As all of us women know all too well, fashions come and go, in and out of style, from season to season, generation to generation. And, I’m not just talking clothing here ladies; I’m talking about hair styles, make-up, colors, accessories, and too many other things to mention here. I’ve noticed through my 30 years of life that some fashions come and go quickly. Like the “poncho sweater” that was in style a few seasons back, while I thought the poncho sweater was cute, I really did not foresee this particular look as being a style that would “stick” more then one season, so I opted out of buying one. At times, this “fly by night” style can be disappointing and quite disheartening for those that decide to “buy into the style,” only to be able to wear it once or twice before it quickly becomes a style of the past. However, to my surprise, certain styles seem to come into focus and actually stay for more then one season. Like the “Capri pant” that came into style in the late 1990’s. At first, I was very skeptical of this “look” and actually waited a season before purchasing a pair. After one season of sporting my new “Capri” look, I had an instant admiration for my Capri pants. I have been very pleased over the last 10 years that Capri pants have stayed somewhat in style. However, as we all know, all good things must come to an end. Capri pants will eventually go out of style as every great fashion inevitably does.
On this note, I wonder if it is inevitable that our beloved breast implants that came into style in the 1980’s will eventually go out of style as well? Recently, Katie Andre (English Glamour Model) was quoted as saying “I’ve been there with big boobs. They are out of fashion. Pete loves my nose, because he had his done years ago.” Katie recently had her implants reduced in size. Tori Spelling was also recently quoted as saying “If I knew the styles were going to be the way they are now, I wouldn’t have gotten my boobs done in the ’90s. The clothes now wear so much better when you’re smaller. In the ’90s it was all about big boobs in halter tops.”These quotes from these two “Hollywood ladies” started me thinking……so, if the clothes and fashions nowadays wear better when you have smaller breasts, and glamour models and “Hollywood women” are being quoted saying that big boobs are out of style, does this mean that the “big fake boob generation” is finally coming to a close? This led me to do additional research on this subject…what are people REALLY saying? One man was recently quoted in menstyle.com as saying “The reality is that the breast augmentation trend is past its prime. Porn ushered in the big tittied age, and it’s ushering it back out with a lot of small breasted girls nowadays.” Hmmmm, I thought, very interesting. I figured this particular gentleman must be talking about the “Keira Knightley’s, Eva Longoria’s and Kate Hudson’s” of the world. While all three of these women have extremely successful movie and TV careers right now, all three of them are A cups or under. Another man was quoted on the same website as saying “And honestly, once the 40 year old soccer moms start sporting the double D’s under their jcpenny sweatsuits, that’s the sign of the death of a trend. Once a trend is reaching the 40 year old moms, that means a new trend will have to replace it ASAP.” I found another quote in The OC Register from a gentlemen commenting on Tamra Barnie from the Bravo television show “Real Housewives of Orange County,” who in one episode downsized the implants she’s had for years. The gentleman was quoted as saying “By the same token we are seeing many women who get larger implants in their late 30’s and 40’s. I’m sure there is a significant psychosocial component to this, as the women seeking larger implants are trying to recapture some aspect of their youth — more attention when their looks are changing, perhaps divorced and now on the market again, trying to rekindle relationships, etc.” So what does all this mean? It means that as the women in their 40’s and 50’s are upsizing their implants or getting implants placed for the first time in an effort to recapture their youth, they actually might be doing quite the opposite. As these women in their 40’s and 50’s are just now getting their implants, the younger generations in their 20’s and 30’s are starting to downsize their implants, take them out completely, or just plain say “enough with the big fake boobs, I look better, feel better and I am proud of my natural breast size.”We can only hope that one day soon we’ll be saying “bye bye big fake breast implants, you are a fashion of the past!”
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Let’s hope that changing fashions at least skim off that layer of women who make the casual decision to get implants in the false belief they are safe because everyone else is doing it.
Great post!
Comment by Gloria — April 18, 2008 @ 9:33 am
Hi Krista, I love your piece! It is SO true. I can tell you, from my own personal experience as an actress in the 80’s I opted for the Big Boob look because of losing party to “Blonde and Booby”. But now, there is no reason to do this. There are such great bras and helpers out there to make nay outfit look the way you want. It IS going out of style, I think. There is a fatigue in the “look”, I think.
