Flat Contradiction

Even if she has the right amounts of fashion flair and cash to aspire to the lists of the best-dressed, the woman with the wrong amount of bosom will never make it. Couturiers do not design for the bosomy woman; her body disrupts the line of their clothes. Fashion photographers have no use for her; she throws unseemly shadows. In style-conscious Manhattan, the woman with breasts is out; the flat-chested look has been in for almost as long as men have been designing women's clothes, and in with a vengeance ever since 1957's "sack" look.

But last week, as some 1,000 out-of-town buyers headed home after days of hectic shopping at Manhattan's annual Undergarment Market Week, their order books reflected little interest in the flat look. In scores of Manhattan showrooms, they had gravely inspected parades of full-breasted models wearing bras to make the mostest of the leastest, rather than vice versa. Said one buyer: "It may be chic in New York to be flat-chested, but the rest of American women still have bosoms and aren't really interested in looking like they don't."

In most areas, uplift bras are outselling the ordinary "natural" bras nearly 10 to 1; Warner's (Bali) reports that uplifts account for 95% of its brassiere sales. And in recent months, padded bras have been selling almost as well. The H. W. Gossard Co. (makers of the "Answer" bra) sells almost no bras to women in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore that do not have extra cushioning. Charmfit finds sales of padded bras up 20% over last year's. One Los Angeles store reports that six out of every ten bras it sells are padded. In Chicago, Formfit Foundations President Sigmund Kunstadter says "the flat-chested look has made only small inroads," and a spokesman for Atlanta's Rich's Department Store claims that "the flat look in the South is definitely out."

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