Cleavage

Julia Roberts is in New York for the release of her latest film, "Erin Brockovich," opening Friday. Dressed in a knit wool purple dress that accentuates every curve of her tall, willowy figure, she's just given an uproarious performance at a press conference. Joking, cursing, referring to questioners as "Hon," speaking straight-forwardly and with intelligence on a variety of topics, Roberts seems like a younger version of Ann Richards, the hugely entertaining former governor of Texas.

"Screen Test. " A comedy starring Michael Allan Bloom, Robert Bundy, Paul Lauken and David Simpetico. Written (with Laura Auster), directed by Sam Auster. Photographed by Jeff Jur. Edited by Carol Lastman. Music by Don Harrow. Running time: 84 minutes. A Fairpoint release. Evenings at Midtown, Broad at Chestnut. What is supposed to be a teenage fantasy instead comes off as a middle-aged wet dream. "Screen Test" is one of those lurid concoctions, not unlike "Porky's," made by people who think they know what youth is all about.

Color me curious. I've just read a scintillating little piece about the so-called lighter side of environmentalism (I'd call it the lighter side of lunacy, but that's just me), about a Norwegian woman who is using the "cleavage between her breasts" (as opposed to the cleavage someplace else?) to incubate a bird's egg, which is "believed to be a curlew," the report tells us. The "former midwife" (who presumably must really miss the whole birth thing) believes that the egg will hatch "in several weeks' time," but until that happy moment arrives, she'll keep the egg in her cleavage, "even when sleeping at night.

CHRISTINE Flowers (op-ed, "Milking the System," Oct. 12) has a legitimate argument that a nursing mother was awarded an overly generous accommodation on a medical licensing exam. But her comment should have been limited to just "some practitioners" when she said that the decision regarding breast-feeding gives "us an idea of the fanaticism of its practitioners. " I have no doubt that her comment reflects disapproval of breast-feeding in public. She is obviously offended by the exposed breasts, but a trip to the supermarket reveals an awful lot of cleavage on display - often, a lot more flesh is exposed there than by a nursing mother.

If Russ Meyer ever makes another film - and it would be his first since the 1979 release of Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens, featuring the continental shelves of Flovilla Thatch, Lola Langusta and Kitten Natividad - the 72-year-old director has a scene he dearly yearns to shoot. It would be a homage to Hitch's North by Northwest, only, of course, with a unique Meyeresque spin. "I've always wanted to have crop dusters attacking people in the fields spraying insecticide on them as they wrestle around having sex," he chuckles.

Last week, Debralee Lorenzana filed a lawsuit against Citibank alleging that she was terminated from her job as a teller for wearing turtlenecks, wrap dresses, and pencil skirts. What? Come again? Executives at the banking giant called her tailored clothing "too distracting," she said. Lorenzana, who is attractive in a very Eva Longoria way, certainly looks sexy in photos posted on the New York Daily News website, but her clothing fits just fine. I can't help but sympathize because, as a curvy girl myself, I know how hard it is to find clothing that suits my body.

The days of bulging breasts smashed into teeny-tiny banded dresses in true Housewife form - whether Desperate, Atlanta, or Basketball - are done, done, done. Instead, the bit of breast we bare under unbuttoned shirts, V-neck sweaters, wrap dresses, and bustiers this summer and early fall will be more demure, classy, and sophisticated. "It's not all in-your-face anymore, but it's there," said Jené Luciani, style expert and author of the Bra Book . "That line - you know, boobs squished together?

Y OU CAN'T WALK around dressed up like a low-class woman I wrote those words in 2005 for a radio commentary on women's attire. Funny how they still ring true in 2010, especially in relation to Ines Sainz, an attractive reporter for Mexico's TV Azteca who allegedly was sexually harassed after she wore skintight jeans in a locker room full of naked athletes. Various male and female pundits have already weighed in on this, claiming that female sports reporters should be treated as professionals no matter what they are wearing, no matter how they carry themselves, and no matter where they are in proximity to naked men. I say that's hogwash.

In a city where love and dignity precede money only in the dictionary, Axel Danielson is waving at his ex-wife as she is carried around a large Roman bath by five greased-down studs in greased-up bikinis. Axel is 81 years old, wears a rumpled black tuxedo and a baby-blue shirt with more ruffles than a gang of peacocks in a hurricane, and owns, maybe, only half of Sweden. His ex-wife is Romina Danielson. She is 24 years old, celebrating the release of her first rock video, and displaying cleavage, maybe, only half the size of Sweden.

Employing the highest possible technology, scientists at Victoria's Secret this week unleashed the Click Miracle Bra that adjusts for three intensities of cleavage by pulling the cups closer together. Stand back. Level one looks good in the office, providing just enough enhancement to fill out a business suit. Level two might be good for an after-work dinner date. Level three can be clicked on if the date is going particularly well. So now a single bra allows a woman to go from colleague to coquette without changing her undergarment.

