The Best of the Breast

0:00Megan and Chloe, what kind of bees make milk? Oh, boy. I don't know. Boobies.

0:14This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal. And today on the show, we are asking, why are boobs everywhere? Well, I do think we know why partially 50 % of the population has them. I guess we're done then. Here in the Vogue offices, we have been talking a lot about how boobs are back. And we are seeing this from the runway to the culture at large to our very own Vogue brethren. Like on the cover of British Vogue, Dua Lipo is wearing Mew Mew's fall 2025 bullet bra. Lauren Sanchez has some very famous cleavage. The New Yorker wrote a very funny piece about the boob index and how boobs might be the indicator of a bull market in the same way that the hemline index famously indicates a bull or bear market.

1:07There is, especially this week, the Sydney Sweeney of it all. There has been a lot of discourse about her chest that I think she's handled with aplomb. And Margot even wrote about how boobs were the best accessory at the Met Gala. So to understand what might be behind our embrace of the breast, we are chatting with two writers who have been thinking a lot about breasts lately. Megan Nolan is an Irish novelist and journalist based in New York. She is the author of the international bestseller Acts of Desperation and Ordinary Human Failings, which have been translated into 14 languages. She is also working on a book of essays, and by the time this episode airs, you will be able to read her essay on breasts on Vogue.com.

1:56Welcome, Megan. Thank you. Glad to be here. Margot M. Booba is Vogue's senior beauty and wellness editor and a friend of the pod. And Margot has written a lot about breasts and how boobs keep showing up in the zeitgeist. Welcome to you both. We're very happy to have you here. Breasts are something that are important to all of us from a very early age. And I would like to hear a little bit, Megan, about your piece about the best of the breast. How did this idea come about? And what was your reaction when you got—I know that you worked with our colleague Chloe Schama on this. When Chloe's email came into your inbox saying, I would love you to examine the state of the breast, What was your reaction?

2:45Well, I was saying to Chloe that it's honestly something like a body part that I don't think about that much because I've got like very nothing boobs. They're not like no boobs, but they're also not significant. So it's just like not something I think about very much about my own body. And then once we started talking about ideas about like the cultural zeitgeist around, you know, conservative dressing and other things like that, I started to get really interested. So, yeah, I think it was mostly when we got into the more cultural realm that I was able to figure out some things that I was thinking.

3:17Well, I loved your piece. Thank you. And I also, we had talked a lot here about the return of the breast on the runway. But I liked the cultural threads that you wove together around that, especially the way that women bearing their breasts on screen has really changed in the way we regard that. And so that was something that I had not thought about but thought was very interesting. Also, the piece features a major photo shoot by Stephen Klein styled by Patti Wilson. And the models, Amelia Gray and Delilah Bell, are both wearing bullet bras, the Prada and Miu Miu ones, respectively. Margot Mbuba, you are not a stranger to the bullet bra.

3:57Yes, I'm wearing one right now. Oh, my gosh. Stop looking at my chest. Well, this is what happened to me recently. Recently, a few weeks ago, Margo and I were talking about what her subject of her weekly wellness newsletter was going to be. And I was like, oh, you're wearing the bullet bra. And a colleague said, Chloe, you're not allowed to say that. And I was like, if she writes about it, I'm allowed to ask her about it. It's true. They were looking especially pointy that day. Yes, I think. I mean, I've been thinking a lot about the way boobs are changing. I get pitches about it all the time.

4:27But there's so many different ways that we're referring to boobs. And there's not one singular boob trend right now, which I think is really interesting. Like when I was growing up in the 2000s, it was all about like the Victoria's Secret push-up bra. And the bullet bra in the time that we're in is really a fashion statement, I think, in a lot of ways. Because it's no longer like a functional when that was the only bra option they had. But it's really people are making a choice to wear it. And that's what I find really interesting. Because also they're not the easiest to find. They're not the easiest to get yourself into as someone who wears them regularly.

