By DANIEL MARTIN

Last updated at 15:05 24 September 2007

Whether small or large, pert or pendulous, they all have their admirers.

But there is one type of breast that most approaches perfection, a cosmetic surgeon claims.

The model mammary apparently has a nipple that points slightly skywards, and an upper half just a bit smaller than the bottom half.

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Patrick Mallucci spent many hours poring over photos of topless models in lads magazines and tabloid newspapers to formulate his theory.

In his opinion, the celebrity with the best pair is Caprice - and the woman with the worst is Posh Spice.

Mr Mallucci will prevent his findings at the first international conference on breast enlargement, to be held in London this week.

In his lecture, titled Concepts in Design for Breast Augmentation, he will express the hope that his insights are used by surgeons providing breast enlargements.

The operation is Britain's most popular cosmetic surgery procedure, with 6,156 performed last year.

Mr Mallucci said: "I studied a wide variety of photographs of the most popular topless models to work out the various proportions they had in common and what made those particular features attractive.

"These findings allowed me to form a template around which to plan a breast augmentation, and set a standard of aesthetics.

"Obviously personal interpretation and expression has to be accounted for, but this has allowed me to develop a template that I have been using successfully for some time."

The key aesthetic elements are nipple position and the proportion between the upper and lower halves of the breast, he said.

"The ideal is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at about 45 per cent from the top."

He added: "All of the models I looked at conformed to these parameters. None of them were augmentedand yet they were clearly considered to have beautiful breasts, so I wanted to examine how that could be achieved in someone not so well-endowed by using an implant.

"It's about wanting to create something as close to perfection as possible."

Mr Mallucci said the best breasts belong to the model Caprice Bourret - a view shared by many of his clients.

He added that said patients frequently begged him not to make their breasts the same shape as Victoria Beckham's "unnaturally round" globes.

Mr Mallucci is one of the founding surgeons of Mybreast.org, which shares best practice on breast enlargement.

He will be one of more than 200 top cosmetic surgeons gathering in London to discuss topics such as new types of implant, surgical techniques, breast lifts during augmentation and minimising scarring.