The days of bulging breasts smashed into teeny-tiny banded dresses in true Housewife form - whether Desperate, Atlanta, or Basketball - are done, done, done. Instead, the bit of breast we bare under unbuttoned shirts, V-neck sweaters, wrap dresses, and bustiers this summer and early fall will be more demure, classy, and sophisticated. "It's not all in-your-face anymore, but it's there," said Jené Luciani, style expert and author of the Bra Book . "That line - you know, boobs squished together?

Y OU CAN'T WALK around dressed up like a low-class woman I wrote those words in 2005 for a radio commentary on women's attire. Funny how they still ring true in 2010, especially in relation to Ines Sainz, an attractive reporter for Mexico's TV Azteca who allegedly was sexually harassed after she wore skintight jeans in a locker room full of naked athletes. Various male and female pundits have already weighed in on this, claiming that female sports reporters should be treated as professionals no matter what they are wearing, no matter how they carry themselves, and no matter where they are in proximity to naked men. I say that's hogwash.

DEAR ABBY: I am writing about the letter from "Can't Believe My Eyes," who is bothered by the amount of cleavage women display everywhere. I have heard many negative comments in the workplace regarding women's tasteless attire. But most of the remarks I hear come from other women in stores while we try to shop for clothes. They are shocked at how little there is to buy that is "decent" to wear. They, as well as I, are tired of having to buy tank tops to wear under shirts or dresses that are cut too low or are too short.

Last week, Debralee Lorenzana filed a lawsuit against Citibank alleging that she was terminated from her job as a teller for wearing turtlenecks, wrap dresses, and pencil skirts. What? Come again? Executives at the banking giant called her tailored clothing "too distracting," she said. Lorenzana, who is attractive in a very Eva Longoria way, certainly looks sexy in photos posted on the New York Daily News website, but her clothing fits just fine. I can't help but sympathize because, as a curvy girl myself, I know how hard it is to find clothing that suits my body.

It was, in a word used Thursday by chief executive officer James P. Fogarty, a controversy over cleavage . And boy, did it get the company that owns Lane Bryant some buzz. A commercial featuring a plus-size model in slinky lingerie aired during American Idol in late April and May, but only after a full-blown dustup over whether the ad, with skin shots galore, should be edited. "It was a gorgeous ad, very exciting," Fogarty said in an interview after the company that owns Lane Bryant, Charming Shoppes Inc., of Bensalem, released its quarterly earnings Thursday.

CHRISTINE Flowers (op-ed, "Milking the System," Oct. 12) has a legitimate argument that a nursing mother was awarded an overly generous accommodation on a medical licensing exam. But her comment should have been limited to just "some practitioners" when she said that the decision regarding breast-feeding gives "us an idea of the fanaticism of its practitioners. " I have no doubt that her comment reflects disapproval of breast-feeding in public. She is obviously offended by the exposed breasts, but a trip to the supermarket reveals an awful lot of cleavage on display - often, a lot more flesh is exposed there than by a nursing mother.

From time to time, we will run excerpts from columnist Dick Polman's blog, "Dick Polman's American Debate. " Watch this page for Polman high points - and check out the blog. Let us quickly stipulate that Cleavage-gate (in which Hillary Clinton is alleged to have worn a low-cut blouse on the Senate floor, thus prompting a fashion critique in the Washington Post) does not rank with Iraq or health care as an issue crucial to the future of the republic. But the fallout has been instructive - not just about the glass-house nature of contemporary politics, but about the way the Clinton campaign operates.

Summer of '65, New York. Offices of Cosmopolitan, a stodgy intellectual magazine seemingly headed for oblivion but for a historic makeover that would soon be heard in bedrooms 'round the world. For her first cover, newly appointed editor Helen Gurley Brown, 43, wanted gorgeous. "Sensationally beautiful," Brown recalled. But not the imperious fashion-model look. More inviting. And then there was another issue. "Immediately, I thought about cleavage," Brown said in a recent interview.

She was the man-eater from Manayunk who reveled in imprisoning hunky, half-clad males in her haunted condo there. Her dress-popping cleavage was eye-popping. But heaven help the man who got too close a look. She was Stella, the vampiress and daughter of desire, who from 1984 to 1990 hosted the Grade B, or lower, horror films on KYW-TV's post-midnight Saturday Night Dead. Her campy, vampy shtick made her a local cult celebrity. It was in the era of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, on the West Coast, and followed in the footsteps of Roland (later and better known as Zacherley)

Look out, Oprah, Rosie and Martha. There's a new egomaniac on the magazine racks. Gene Simmons Tongue, the quarterly that premiered this week, is aimed at bad boys who don't need no stinkin' apostrophe for permission to ogle barely clothed women anxious to pay tribute to Kiss' legendarily loutish bass player. Don't let that mission statement fool you. We're talking publishing landmark here. With a foldout cover on which Hugh Hefner, 76, and Simmons, 52, bookend five nearly indistinguishable former Playboy centerfolds, Tongue's debut issue signals the historic introduction of celebrity-branding into the rapidly Maxim-ized men's magazine market.