Thousands of years of history provide evidence of the differing fashions, cultural norms, and artistic depictions regarding cleavage and clothes that accentuate or flaunt cleavage. From the absolute modesty of the 16th century, to the Merveilleuses Directoire dresses with their transparency, the décolleté has followed the times and is much more than a simple fashion effect.
A décolleté is the part of the throat that is exposed, but also the cut of a bodice that exposes the neck, the shoulders, and sometimes the chest.
During Antiquity, several symbols clashed: the freedom of the non-erotic body (Egypt or Crete) clashed with modesty and reserve (Greco-Roman society). The fashion of the Roman tunic will influence Merovingian and Carolingian fashion.
Antiquity 3rd millennium BC
In 2600 BC, princess Nofret of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt was depicted wearing a V-neck gown with a plunging neckline that exposed ample cleavage that was further emphasized by an elaborate necklace and prominently protruding nipples.James S. Olson, Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History, page 324, JHU Press, 2005, Alessandro Bongioanni and Maria Sole Croce, The Treasures of Ancient Egypt from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, page 79, Rizzoli, 2003, , Quote: "Nofret is wrapped in a shawl that resembles archaic models and leaves visible the shoulders of her dress. Her pale yellow face is framed by a heavy two-part wig softened by a charming floral diadem. The prominent forms of the woman emerge voluptuously but discreetly from behind the light material that covers her and create a pleasant contrast with the lean, flaunted physique of her husband; the contrast is further emphasized by the elaborate necklace that adorns her décolleté compared to Rahotep's sober choker."
2nd millennium BC
In ancient Minoan culture, women wore clothes that complemented slim waists and full breasts. One of the better-known features of ancient Minoan fashion is breast exposure; women wore tops that could be arranged to completely cover or expose their breasts, with bodices to accentuate their cleavage.Rodney Castleden, Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete, page 13, Routledge, 2002, Barbara Sher Tinsley, Reconstructing Western Civilization: Irreverent Essays on Antiquity, page 111, Susquehanna University Press, 2006, In 1600 BC, snake goddess figurines with open dress-fronts revealing entire breasts, were sculpted in Minos. By that time, Cretan women in Knossos were wearing ornamental fitted bodices with open cleavage, sometimes with a peplum.Mary Ellen Snodgrass, World Clothing and Fashion, page 284, Routledge, 2015, Another set of Minoan figurines from 1500 BC show women in bare-bosomed corsets.Daniel Delis Hill, As Seen in Vogue: A Century of American Fashion in Advertising, page 144, Texas Tech University Press, 2007, Arthur Cotterell, The Minoan World, page 163, Scribner, 1980,
Ancient Greek women adorned their cleavage with a long pendant necklace called a .Gordon L. Fain, Ancient Greek Epigrams, page 113, University of California Press, 2010, The ancient Greek goddess Hera is described in the Iliad to have worn something like an early version of a push-up bra festooned with "brooches of gold" and "a hundred tassels" to increase her cleavage to divert Zeus from the Trojan War.Daphne Merkin, "The Great Divide", New York Times, August 28, 2005 Women in Greek and Roman civilizations had at times used breastbands like taenia in Rome to enhance smaller busts, but more often, women of the masculine Greco-Roman world, where unisex clothes were often preferred, used breastbands like apodesmes in Greece, and fascia or mamillare in Rome to suppress their breasts. Among these mamillare was a particularly strict leather corset for suppressing women with big busts.Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Glenys Davies, Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z, page 23, Routledge, 2007, Elodie Piveteau and Philippe Vaurès, Underdressed, page2 104, 110, Silverback Books, 2005,
1st millennium BC
Wearing a garment to support the breasts may date back to ancient Greece. Women wore an apodesmos,ἀπόδεσμος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus later stēthodesmē,στηθοδέσμη , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus mastodesmosμαστόδεσμος , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus and mastodeton,μαστόδετον , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus all meaning "breast-band", which was a band of wool or linen that was wrapped across the breasts and tied or pinned at the back. Roman women wore breast-bands during sport, such as those shown on the Coronation of the Winner mosaic (also known as the "Bikini mosaic").
Rabbi Aha b. Raba (circa 5th century) and Nathan the Babylonian (circa 2nd century) measured the appropriate size of the cleavage as "of one hand-breadth between a woman's breasts". This was not cleavage shown, but rather, cleavage larger than a hand-breadth was considered to be a birth defect. Tzniut prohibits any cleavage from showing.Leonard J. Swidler, Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism, page 160, Scarecrow Press, 1976, In The Golden Ass, the only Roman novel to survive in its entirety, Photis, a major female character, is described as sporting significant cleavage and perfumed nipples.