5:00Well, tell me why, because I have not worn a bullet bra. Why is it more difficult than a normal bra? You sort of have to situate yourself in it differently, I think. But also, the reason that I started wearing vintage lingerie and underwear is because I wear vintage clothing, and so the shapewear looks better underneath it. And it's really interesting, this juxtaposition that we're seeing of people wearing, like, modern clothing with bullet bras under it, I find, like, very cool and a nice way to sort of mesh them together. But also, they don't have, like, traditional elastic. They're typically made of satin, things like that.

5:31There's just not the same structural. There's no underwire. So if you're not into it. It is hook and eye a lot of the time, but it's typically a couple of them. And then the way the straps move is through a ribbon system. Oh, wow. Not through like your classic sort of whatever the normal way that you like adjust something is. So it just like takes a little bit longer to get yourself into. It's more of a choice, I think, than like a thought like, oh, yeah, I have to wear a bra. You have to be like, I'm wearing this bra. Megan, I like that when you tried on a bullet bra, your mother said that you looked like her mother.

6:05Yeah, she was appalled. She was just like, why are you choosing this? Like, this is what I fought to get rid of. Did you feel any differently about when you were wearing it, about the way your body was? And actually, I was just thinking when you were talking just now about the, like, dominance of a certain, like, of a particular kind of breast shape in the 90s. Like, you know, same here. when I was growing up, it was like, oh, I don't have the huge ones that you're meant to have, so I'm just going to kind of forget about my breasts. And then actually I found really nice during writing this article was that I was paying attention to my body in a different way because I was doing things like trying on bullet bras that don't necessitate a particular kind of breast.

6:39And yeah, it was really nice to like get, because I also have a lot of vintage dresses, and it was really nice to like try them with underwear that actually was designed for them. Yeah. Yeah. Margot, were you surprised to see them back on the runway? Definitely, because I feel like bullet bras and everything sort of the lingerie look that that entails, which is like a girdle or a corset a lot of the time, things like that, have been sort of removed from fashion because they are told that they're like uncomfortable. Or you're being told that like this is what your mom worked to get rid of or your grandma worked to get rid of because it was a sign of like patriarchal body shaping.

7:20And it's funny for me because my fiance is like, your boobs are so pointy. I assumed because that was just like you like wearing old stuff. I was like, no, this is a fashion statement that I'm making, not like a— And he was like, cool. Now I'm on board. He was like, let me go back to my Fabletics shopping order. But I think that a lot of that is coming back in like more modern ways where people aren't necessarily wearing a girdle, wearing all of the pieces, wanting to wear a corset. Or if they are, it's so purposeful. You know, like at the Glenn Martin show that we just saw, his debut at Margiela, people were wearing really interesting body shaping pieces.

8:01It was very thoughtfully done. Not like before in the 50s, people wore like four pieces of body shaping equipment every day. A lady. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you guys, I just thought of this artist called Michaela Stark. Do you know her? She makes these really beautiful corsets that are kind of almost designed to highlight the parts of your body that traditional corsets are meant to conceal. So she, like, uses them to kind of emphasize, like, belly fat. And, like, you know, she's, like, very restricted at the waist but then emphasizing other parts of her body that do have fat. And it's like, yeah, I think those are really gorgeous.

8:31And, you know, they're not for everyday wear or even they're not even really fashion as such. But they're a kind of interesting mode of using the corset in a new way. Yeah. Hargo's threatening to have an appointment with, what's his name? Mr. Myrtle, Dr. Girdle. Mr. Pearl? Mr. Pearl. Oh, I would love that. I would fly to Scotland on my own dime to meet with him. He is like the couture corseter. He's like the Willy Wonka of corsets. He's very hard to get a hold of. He doesn't leave Edinburgh. Yeah, he barely answers my emails on his hotmail. Like, I am desperate. He can sniff out my desperation through the emails.

9:07We all can. Yeah. I would love to meet with him. But also I feel like a big boob moment that we had recently was Kylie Jenner. She caused quite the stir because a girl on TikTok posted, you know, a classic like front-facing video being like, girl, tell me what your boob implant size is. Tell me what you got done. And Kylie actually answered back. And this was sort of the first real, like, direct face-to-face admittance, like, on the record. I got exactly this. She came back with, like, the exact recipe you need to get Kylie Jenner's boobs. And I thought that that was, like, very interesting because it was wrapped in this time.

