Cropped tops are a huge fashion trend for Summer 2014. Of course that means that your abs – and indeed your belly button – are front and center focal points. Fashion trends come and go and while belly buttons may be under wraps next summer, Harriet Posnak Lesser tracks the evolution of this umbilical fashion trend that’s popped up this season.
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What are the hot new fashion looks for summer? Wider pants, all things black and white, color blocking? It really doesn’t matter, as long as your belly button is showing.
Belly buttons are in this season – or out, depending upon the expertise of your mother’s obstetrician; but no matter what shape your navel is in, sharing it with the world is a fashion must. To appreciate this phenomenon, it’s important to understand the history of belly buttons and why they pop up every thousand years or so.
Herstorians tell us that it probably began with Salome and her dance of the seven veils. A fashion trend setter, with a talent for shaking things up, Salome gave a whole new meaning to navel maneuvers. Remember, this was one gal who knew how to get a head.
Then along came Cleopatra, who had been around the Nile a few times herself, if you know what I mean. She seduced Julius Caesar, famous Roman Emperor, and Mark Antony, famous salsa singer, with the provocative way she dressed. While Roman women were running around in the female equivalent of togas, Cleo was letting it all hang out. That fashion era ended when Cleopatra made an asp of herself and women went back to covering up.
No historical analysis would be complete without some little known facts. So here goes:
FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE BELLY BUTTONS
Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie Fame.
Barbie and Ken
Bugs Bunny
Little Orphan Annie (She hasn’t got eyeballs, either.)
Adam and Eve (Think about it.)
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH THE BIGGEST BBs.
The Teletubbies who were able to fit TV sets in theirs. (BTW. They’re baack!)
FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO SHOULD COVER THEIR BELLY BUTTONS
Sumo wrestlers
Miley Cyrus
Mickey Mouse
POP STARS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CURRENT BELLY BUTTON CRAZE INCLUDE …
Generation Why (!?) icons Britney Spears, Rihanna, and Christina Aguilera deserve the credit for bringing belly buttons back to prominence. Thanks to such fashion visionaries, women throughout the world are welcoming summer with flashing navels.
Everyone, but me, that is. I just haven’t got the stomach for it.
©2014 HARRIET POSNAK LESSER
ABOUT HARRIET POSNAK LESSER
Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.
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Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.