And from my own experience with age, weight and hormones, I have larger breasts now than when I had when I had implants. I always wondered why my Mom was so “gifted” and I wasn’t. Now I know. I am just like her now, with a bit of weight, my natural curves, hormones running through me etc. I can’t IMAGINE what I would be like if I still had implants with this added “woman-nes” !!! It would be awful for me ( personally) to be that large and have the weight of an implant weighing me down more!
I hope younger women don’t feel the need to be different and take the Kate Hudson’s of the world as beautiful. I also hope older women don’t feel the need to implant to get or keep a man. I hope we can all come to love ourselves from where we want to.
I deal with that a lot in the life coaching I do with clients. Male and female. We work to create what they want and overcome the blocks in their way. I see a trend toward your words and post. I find people wanting to return to themselves in a spiritual, whole, confident, healthy, natural, successful way. They want to leave behind the failed thoughts and old tapes they have been playing over and over in their heads.
Comment by Mary — April 18, 2008 @ 10:05 am
interesting article. thank you.
one comment though, i worn capri pants in the 60’s. they did not first come out in the 80’s.
Comment by Lorna — April 18, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Like many i seem to be suffering from breast implants-but cannot get ANY DR-apart from sarah myhill, who unfortunately is not a surgeon-to believe any of it for a moment, not even the possibility that some women might be adversely affected via some mysterious systemic disease….. Its a nightmare i`ve lived too long……
I am currently awaitng explantation but apart from the Dr dismissing any connection to my symptoms which altho chronic-are not therfore a priority-i am not entitled to have the plastic surgeon of my choice- so so much for patient choice in the UK, but at least i wont pay for it-as if i could -or i wouldnt be on this damned waiting list getting God knows who with God knows othodox brainwashing! ANYWAY-THE CRUX of the matter is this…i was listening to radio one in the UK last week and the male DJ`S were asking the question whether if you met a mermaid type women you would rather her bottom half be fish and the top half breasts, or the bottom half women and the top half no breasts-and the answer opted for was a preferance to top half breasts-i am dismaid such stupid questions that have such a bearing on female moral/adequacies, given all the disasisfaction, self abuse and social hangups we have is asked in this day and age for the sheer fun of it….(or is it just me) -having had a mastectomy, ruptured implants and not unexplained illness/chronic pain?-I wish you well-dont opt for breasts as it may forfeit your health. xx
Comment by Anne — April 18, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Thank you for writing about this, but I gotta say, I think you are missing the most important points here… The real problems lie within the zeitgeist of fashion and beauty. As one Rancid song goes “They got no passion its all fashion!”
How can you thank a trend when it only creates sheep? If women are only changing because everyone else is doing it, that is no effing bueno either. All the loud noises and shiny things distract from the real issues at hand.
What needs to be fixed is the notion that a woman needs to be “fixed”, and that the ideology of women is centered upon ostentation and ornamentation.
Comment by megpie — April 19, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Thanks for the comments ladies! I just wanted to say real quick:
To Lorna- Yeah, Capri pants, I believe have come into and out of style a few times, I am pretty sure. But, since I was the author and I am only in my 20’s…I only remember when they came back in style in the late 90’s. I’m just hoping they don’t go back “out” again, because I sure do love my Capris!!
To Megpie- Oh, trust me girl, I KNOW the issues go WAY deeper then the “fashion” of breast implants. I just found it interesting that there were celebrities talking about how they were going out of style. Unfortunately, there are a lot of young women these days who get them purely because of the fact that they are “in style” (or they perceive them to be “in style”) at the moment. When I got mine, there was this whole huge “trend” going through my hometown, where everyone was getting them. The girls (even the ones with nice size breasts already) felt like they needed to get them because “everyone else was.” I actually decided to write this blog because I was surfing a breast implant forum, and the girls were having a big discussion on whether they should go through with the implants because they heard these comments from Katie and Tori and were paranoid. Isn’t that something?
To Mary- I tell ya, I think all of these young girls who are getting them in their teens and 20’s and REALLY going to regret it after they have children, get some womanly curves, etc. A VERY good girlfriend of mine is already regretting it because she has put on a little weight since getting her implants and now her boobs are SO BIG that she can’t find anything to wear! She has to buy XL tops just to fit around her boobs! She is absolutely miserable! I just wish that these young women would give their bodies some time.
