Hong Kong advertisements are never subtle. There are dozens of billboards and posters pasted around the subway station, on street corners. Most are aimed at women. The most common are posters for weight loss, they show a slightly pudgy girl with a downcast expression. They even print her weight, before 55 kg and then after, blown up to life-size is the same girl at 49 kg! wearing a bikini and a radiant smile.
There are posters for cleavage enhancers, skin brighteners, facial reconstruction. The least subtle are the bra ads. The message of the bra ads is quite clear: padding. Revolutionary padding that is probably manufactured in the same factory as the shoulder pads that go into a football uniform. It is a mentality that also extends to swim suits, which have hard cone padded inserts that could provide floatation.
Anyway, there are even bras that have a sling that actually fits under the chest, pushing it upward, then it has these compression things that come in from the sides to push the bust together. Something out of nothing. It defies physics. The brands have names like Voila! Illusion! Triumph!
Triumph! I cannot breathe but I have created the semblance of a figure! The model's arms are raised like an olympic gymnast who has just stuck the landing. It sounds a lot like the method that I once read was used on Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. The producers taped her chest together to create a figure worthy of a southern belle. Apparently it cut off her circulation. Triumph!
At the risk of sounding like a shrill commentator, I wonder if Clark Gable should have had his own attempt at triumph. Some sort of anti-gravitational compressing insert/sling to make him look like he could properly fill out those tight pants of his.
Maybe I should invent one of those.
