I know that testosterone levels decline steadily from about the age of fifty, but ‘manopause’ doesn’t explain why I’ve watched so many period costume dramas on Netflix lately. Or why I’ve enjoyed them, goddammit!
Of course, there’s the cleavage. Explains why I love a good martini.
From a strictly scientific perspective, because I prefer a narrow, non-ptotic intermammarial cleft, if I could bring late-1700’s sexy back then all women would be corsetted to within an inch of syncope.
Yes, yes, blah blah. Speak to the hand, ladies! It’s the law!
But to compensate, you’d all get to bathe in warm goat’s milk or spinach juice or whatever, and there’d always be a eunuch nearby who complies with the 1:1.618 ratio and feeds you grapes and hums pleasantly at a constant 528 Hz.
I’m less thrilled by the men’s fashions, though. I’d look stupid down at the salon wearing extravagantly large lapels, lisping my r’s. I’ve never secretly wished to be confused for a musketeer. No doubt the lads were all literally spurting testosterone, but dandy kills it for me.
Thankfully, we’ve segued from the Bridgerton boobfest to the more sobering Le Bazar de la Charité (2019), where the only woman flaunting her jubblies so far is a burns victim. But the dudes! What the hell is that thing on Julien’s upper lip? And why are most French male names so effete? “Julie-enn” for fuck’s sake…
A hundred years before the fire which killed 126 well-dressed Parisiennes, the fashionista survivors of recently-guillotined aristocratic families held scandalous society balls dressed in tits-out Greco-Roman style, accessorised by red silk throat ribbons to mock their decapitated relatives.
While I haven’t seen a limited series on Netflix yet that does the Bals des victimes credit, I’m sure its coming. The ladies (Merveilleuses) outfits are bound to be eye-popping, and the gents (Incroyables) will just fill me with disgust. I will be glued.
Especially if Kirsten “My boobs are too big!” Dunst gets the lead before her intermammarial cleft blows out.
It does makes me wonder, though, if we aren’t robbing future generations of similar guilty pleasures. I mean, who in two hundred years will want to make a mini-series about ‘peak polar-fleece’?
More likely, given the way things are trending, they’ll be mourning the day the boobage died.