I’m so proud of Kate Hudson for saying “I am proud of my breast size, and I will NOT get implants just because society says I should.” Bravo to Kate!!!
Personally, I like my body so much better without the implants! It feels so good to be natural again! I feel so good that I don’t have to explain my fake boobs to anyone, or feel uncomfortable to meet new people, or wear a swimsuit in front of strangers, etc. Life is too short not to be who you are.
~Krista
Comment by Krista — April 19, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
I love this post! It reminds me of how it became fashionable to have short, natural nails after a brief 1980s infatuation with acrylics.
Per implants in particular, does anyone else in this community ever read the personal ads? (Just for fun, I’m a happily married lady…) Anyway — men in some of those personal ads — and the escort ads — now request “all natural please.” And my husband — who was quite the ladies’ man in his day — reports “breast implants are cold in the winter and they feel like rubber! I could never stand to kiss those fat-lipped women either!”
Sometimes I wonder if the guys even like this stuff we are doing to ourselves? As Harrison Ford once said to Anne Heche in some forgettable movie when her magazine columnist character asked him what turns guys on, “Just show up willing with a six-pack.” ;o)
Comment by suzannabanana23 — April 23, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
It’s amazing what women will do for the sake of fashion or the trend of the moment. I was hoping that my breast implants would fill out a bikini better and that I would have perky breasts until I was 80 years old…sold. At 19, I thought little about anything but the moment, as I wasn’t alive long enough to see many trends phase in and out (with the exception of the “neon colored” clothing items of the 80’s). But as with any item you buy, it will eventually get old and something new and improved will take over, and hopefully not too much damage will have taken place in the meantime. Too bad implants aren’t as easy to throw out as a pair of pants.
~Kacey
Comment by Kacey — April 23, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Suzanna- Very interesting about the personal adds…it doesn’t surprise me a bit though. I guess if you are going to pay for a woman, you want a real woman…not a plastic one!!! Most men could care less about fashion, I know my husband certainly doesn’t notice if I’m wearing the latest fashion or not. In fact…it drives him nuts when I try and keep up! Most men aren’t looking for perfection, or a woman who keeps up on the latest fashion trend (which unfortunately is plastic surgery right now.) Most men just want “a good woman to grow old with.” Looks can only take you so far, in the end it is the friendship and companionship that matters. I am convinced that women get plastic surgery more to impress other women, and less to attract or keep a man.
~Krista
Comment by Krista — April 24, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Thanks for clarifying Krista. I am sorry to hear you got implants, are you planning on having them removed? Thanks again for all your kick a** research
Comment by megpie — April 24, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
Meg- I had my implants removed 6 months ago. Thank goodness I never have to worry about them again!
~Krista
Comment by Krista — April 25, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Are you kidding me? You criticize women who want breast implant but hold up pin thin women like Keira Knightley, Eva Longoria and Kate Hudson. I am a 32 year old mother of two who about 5 months ago had breast augmentation. I did it for me, for my body image not for the image that others see. If anyone is careless enough to view implants as a fashion statement they just don’t get it. And if you don’t think that most guys like a woman with larger breast you are kidding yourself. I have experienced both sides of this argument and can say definitively that this if one of the best decisions I have made in my life.
Comment by Jill — May 27, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
Jill- I wish I could agree with you that “I just don’t get it.” But, trust me girl….I do get it. We are ALL women, we ALL understand what each other are going through. We ALL what to be looked at as “beautiful,” and “attractive,” we ALL want to be as pretty or prettier then our friends, and have nice bodies like our friends. I DO get it…because I have been there. Don’t think for a second that I have not gone through all of the stages that you have…don’t forget that I had implants too!
I am not “holding up” stick thin women, I was merely pointing out that each of those women have small breasts and are just as successful as women with large breasts.
I will point out AGAIN…I don’t see breast implants as merely a “fashion statement,” this is only one aspect of this blog and what I write about. I put this blog up because AGAIN I will point out…there are PLENTY of women who get them because they are “in style.”
I don’t believe for a second that all men like bigger breasts better then normal sized, smaller ones.
I’m glad you are happy with your implants, and I truly hope they will never cause you any health problems like that have for so many of us.
Comment by Krista — May 28, 2008 @ 8:20 am