Medieval 4th-5th centuries
According to Islamic exegesis, women of pre-Islamic jahiliyyah (ignorance) era often wore clothes that exposed their neck, shoulders and upper part of their bosoms to draw attention to their beauty.L.S. Cahill and M.A. Farley, Embodiment, Morality, and Medicine, page 47, Springer Science & Business Media, 1995, Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, page 589, aylor & Francis, 2003, Moghissi, Haideh "Women and Islam: Social conditions, obstacles and prospects" Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 77-79. Imru' al-Qais, the most well known of pre-Islamic Arab poets, wrote in Mu'allaqat, a set of seven poems, "Their vests openings are wide above their delicate breasts" and "her breast as smooth and shining as mirrors" (translation by Paul Smith, The seven Golden Odes of Arabia; the Mu'allaqat, New Humanity Books, 2008).Sayed Nadeem Jaffri, Gender Relations of Pre-Islamic Arabs, History of Islam, 2020
7th-9th centuries During the Tang dynasty (7th to 9th centuries), women in China were increasingly freer than before, and by the mid-Tang, their décolleté dresses became quite liberated.Cho-yun Hsu, China: A New Cultural History, page 220, Columbia University Press, 2012, The Tang women inherited the traditional ruqun gown and modified it by opening up the collar to expose their cleavage, which had previously been unimaginable.Mei Hua, Chinese Clothing, page 27, Cambridge University Press, 2011, Rather than the conservative garments worn by earlier Chinese women, women of the Tang era deliberately emphasized their cleavage.Bret Hinsch, Women in Tang China, page 149, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, The popular style of the era was long gowns of soft fabrics that were cut with a pronounced décolletage and very wide sleeves, or a décolleté knee-length gown that was worn over a skirt.Valerie Steele, Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion (volume 1), page 263, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005, Chinese clothes from the period had a profound influence on the Japanese kimono.Mei Hua, Chinese Clothing, page 4, Cambridge University Press, 2011,
10th-11th centuries Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the prevailing décolleté clothes of women of Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan in India were replaced with covered bosoms and long veils as the region increasingly came under foreign control.Pooja Khurana, Introduction to Fashion Technology, page 12, Firewall Media, 2007, During this period, elaborate, opulent courtly dresses with wide décolletage became popular in the Italian maritime states Venice, Genoa and Florence.Marybelle S. Bigelow and Kay Kushino, Fashion in History: Western Dress, Prehistoric to Present, page 147, Burgess Publishing Company, 1979, After the Black Death, women started taking more liberty in clothing, including drawing attention to the breasts.Fred Harding, Breast Cancer: Cause, Prevention, Cure, page 100, Tekline Publishing, 2006,
12th-13th centuries Until the 13th century, visible cleavage was still not acceptable in the Christian West. Beginning in France, a change in attitude started to appear by the 14th century,Carl Fors, Hens: Why Women Are Different, page 308, Infinity Publishing, 2006, when necklines were lowered, clothes were tightened, and breasts were once again flaunted.Monique Canellas-Zimmer, Histoires de mode, Les Dossiers d'Aquitaine – 2005, . Décolleté gowns were introduced in the 15th century.Dress", The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Part 3, Volume 5), page 1027, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1980, In a breast-rating system that was invented at the time, the highest rating was given to breasts that were "small, white, round like apples, hard, firm, and wide apart".
Women started squeezing the breasts and applying make-up to make their cleavage more attractive;Fred Harding, Breast Cancer: Cause, Prevention, Cure, page 109, Tekline Publishing, 2006, cleavage was termed the "smile of the bustline" by contemporaneous Belgian chronicler Jean Froissart.Elodie Piveteau and Philippe Vaurès, Underdressed, page 124, Silverback Books, 2005, A contemporaneous French courtesy manual La Clef d'Amors advised, "If you have a beautiful chest and a beautiful neck do not cover them up but your dress should be low cut so that everyone can gaze and gape after them". Contemporaneous poet Eustache Deschamps advised "a wide-open neckline and a tight dress with slits through which the breasts and the throat could be more visible". Sewing two pouches into one's dress "into which the breasts are squeezed so that the nipples arc thrust upwards" was suggested as well.
The French Catholic Church, however, tried to discourage the flaunting of cleavage. It banned the cleavage, which it referred to as "the gates of hell", and demanded that the opening on women's bodices be laced. French priest Oliver Maillard said women who exposed their breasts would be "strung up in hell by their udders". Monarchs like Charles VII of France ignored the church. It was common for women in his court to wear bodices through which their breasts, cleavage, and nipples could be seen. In 1450, Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII, started a fashion trend when she wore deep, low, square décolleté gowns with fully bared breasts in the French court.
Early modern
Across Europe, décolletage was often a feature of the dress of the late Middle Ages; this continued through the Victorian period. Gowns that exposed a woman's neck and the top of her chest were very common and uncontroversial in Europe from at least the 14th century until the mid-19th century. Ball gowns and evening gowns especially had low, square décolletage that was designed to display and emphasize cleavage.Gernsheim, Alison. Victorian and Edwardian Fashion. A Photographic Survey. pp. 25-26, 43, 53, 63, Dover Publications, Mineola, N.Y., 1981 (Reprint of 1963 edition). Desmond Morris. The Naked Woman. A Study of the Female Body, p. 156. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004. .