If I were to text you my style notes from Coachella, the message would read something like this: we’re at the dawn of a new fashion époque!! Era of going-out-top-and-jeans has evolved. Lose top altogether and go out in bra. Keep jeans, though.
The going-out bras (G.O.Bs) which took over the festival’s main stage and artist enclosures this past fortnight will never see the inside of a gym. They’re artisanal, not elastic. Chief among them: the glossy, strawberry-red Agent Provocateur bra which Addison Rae wore beneath her (circa 2008) nu rave American Apparel hoodie. Plus Kylie’s vintage showgirl style and Olivia Rodrigo’s sweetheart-cum-dominatrix bra – both of which were succinctly brought down to earth with low-rise boyfriend jeans (from Levis and Diesel, respectively). The spring/summer 2026 runways likewise delivered, what in my opinion is, the standout G.O.B of the season in the form of Dario Vitale’s bejewelled balconette at Versace.
Beyond their various embellishments, all G.O.Bs share the same fundamental characteristic: they proudly platform our breasts. Ten years on from British Vogue’s viral declaration that cleavage was dead, the amplified bosom has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Yes, the push-up bra (made world famous by Eva Herzigová on those 1994 billboards) is, once again, full of wonder.
The 2016 Vogue story roused the British press. The Telegraph declared: “Cleavage goes bust”, and The Guardian reported that “the squished-together, hoicked-up presentation of bosoms has all but vanished from fashionable circles.” The problem, I’d argue, was the breadth of those circles. Rewind a decade and body diversity was desperately absent across the fashion industry. Here’s the kicker: 10 years isn’t that long ago, and the reality is the prevailing views on sporting a visible cleavage are only just beginning to crumble.
Perhaps that’s why, as someone who rarely buys new bras, it recently struck me as unusual that I’ve bought two push-up bras in the last month (the latest: Skims’s Ultimate Balconette Push-Up Bra). At some point last year, I took off my stretchy non-bra for the last time, and I’m not alone. Sales of Skims push-up bras are skyrocketing.
It feels good to wear cleavage – a pneumatic cleavage – like I’m rooting for my team at a home match. I now own an array of push-up bras to suit my outfits and diary, which has awakened the memory of my mother buying me an inflatable wonderbra for my 16th birthday. It arrived with a squeezy rubber pump to air-fill the cups, which I recall deflated at different speeds during the course of an evening. I should add that I did call her for clearance before writing this story. She gave the green light – “my parenting was spot on in that era” – and to be honest, it was. I loved my body and that uneven boobage was part of it, part of me.
Coachella’s headlining bras are more finessed, of course. Olivia Rodrigo’s dusty pink underwired piece was handmade (and originally part of a set) by London rock‘n’roll outfitter R&M Leathers. It took two-and-a-half days to create, designer Ruby Mariani tells me over the phone from her south London studio. “It’s hard to make a bra and it’s hard to make it do what we want it to do: which is [give] cleavage,” Mariani adds. “That said, the leather itself is so structured that it naturally gives a bit of a lift.”
The secret to styling the G.O.B is believability, she says (hence why these bras work so well with slightly baggy jeans). “I’ve worked with a few different pop stars, and the ones who have the most successful style are those who look like they actually wear it and it’s not a costume.”
What’s interesting now, compared to 2016, is that to be described as having sex appeal isn’t regarded as denigrating. There’s one line in The Guardian’s November 2016 story, which summarises the frustrating state of play that women endured a decade ago: “The cleavage’s function as an essential part of looking glamorous but a barrier to being taken seriously in a professional context was a tiny, irritating example of the kind of double standards with which women endlessly have to deal.”
Today, to me, this sentence reads as a call to arms, which has been answered, and I’ll say it with my chest: cleavage is getting serious. The sports bra is dead, long live the push-up bra.
