Introducing Allure: The Science of Beauty

Growing up, Stephanie Germino was aware that her family had a history of carrying the BRCA gene mutation, even though it wasn’t openly discussed in her household. Her mother and her aunt had preventative double mastectomies and opted for implants; her maternal grandmother had breast cancer twice. At the time, the potential consequences of testing positive for the BRCA mutation seemed pretty manageable, because, according to Germino, she was “an ignorant child who didn’t like her body” and was interested in getting her boobs done anyway.

“I really wasn’t speaking a lot about my personal life in my younger years,” Raven-Symoné told Jessica Cruel, editor in chief of Allure and host of the Perspectives podcast. But that’s changing now. Raven details the different pressures she endured as a young woman in the entertainment industry, from close scrutiny of the food she ate to the explicit expectation that she’d conform to a hyper-feminine aesthetic. For her, breasts are intimately connected to body image and weight management; she talks about shopping for hours in a day, afraid to go in the men’s section where she thought she’d find more comfortable options, instead looking for hard-to-find women’s clothes that would fit her breasts and her hips. Raven had two breast reductions before she turned 20, which she now regrets because, she says, “It was hastily done,” adding, “I wish I was stronger to say no.”

Dr. Lisa Cassileth is a breast surgeon in Beverly Hills, which, according to her, means encountering “so many bad boob jobs.” But repairing someone else’s questionable handiwork happens to be one of Dr. Cassileth’s specialties, along with innovative reconstructions and other thoughtful surgical developments that prioritize positive patient outcomes and well-being. Dr. Cassileth was the first female chief of plastic surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and has started two practices of her own.

Ericka Hart is in the next phase of her lifelong sex education. Starting as a curious and resourceful teenager, looking for answers to supplement her abstinence-only sex-ed class, Hart built on her knowledge when she was diagnosed, at 28, with breast cancer. Until her diagnosis, Hart had never really thought about her breasts. “They really felt like they were in service to other people,” she says. That changed post-treatment when she went topless at a music festival in 2016, publicly displaying her mastectomy scars: “I just wanted people…to see me and my scars, and to see what breast cancer looks like in Black, queer, and trans people.” She also wanted to challenge the cultural default that desexualizes cancer survivors. People would tell Hart over and over that she was so inspiring, which was nice, but, she adds, “I’m also pretty hot.”

You can’t talk about breasts without talking about bras. So Jessica Cruel, Allure’s editor in chief, went to the source: Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Dr. Steele is a pioneer in the field of fashion studies and that the clothes we wear–and what we wear underneath them–merit serious attention. She’s also the author of a book tracing the cultural history of the corset and how it influenced the development of other shapewear. Cue: the bra.