9:50I can't remember which came first. I think her boobs. And then Chris told us that she had a facelift. So all of this plastic surgery transparency was happening at the same time. But Dr. Garth Fisher was who did Kylie's boob job and also, interestingly enough, did Chris's first facelift. But he has been like totally swamped with people asking for the Kylie Jenner now. Well, didn't you go and hold her implant? Okay, yes. This is – so I was getting Botox at my doctor's office who does my Botox. And he had an implant on his desk, and I picked it up and was sort of just, like, squeezing it while I was getting injected.

10:32It's a stress ball. Yeah, it's a stress ball, basically. And then he told me that it was one half of Kylie's implant. Wow. Yes. That's wild. So I have requested a set for the Vogue office of the actual size. But it was crazy because it was—I mean, I have very small hands, but it was, like, quite large. And it also brought up this conversation of, like, there's so many interesting techniques now. Above the muscle, below the muscle. People want sporty boobs. Like, Giselle, people want big boobs. Like, Kylie, there's sort of, like— Yeah, don't people want—some people want smaller breasts now. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of people getting a very natural implant, which is literally just half a size.

11:12It's called below the muscle, which is, like, or, like, halfway below the muscle, which is a different technique of placing the implant. Typically, you can go fully below the muscle or above the muscle. And those are two different aesthetic looks. But if you do it halfway, it's supposedly now the most natural way of doing it. What are those? They call that like ballet boobs or ballet boobs. Yoga boobs, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of different whatever insert sort of like exercise here. I think they're all kind of getting at the same aesthetic. Can you tell me what you think? Yeah, I spoke to quite a few surgeons when I was researching the piece.

11:47And, yeah, not only were there a big rise in actual reductions over the last five years, like all of them said huge surge in reductions in general. And then also, yeah, people looking for more, yeah, like more neutrally sized and not making such a statement when they were getting them pretty much. And, yeah, a lot of them did mention athletics and that the women didn't want to be like burdened by, you know, disproportionate breasts, which would stop them doing the exercise that is important to them or that they want to be a big part of their lives. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I do feel like there's two parallel trends happening at the same time, which is minimizing your breasts as a focal point and creating something that feels natural and is not inhibiting to your lifestyle.

12:31And on the other side of the spectrum, re-celebrating breasts and having no shame or embarrassment about them a la Kylie Jenner being like, yep, this is what I got. Or Lauren Sanchez being like, I'm at the inauguration. I don't care. This is McQueen. I look good. I don't care if Mark Zuckerberg's eye me. Like this is just – this is a natural thing that we're proud of. I mean TBD weather, natural. But this is something – and I sort of respect that. I wonder why we're looking at all of this at the same time right now. To me, it sort of reads as like feminism finally coming for how you feel about your body and just like taking the approach you want with your body, which is you can get plastic surgery to get smaller boobs, bigger boobs.

13:21You can get a reduction. You can get implants, whatever. You can do nothing. But it's like people are finally just wanting to shame without shame, like get to the body that they want. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's a good take. I think also that, like, I was talking to a couple of fashion historians and theorists in the course of the article, and they kind of spoke about some backlash to the moment that I don't know precisely when you would date this to, but, like, I guess 2016-ish when body positivity was, like, becoming a very branded and marketable thing. and a couple of the people that I spoke with were talking about, you know, that there was in that case quite a universalized thing of like everything can be beautiful and that some of the backlash that they're experiencing with the smaller breast size thing is actually a little bit more related to, you know, to Ozempic era, like rejuvenated thinness fixation stuff.

14:14Yeah. I mean, Ozempic really changes so much about your body, but the real problem is that if you're on it, you're losing weight so quickly. that when you're losing weight at a normal rate, one, your skin can keep up, but also, like, your breasts can keep up all these things, as opposed to when it's so rapid like that because of the medical intervention, all of a sudden you're at your, like, goal weight, but you have skin in places you didn't expect because your body wasn't given the grace to, like, sort of lose weight at a standard rate that it could keep up with. What else did the fashion historian tell you, Megan?

