“You must have heard of “sideboobs”,

A recent newspaper article in USA Today started as follows: “You must have heard of “sideboobs”, and naturally you know about cleavage. Moving on, now it’s all about the “underboobs”. If you’re not aware of this new phenomenon, do not despair. It is merely a crop top that looks like it shrunk, so that it can show a little of the lower part of the breast.
I had to read it a couple of times since I thought, “Is this a joke?” Well, it’s not a joke, it’s for real and celebrities are embracing it. I guess cleavage might be maxed out. After all, I’ve seen some dresses that have cleavage that meets hems.
What really tickles my sense of the absurd is how many ways can we showcase boobs? And more importantly what’s the point? Of course the powers that be which are the fashionistas that drive the trends have got to keep reinventing the clothing they design in order to create buzz and more importantly sales. And so the hems go up, the hems go down, slits go up to the thigh, pants get tighter, or wider, or are simply slashed to show flesh. Bras worn on the outside of your top were in, now going bra-less is hot. See through clothing has been part of the red carpet parade with patches of cloth strategically positioned to hide some of the possible wardrobe malfunction. However, I feel that a lot of the clothing has already reached that level so why not just go the whole way and just wear the patches?
Is mystique simply a thing of the past? I think it’s great if you have a fabulous figure and you want to showcase it, but how about advocating for a little bit of imagination? I was under the impression that allowing someone to use their imagination to see what is not visible was far more interesting. I’m sure this is very passé, since I come from a past that had a lot of rules around how much flesh you could exhibit. And of course, this has changed many times over if you’re an observer of fashion over the centuries. However, the problem lies in how the younger population embraces the latest, greatest designs. Should a young teenage girl be wearing an “underboob” crop top, or any of the trendy clothing that makes the word skimpy feel archaic? Once again the promotion of a “look” becomes more important that how we feel about ourselves without it.
I certainly don’t have to worry about this new trend since If I wore a crop top it would have to come with a hammock to catch my “underboobs”. One of the beauties of aging is a process that starts to kick in called discernment. It usually comes with an internal voice that starts shouting “REALLY”! PLEASE DON’T”!