Nipples for the New Year?

I buy Tatler magazine about once every few years when a particular headline or supplement catches my eye

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The January 2013 issue got me this week with

 Nipples: Are they the new Cleavage?

It is a well written really funny read on a body part that has been kept in the back room for a few decades.

It's particularly interesting to me because of the domination of the padded moulded T-shirt bra in the lingerie market over the last 20 years which has single handedly erased out the nipple from our everyday lives. 

This may have reached its pinnacle last year with the 'adds 2 sizes' padded bra which mimics the supernatural shape of a boob job with padding so thick that someone could probably punch you in the chest and you wouldn't feel a thing. 

Most intriguing is that padded cups with moulded nipples have been available on the market for a long time (in the Drag Queen market, for ever) which would make a padded bra look exactly like real boobs under a T-shirt but I have never seen anyone produce them commercially in any large scale. So do women want boobs to look bigger but not necessarily completely 'real?' 

Even in the youth bra market the trend has been to layer bras up together and wear bras over T-shirts as outerwear, it emits the message 'you can look but don't even bother to touch because I wouldn't feel it anyway.' 

At least 90% of Victorias Secrets bras have moulded padded cups that that focuses the eye on the flesh that doesn't fit into them, the cleavage and there's many other retailers for who this is also true. The newest trend is for much lighter pads that have a more natural shape that mould to your natural curves, such as memory foams but for me it will be interesting if the trend eventually moves to bras with no padding again for everyday wear which has not been seen since the 1970s.

I for one am slightly scared about the return to real boobs, I feel safe secure and in control in my padded bras. Breasts are delicate beings and in a padded bra I feel I could fall over, bump into something or hug friends with relative protection. On my recent experimentation with non padded bras it has instilled me with the feeling of leaving the house with no knickers on, strangely liberating but slightly out of control and vunerable!

buttress and snatch 

S/S 2013