14:46We were talking a bit about corsetry and about, like, Vivian Westwood, like the original stuff, I guess, in the 80s, is that right? Around then. And she was talking a bit about the kind of history of body modification in general. So with garments, but also with actual physical intervention in the past. And I mean, we had, this is almost irrelevant, actually, but like it was very interesting that she was talking about all the bizarre materials that people would use for breast implants in historical times. Oh, God. Where they were just like, let's fill you up with lead and see what happens. Wow.

15:16Yeah, it was very, it was very like thrown at the wall. was wax. Right, exactly. Yeah. And she couldn't get too close to the fire for the rest of her life because it would melt. Yeah. Or it would become like very flexible. That is crazy. Wait, speaking of wild implant materials, Margo, I'm obsessed with a recent story you did about a newly FDA approved implant material. Let me tell you, this Botox appointment might have been, doctor, shout out to Dr. Schaefer, might have been for my own vanity, but it was a productive work meeting. Because also during that time while I am holding that implant, it was a Nattrelle implant.

15:57What does that mean? That's just a brand name. Never thought about brands of implants, but I guess sure. Yeah, there's tons of like there's all different types. There's textured, there's non-textured silicone types, like different implant fillers. There's all sorts of things. I got you. I'm good. Yeah, yeah. But one thing that he mentioned, we were just sort of, you know, like chatting about what was going on, is he mentioned that he had just gotten his first batch of cadaver fat. Dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. And that he was starting to use it for implants, to replace implants. So for people that wanted a breast augmentation, but they wanted it more natural.

16:40And to me, this is reading is sort of like not natural as a natural looking but natural substance. Oh. It's a natural feeling. I'm making a squeezing gesture. I didn't really ask to, I mean, he didn't have anyone on site at the moment for me to feel. But, yes, I believe that. I mean, you can feel an implant. Right. I have tons of friends that have implants. You can feel that it is not your breast tissue. That's not good or bad. That's just like it has a different density than a human flushes. Margot's often telling me about the density of her breasts. You have to be very careful if you have dense breasts.

17:21You need to be very proactive about getting an ultrasound instead of just a mammogram. That's my PSA. But he had started doing basically what it is is they are harvesting fat, they being this company that he buys it from, which is a medical device company, harvesting fat from cadavers. And then it is being treated so that all of the biological

17:49whatever stuff, so like DNA and stuff is removed. Oh, wow. So it's not as if when, if I was going to try to give you my blood, we'd have to be like, are you A positive? Are you B positive? Okay, so they're like rendering it kind of. But yes, it's rendered totally DNA-less, totally all the genetic material. There we go. That's what I was trying to think of. All of the genetic material is removed from this fat. so that it can go into anyone. So it's not like blood types where you have to be worried about it. And it is supposed to be the next wave of breast augmentation. You heard it here first. Yeah.

18:23I would still just be aware that there was a dead person stuck in me, though. It's a great plot for the substance, too. Yeah, totally. Well, it is because it's like a bioidentical. Oh, it's not even a bioidentical. It is a human source. Yeah. Supposedly, one of the things that Dr. Schaefer touched on was that you, like, once this fat cell is done doing its job in your boob, it's going to die. That's regardless of—it happens on your thigh, it happens wherever, and it will be replaced by one of your own. I see. So eventually, it's like this filler called Renuva, which does this, but it's a filler.

18:56Yes. So eventually, they will be wholly your boobs. You're assimilating. I don't know how long that takes. Yeah. But I think it's quite interesting. I mean, because I really have noticed like the mahafication of wanting work done where people are like, I still want filler, but I want the most natural filler possible. Natural meaning the substance, not natural looking. Do you want to tell our listeners who may not know what maha is? I know it's very close to your lexicon. I think about it all the time and work on pieces about it. This is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement.

