An interesting almost-trend popped up this week: Tom Ford’s so-called “anatomical breastplate” started appearing in magazines and on my timeline. First, I saw Gwyneth Paltrow wearing a hot-pink boob shield on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. A day later, Zoë Kravitz wore a similar one — just black and not high-necked — in Elle.
It’s a vaguely cyborgian-looking item, shiny like chrome and hard like an actual breastplate. Essentially it’s armor, but fashion:
Now I’m not even sure I like how they look, and I’m certainly not about to invest $15,000 in one. But in terms of functional protection, some form of attractive boob armor might be the solution women have been waiting for.
Elbows on your morning commute? Wandering hands at the club? Air, I guess, while you’re on your period? Breast armor will defeat all of these problems, and has the added benefit of making you look like a sexy, cellophane-wrapped alien. After all, life is hard! And painful! Athleisure isn’t protecting us from anything. A pointed toe is ostensibly useful in a scuffle, but actual armor for your breasts? Now we’re talking.
As the great Phoebe Waller-Bridge once wrote in Fleabag: “Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny: period pain, sore boobs, childbirth — you know. We carry it with ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t.” Well, maybe boob armor is a glamorous solution for at least some of that.