Good news for anyone looking to portion off their skin in new and creative ways: we have entered the era of the “veavage”. This new term for a deep, V-shaped cleavage plumbed new depths this weekend at the SAG awards. As seen on (deep breath) Kristen Bell, Jenna Ortega, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Paulson, Odessa A’zion and Lauren Miller, this neck-to-navel style appeared on wafer-thin tops and second-skin dresses. In a red carpet first, veavage somehow outweighed cleavage 2:1. Other recent veavage-flaunters about town include Zendaya, Emma Stone, Elle Fanning and Erin Doherty. Think the boyband JLS meets Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, by way of a couture gown cut with exacting technical rigour.
The talking point is not the clothes, though. It’s what they leave behind, which is the boobs. Or at least the bit where the boobs usually are. Because the great thing about this trend is that you don’t need boobs to do it. In fact, it’s better without. Or a bra. Nipple tape, which is worn to stop nipples sticking out in frigid temperatures, is probably useful but otherwise you could see it as a cost-saving exercise – a way of using up less fabric. Right?
These are weird times for cleavage. Criticise its existence and you look like a prude, show too much and you are on the wrong side of history. Take Lauren Sánchez, who turned up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 in an ice-blue skirt suit open so low as to reveal not only her cleavage but the bra-top that contained it. Or Sydney Sweeney, whose bosom went from briefly replacing her entire personality to a totem of anti-wokeness. An article in the Spectator even claimed that with Sweeney’s cleavage, “humour and boobs have returned”, as if the two were mutually inclusive.
A woman’s décolletage feels like a lightning rod in the gender wars, but the veavage suggests it’s been weaponised by culture too. Bridget Dalton, a semiotician and cultural analyst at Truth Consulting, points to the prairie dress as a case in point. “Take the low-cut sweetheart neckline on those dresses, which have probably been the defining trend of the past few years. It’s all about boobs! And about accentuating your assets and figure and framing your face – but really boobs,” she says. “It’s no coincidence it then became the official uniform of the trad wife.”
All of which could suggest that wearing a dress that shows your décolletage minus any actual cleavage is another type of flex. It’s not that you are necessarily woke, or on the opposite side to tech billionaires and their wives. But by wearing something revealing that also reveals nothing, you shame the viewer for looking in the first place. “Veavage is cleavage plus privilege - it’s quite bra burning, and points towards white feminism,” says Dalton.
The other side to all this is that for many women, boobs are not a matter of choice. Modesty might be a quaint notion in most endeavours, but what you do need to carry off veavage is to be thin, and to have complete confidence in that thinness. Oh, and to be rich. According to research, the number of GLP-1 users earning more than $100,000 (£75,000) is more than twice that of the general population. The veavage, says Dalton, “is a thin thing. And it’s about defying age. It’s super-human.”
As with all things flesh, the pendulum will surely swing back again. At the Gucci show in Milan, the most discussed of the current season, there was only one example of veavage: a sea-blue lace halter top with strategically placed webs of thread to cover the nipples. The new skin to show is your bum crack. Hurrah!
If you already possess something deep-cut, don’t worry. This is not the first time V-necks have sunk so low. In its pre-cancellation era, American Apparel was selling more deep Vs than any other shop on the high street, part of the retroactive trend now called “indie sleaze” which in itself is part of the social media resurgence of 2016. The difference is, this was menswear.
