While most gentleman know that the perfect shaped breast is whatever the one in your hand, Patrick Mallucci, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at University College London and the Royal Free Hospitals conducted a study to find a more acute answer. The surgeon studied 100 glamour models (which sounds like a hugely outdated term but I guess it’s appropriate or at least more so than “bitches who show their tits in magazines for money”) to find out “what it is that makes readers find these breasts appealing to the eye, and whether there is a common theme between them that might define that”.
Titled Concepts In Aesthetic Breast Dimensions: Analysis Of The Ideal Breast, Mallucci’s study analysed the breasts of 100 topless models and came up with this.
‘We used computer measuring tools to examine the dimensions and proportions of each pair of breasts, identifying four features common to all of them,’ he explains.
The features analysed were the dimensions of the upper and lower pole, medical terms that describe the areas above and below the nipple; plus the angle at which the nipple points and the slope of the upper pole.‘The study revealed that in all cases the nipple ‘‘meridian’’ – the horizontal line drawn at the level of the nipple – lay at a point where, on average, the proportion of the breast above it represented 45 per cent of overall volume of the breast and below it 55 per cent.
‘In the majority of cases the upper pole was either straight or concave, and the nipple was pointing skywards at an average angle of 20 degrees. In all cases the breasts demonstrated a tight convex lower pole – a neat but voluminous curve.‘For the second part of the study I analysed images of the breasts of ordinary women pre- and post- implant surgery to establish whether, if a breast deviates from these measurements, it becomes less attractive. And the answer is that it does, regardless of size.’
For the first time plastic surgeons now have a powerful visual imagery of the proportions that make a breast attractive. ‘Now we can show women images to highlight shape and form that will actually give them what they want,’ says Mallucci.