19:32it's something that especially because I worked at Goop for years I've been really fascinated by it's to me like where a lot of different political orientations and like wellness ideologies meet up on the other side it's a Venn diagram overlap for a lot of very strong belief systems yes and it's I mean some of the things I think are quite could be quite legitimate like yeah we should get out and walk around more Like, we should exercise more. We should try to eat more whole foods. But in my opinion, there are also some predatory aspects of it. And people are taking advantage of, like, wellness and illness for political gains.

20:13But so this is the idea to me that this Make America Healthy Again idea has made its way into the dermatological office where people are still like, I want Instagram face. I want to look like I've had work done, but I want the most natural substance to make me look not natural. Right. Aesthetically, they don't want to look natural. Yes. Yeah. But they want the natural substance to make them look natural. Yeah, because this was another interesting thing that came up when I was speaking both to the doctors and to, like, cultural historians and people about relating, like, conservative women to the more obviously false aesthetic.

20:47And, yeah, like I guess like MAGA women, you know, with like very intentional and not intended to be discrete filler and surgery and, you know, just garments and looking a particular very polished and very glamorous way. That's kind of almost meant to signal, no, I am trying. And I'm trying for this kind of person and this kind of world, you know. Yeah, well, it was so interesting when I was at—I actually attended the Maha Inaugural Ball in D.C. and covered it for the website. And one thing that was really interesting, it was a room full of breast implants. It was a room full of filler. It was a room full of not naturally gifted looks.

21:30And I'm not judging people for that because I also get Botox and filler. It was just very interesting, the cognitive dissonance. More on breasts after the break.

22:07There's a hundred wrestlers in the room. But only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

22:35Where do you get filler? Where in my face? Yeah. I have a little bit of cheekbone filler. Huh. And my big thing, and that's because it's to offset the Botox that I get in my jaw, which literally changes my life. It's an off-label use, which means it's not FDA approved, but your doctor will still do it. It's studied enough that it's deemed safe. And it helps me stop clenching my jaw. Right. Oh, interesting. Mm-hmm. But because of that, like, I'm losing volume in the bottom half of my face. So I add a little volume to the top half to pick up the slack. Wow. I keep thinking about Margot wrote a great piece after the day that the Mew Mew show and the Bullet Bras debuted.

23:14It was there's I would say there's one or two moments like this each fashion season where there's like this freeze all of excitement around something new that's debuted on the runway. It often is involved Mrs. Prada. And this moment when the Bullet Bras walked down the runway, immediately everyone was talking about it. And Margot did a great piece about it and how it really reignited her vintage undergarment passion. But I keep thinking about what Mrs. Prada said backstage, which was, do we need femininity in this difficult moment to lift us up? Which I think is a very cute brassiere joke. But also, I wonder, is it too much of a stretch to make a political connection to this breast moment?

23:58And I think about Nomi Fry's piece for The New Yorker about this being the boob index correlating with the markets and the economic tidings. But I wonder if we can correlate the two or not. Yeah, I think that there's definitely something interesting to me about the form versus function in terms of breasts in that obviously they're decorative in a certain way and they're aesthetic. And they're also obviously very directly functional for people who have kids. And I was talking to, do you guys know that the brand called Fashion Brand Company? Yes, yes. They make outfits for the lizards also? Yeah, exactly.

24:35Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. They make outfits for lizards? The designer, like, owns a horned frog lizard, a horned lizard, something. An actual lizard, or is this, like, the name of a band? No, no, no. Owns a lizard. And so the designer will make, like, a very fun, playful fashion piece and then make the exact outfit for her lizard. It's amazing. Wait, why haven't we featured this lizard on Boat.com? Oh, my God. You have to, honestly. She's amazing. Penelope Gasslin is her name. We need a dog for all the other animals. I have a cat. Yes. She could do that for you, I'm sure. And she has this really amazing garment that actually somebody wore to the Met Gala this year, who I can't remember off the top of my head, which is like a blazer with cutouts for the breasts that she calls her breastfeeding blazer, which I was talking to her about.