Los pechos son hoy más grandes que nunca antes en la historia. Pero eso no tiene por qué ser bueno”, explica Florence Williams (autora del libro Breasts: a natural and unnatural history. 2012, W. W. Norton & Company). Asegura que, al menos en Estados Unidos, son como “dos esponjas” que absorben cuanto hay en el ambiente. “Las hormonas que se inyectan a los alimentos, la píldora anticonceptiva y el estrógeno son responsables de que las copas de los sujetadores que antes se fabricaban en un rango de la A a la D ahora se hayan ampliado de la H a la KK, para pechos extragrandes”. En Europa, donde la naturaleza fue más discreta con los atributos –compárese la copa 105D de Jayne Mansfield con la más pequeña 95B de su contraparte francesa, Brigitte Bardot–, el aumento de pecho es, junto a la liposucción, la operación estética más popular.

According to data from the Dexeus Institute, the most demanded contour and cup are sizes 90B and 95C. According to the testimony of some surgeons, who prefer not to identify themselves, some clients buy by weight: "I want them [the prostheses] of more than 330 grams," they demand in consultation.

“There was nothing fake about the breasts that were desired in the 1950s. They were natural, lively, healthy and fun”, says the journalist Vanessa Butler in what is intended to be a definitive history of the breasts following the editorial line of Playboy magazine. “They have been transformed over the years in our pages. We are not Darwin, but we could elaborate a theory of the evolution of the neckline”, he assures.

The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953 with a nude of Marilyn Monroe. World War II had ended and the conical neckline was triumphant, like the one exhibited by Christina Hendricks, the redhead from Mad Men. Its shape was achieved thanks to torpedo bras. As explained by the writer Francesc Puertas, author of El sostén, mitos y leyendas… y manual de uso (Arcopress, 2012), “it was commissioned by Howard Huges to an aeronautical engineer to project the chest of Jane Russell in The Outlaw (1943). . Fashion was consolidated with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and it was unbeatable for almost 30 years in which 90 million torpedoes were sold in 100 countries. Some theories claim that the missile crisis (1962) underpinned the trend. Apparently, the conical bra was reminiscent of nuclear warheads. So, the form was above the volume. "The torpedo bra was a popularized luxury," argues José Luis Nueno, a professor at IESE. "Curves were exaggerated, everything was oversized, from the Cadillacs with spoilers to the appliances."

The excesses ended the decade. The girls lit big bonfires to free their breasts. "Giving up the bra was a sign of freedom," explains businesswoman Sandra Macaya, an expert in underwear. Women had fewer children, led more active lives, and changed their diet. All this translated into a considerable loss of volume and smaller breasts. Nothing like it had happened since the era of the flappers, who danced in the Roaring Twenties.

“Historically, petite sizes have been popular in feminist times. This was the case in the 1920s and in the late 1960s and 1970s,” recalls Marilyn Yalom, a professor at Stanford University, in her book A history of the breast (Knopf, 1997). This expert points out that, despite the fluctuations in sizes and volumes, a parallel trend has survived at all times that considers a small chest, even a flat one, as a sign of class and style. The anthological names of the trend have been the two Hepburns: Katharine and Audrey.

With the eighties came Madonna, Michael Jackson and MTV. There was nothing to hide. "Underwear acquired a life of its own and was no longer towed by outer pieces," says Puertas. The return of the neckline was officially proclaimed and breast augmentation operations were no longer an eccentricity. A Canadian brand called Wonderbra blew up the market with a single bra that brought in $30 million in 1980 alone.

Against all odds, in the following decade, the nineties, the small and athletic breasts returned. According to Playboy's version of events, the blame lay with WNBA players and British top models. That didn't stop Jean Paul Gaultier from putting a conical bra on Madonna's body again.

The new millennium brought the Internet into Western homes. The supply and availability of nudity and pornography was overwhelming. The fashion pendulum swung back to generous necklines. And there it has stayed. The look is defiant: an unlikely mix of low pounds and plumpness that barely exists in nature. “No woman will be able to have that cleavage without implants or a push up bra,” Georgia Witkin, a professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, explains in an interview with The Washington Post. “In fact, when a client asks the surgeon for a truly dramatic cleavage, he must join the breasts in a position that is not exactly anatomical. But it is not intended to deceive anyone. Who would want to look natural? That was very 20th century."

The future, according to Professor Nueno, is not in the operating room. “The more the issue is democratized, the closer its end will be. People will always want to differentiate themselves and be unique.” Even if it's because of her breasts or, above all, because of it.