If you saw the pictures of Charlize Theron on the red carpet at the Apex premiere in New York last week, you will have noticed that she was wearing an unbuttoned men’s suit jacket (Dior), with nothing underneath, and a white ruffly collar to emphasise her bare unsupported breasts.
Theron was, as we’ll reflect in coming months, showcasing “Le Droop”: the natural-looking — not floppy but not pneumatic — breasts that you can bet are about to be the look everyone in Hollywood wants. Le Droop, c’est chic, or it’s about to be.
There is nothing remarkable about baring a lot of breast in 2026, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the “naked under a tuxedo” trick is pretty old. Rihanna never wears anything under her jacket (this week she moved on to bottom cleavage-baring), Victoria Beckham regularly goes commando under her tailored jackets, and last year Gwyneth Paltrow wore a plunging double-breasted grey wool suit with nothing underneath to promote Marty Supreme on Good Morning America (in the morning, in December… no big deal).
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Victoria Beckham Victor Boyko/Getty Images for The Business of Fashion
Gwyneth Paltrow Christopher Peterson /Splash
The truth is we’ve seen it all — Bianca Censori has seen to that — so now we’re back where we started: the big red carpet reveal is a window on some breasts that look (albeit astonishingly good for 50) natural and just the right amount of droopy. The kind of normal braless breasts you would regularly see in the Seventies under a T-shirt, like Carly Simon’s on the cover of her album No Secrets (there was, by the way, a panic at the time about her protruding nipples, but not about her not having hoisted the whole lot with tit tape and fillets). There was nowhere left to go, is the point, so we’ve come full circle.
Let’s be in no doubt that there are people whose job it is to work out where to take the boob brag next. We’ve seen it with Lily Allen, who has embraced all the breast exposure tricks in the past six months while staying one step ahead of the game. The Thirties lingerie look — an unstructured flat bra with a hint of underboob — was one that stood out recently, not least because it was in the droopy, natural-looks-best zone.
Lily Allen Sabrina Steck/BFA.com/Shutterstock
Underboob is still top of the breast brag charts but, unlike a few years ago, the look now is soft and accidental, not travel-pillow taut under a tight cropped T-shirt. Side boob remains a thing, as in the sight of the undercurve of a breast you get when the owner is wearing a dress that’s covered in front but not at the sides. This has the advantage of subtlety (up to a point), plus it’s an extra breast brag because it’s harder to disguise any hoisting and tit tape assistance. Nowhere for those supportive chicken fillets to go.
We’re beyond the full-frontal-naked-under-a-wisp-of-sheer moment (Paris Hilton, Alex Scott), and we’re somewhere north of the extreme runway cleavage (a naked strip from chin to just above your navel) that has come and gone and come again, and that Cate Blanchett pulled off spectacularly only last year at the Venice Film Festival. My favourite runway cleavage belongs to Ana de Armas in No Time to Die because it shows how good it can look, plus she wears hers throughout a fight scene that makes Bond’s efforts look lame.
Cate Blanchett Dominique Charriau/WireImage
Where we are with nipples is less clear. A hint of them braless under a T-shirt (NB: the V wake line you get with a natural bosom under a tight T is now more desirable than the buoyancy aid look) is a good thing; actual out-and-proud nipples less so. Florence Pugh is keen on a nipple reveal under a gauzy red carpet dress, and thanks to her and one or two others nipples are no longer the marmalade dropper of nudity. But they’re not the breast flex of the moment. That’s Le Droop.
If you like a more conventional approach to breast exposure, don’t panic: there’s room for that too. The plump and proud cleavage is still riding high in the breast charts thanks to Sydney Sweeney and Kylie Jenner, the latter noticeable in recent months at awards shows for being the only one wearing her breasts in full ship’s figurehead style, bursting out of her dress. You could argue Sweeney has given the pillow cleavage a slightly Maga flavour but you’d probably be wasting your breath. If you like it, you like it.
Kylie Jenner EPA/CHRIS TORRES
Talking of which, the patron saint of the Carry On cleavage is of course our own Liz Hurley. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it would be her approach to cleavage, and in her own way she’s ahead of the Seventies cleavage revival. Who can forget her cheering up the nation during Covid with shots of her in her back garden wearing a very loosely belted Starsky and Hutch cardigan with nothing underneath. There’ll always be a place for the Lamb’s Navy Rum cleavage and Liz has it covered.