Cleavage? No Thanks

Jocelyn Stiebel speaks to plastic surgeons who know what women want instead

 

Although plastic surgery has been around for centuries, its techniques and safety measures have evolved over time, as with its trends – here we investigate what procedures are taking the limelight away from the long-worshipped size-D breasts  

Today, society’s beauty norms are constantly challenged, allowing them the space to change and become more inclusive. And with beauty norms changing, so do beauty trends. Enter the cleavage. Or rather, for the sake of the topic, exit the cleavage, which has over the years become less popular, with women preferring smaller breast sizes and opting for breast reductions, or smaller, natural-sized implants instead.

Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra are two of the many celebrities who made huge boobs the thing to aspire to in the ’90s and 2000s. In fact, breast augmentation in larger sizes saw its peak in the early 2000s.

‘The size of the boobs that patients want nowadays has decreased, and the shape dramatically changed. Previously, patients opted for rounder boobs, like that of Victoria Beckham. Now women prefer a softer curve, with less volume,’ says Dr Nerina Wilkinson, plastic surgeon at Renaissance Body Science Institute in Cape Town, who has been practising plastic surgery in South Africa for 20 years.

While the ’90s may be dominating current fashion trends (think cropped tops, platform shoes and flared trousers), positively round, protruding implants favoured in that decade seem to be few and far between. And this is all in spite of the fact that cosmetic surgery continues to grow in popularity, with people being more open to undergoing surgery.