Décolletage (or décolleté, its adjectival form, in current French) is cleavage produced by a low-cut neckline that exposes the neck, shoulders and parts of the breasts, but not the nipple. In strict usage the term denoted the neckline, the zone extending about two handbreadths from the base of the neck down, obverse and recto. Only after the French Revolution did the décolletage become larger in the front and smaller in the back. In European society, décolletage was often displayed in the dress of the late Middle Ages. This continued through the Victorian period. Corsets that enhance the cleavage were introduced in the mid 16th century. By the late 18th century these cleavage enhancing corsets grew more dramatic in pushing the breasts upwards. It is a feature of the evening gown, leotard, and bikini, among other fashions. In the French Enlightenment, there was a debate as to whether a woman’s breasts were merely a sensual enticement or rather a natural gift to be offered from mother to child. In Moissy’s play The True Mother, the title character rebukes her husband for treating her merely an object for his sexual gratification: “Are your senses so gross as to look on these breasts – the respectable treasures of nature – as merely an embellishment, destined to ornament the chest of women?” Nearly a century later, also in France, a man from the provinces who attended a Court ball at the Tuilleries in Paris in 1855 was deeply shocked by the décolleté dresses and is said to have exclaimed in disgust: “I haven’t seen anything like that since I was weaned!”
For ordinary wear, high collars were, however, the norm for many years. When it became fashionable, around 1913, for dresses to be worn with a modest round or V-shaped neckline, this nonetheless deeply shocked clergymen all over the world. In the German Empire, all of the Roman Catholic bishops joined in issuing a pastoral letter attacking modern fashions. Fashions became more restrained in terms of décolletage, while exposure of the leg became more permitted in Western societies, during World War I and remained so for nearly half a century. From the 1960s onward, however, changing social mores allowed a greater display of cleavage in films, on television, and in everyday life.
Lingerie has long been designed to emphasize cleavage. The tight lacing of corsets worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized both cleavage and the size of the bust and hips. Ball or evening gowns especially were designed to display and emphasize the décolletage. More recently, after corsets became unfashionable, brassieres and padding have served to project, display and emphasize the breasts, as has breast augmentation surgery.
In Western and some other societies, there are differences of opinion as to how much cleavage exposure is acceptable in public.In contemporary Western society, the extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on social and cultural context. Women’s swimsuits and bikinis commonly reveal the tops and sides of the breasts. Displaying cleavage is considered permissible in many settings, and is even a sign of elegance and sophistication on many formal social occasions, but it may be prohibited by dress codes in settings such as workplaces and schools, where any display of the female breast may be considered inappropriate. Showing the nipples or areolae is almost always considered toplessness or partialnudity.
Cleavage is the cleft between a woman’s breasts lying over the sternum revealed by a garment with a low neckline. It is associated with low-cut women’s clothing, such as evening gowns, swimwear, casual tops and other garments, designed to emphasize the display of breasts. Some people regard use of cleavage as a form of feminine flirting or seduction, within the confines of community, peer group and personal standards ofmodesty, as much as for its aesthetic or erotic effect. Many women use cleavage to enhance their sexual attractiveness. Some people derive erotic pleasure from seeing a woman’s cleavage, some derive pleasure in their female partner’s exposing her cleavage, and some women expose their cleavage for the pleasure of their partner.
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