BackWhite-collar jab
Protruding collarbones involve good gym routines, great styling, a glossy moisturizing cream and good genes
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Men are gawkers. They usually get stuck in the superstructure. Women are like engineers. They will check out the infra. When Deepika Padukone shows her protruding collarbones—she rocked in her rock-star outfit at the Indian Premier League ceremony last week and looked ravishing in a diaphanous white sari worn with an embellished scoop blouse for a TV appearance some time back—men will gawk. But like film-maker Kathryn Bigelow, who had a cat cross the path of a doomed terrorist in her recent film, other women will make minute observations riding on a slanted glance at Miss Padukone’s enviable collarbones.
Anatomically termed the clavicle, C bones really are cantilevers. They are the supports that top-hold the upper body. And, like postmodern architecture, the idea is to reveal how they work. So the smooth adipose tissue that covers the clavicle must be stripped to reveal the infrastructure. This stripping is nuanced: It involves good gym routines, great styling, a glossy moisturizing cream and above all, good genes. You cannot embellish what you do not have.
While British actor Keira Knightley has been the most known devotee of the protruding collarbone, many Indian female stars—Kangna Ranaut, Anushka Sharma, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor—are busy making the clavicle the new cleavage.
But are collarbones about thinness or fitness? Many can go on a starvation diet but can anyone pull out a bone in the right place? Can cosmetic surgery build non-existing collarbones from scratch? How many kilos must a healthy person first lose for the clavicle’s rise? Actor Sridevi, the former owner of thunder thighs, too has visible collarbones now but she just looks sensitively starved. And we can only hope that actor Madhuri Dixit doesn’t start cultivating the clavicle to pair with the gowns she now favours.
In the competition between a woman’s bust and her C bones, the former has been far more popular. The area above the cleavage and below the neck has hardly engaged women (and presumably, most men). Sexual attraction, sensuality, drape, fertility or artistic allure, boobs take the cake, while the neck holds its own as a fiery erogenous zone.
The story changes in the glamour world where carefully thinned-out celebrities and gaunt models give the clavicle its true calling. They make strapless gowns, scoop tops and glittering chokers a “must-have". Collarbones—like the stunning ones of models Lakshmi Menon and Tinu Varghese—are to be displayed proudly. God given yet exercise-blessed, they imply commitment and hard work, raising respect for the owner. Clavicle-enhancing surgery or shoulder liposuction (perfect C bones must ride smoothly up to the shoulder) is available but Delhi’s most sought-after plastic surgeon says he has never tried it yet for cosmetic reasons. Yet if you ask gym trainers anywhere or surf the Net, collarbones are hot. There are hundreds of sites on diets and exercises on how to get a bony clavicle or lose weight around the shoulders; why, you can even get Kareena Kapoor’s type.
Ever since US first lady Michelle Obama raised the collarbone bar in her strapless Naeem Khan gown at the Oscars this year, a clavicle hierarchy has been trending. Former Spice Girl, model and designer Victoria Beckham’s starved C bones are apparently out, folks; Obama’s gym-toned ones are in. A strict, low-carb diet with push-ups, chest presses, dumb-bell flys (in half recline on the bench) three times a week may help you discover yours but only if you have never been plump. Should you spot your C-bones, try Marni dresses and tops (the brand’s designer Consuelo Castiglioni has always loved this body part) and Tarun Tahiliani’s sexy sari blouses. Scoop T-shirts by Zara and Mango Basics are good, affordable bets, as are ready-to-wear boat-neck tunics.
While you are at it, course through journalist Courtney E. Martin’s book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body and try not to laugh (at yourself). For if you do, you won’t be able to keep your cheeks sucked in—that stance, we are told, enhances the charm of protruding collarbones.
The Body is a monthly column on the body’s language in fashion.
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