her cleavage in its natural position, rather than lifted skywards. The no-bra scenario is emphasised by one of the straps of the dress falling off her shoulder. The Vogue-approved cleavage is the natural kind.

See also the most famous cleavage of the Instagram age. Boobs don’t get any more political than Emily Ratajkowski’s. At every stage of her journey from Blurred Lines’ semi-naked backing dancer to prominent feminist activist, her breasts have become the story.

When she was arrested in Washington DC protesting against Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment a month ago, her choice of outfit – a white cropped vest with no bra – was deemed by many headline writers the most newsworthy element of her detainment. Her friend and comrade Amy Schumer came to her defence, denouncing trolls who rage against “the victims, or a beautiful woman you’re threatened by” instead of directing their anger at the perpetrators of sexual assault.

While the new-look cleavage may emphasise the female gaze, the female gaze is not necessarily less judgmental of other women’s bodies than the male one. Celebrating her natural beauty feels empowering to Ratajkowski, but some women watching her feel shortchanged by a sisterhood that calls for the world to respect women for more than their bodies, while still cashing in on the currency of hotness. It feels sometimes as if the age of toxic masculinity has coined, in response, a new kind of toxic feminism.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Model Emily Ratajkowski goes bra-less at a protest against Brett Kavanaugh. Photograph: @emrata/Twitter

Not wearing a bra has been associated with feminism for half a century, but the natural cleavage seen on Gaga’s Vogue and on Ratajkowski’s Instagram feels in step with fashion.

Victoria’s Secret pays Kendall Jenner a stratospheric fee to appear on its catwalk because, with 98 million followers on Instagram, she has a look that young women want to emulate. The brand would do well to look at what she wears on that Instagram feed: among Jenner’s carefully curated off-duty looks there is not a push-up bra in sight. This summer, in a blog post entitled Free the Nipple, she wrote: “I really don’t see what the big deal is with going braless. I think it’s cool and I really just don’t care! It’s sexy, it’s comfortable and I’m cool with my breasts. That’s it!”

The proudly bra-less look has become a below-the-radar fashion standard in the same way that a pair of all-white Stan Smiths were once ubiquitous on the front row. Cara Delevingne in a sporty crop top under a blazer at the February Dior show was an eye-catching example of an industry-wide move toward non-engineered cleavage.

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The push-up bra will always be controversial. When Eva Herzigová starred in that Wonderbra campaign, with a strapline that read like the male gaze with subtitles, many women hated it. But at least then the look had the frisson of the new and daring. The problem for Victoria Secret is that the look has become quaint. You can get away with most things, in fashion, if what you are doing is new, provocative and compelling. But being old-fashioned? That is unforgiveable.

The rise of athleisure has affected all of us – even if you think spending £80 on leggings is absurd and you wouldn’t be seen dead in a crop top, I can almost promise that it has affected your silhouette. Trousers in more fluid fabrics and slouchy, fine-gauge knitwear have infiltrated all of our wardrobes, bringing with them a new kind of underwear that works with them. An old-school push-up bra was designed to work under a scoop-neck top, or a darted white shirt; the protruding-headlamp silhouette ruins the elegance of a wide-shouldered slouchy jersey piece.

But this is not just about clothes. It is also sex, romance and the potency of female beauty. The pushed-up cleavage, as seen on the Victoria’s Secret catwalk worn with excess blusher, knee-high socks and cheesy grins, conjures up a cheerleader-dates-quarterback meet-cute – and that feels like last century’s fairytale. As I say, all breasts are beautiful. But the most fashionable ones are no longer – how can I put this? – quite so in your face.