Is butt cleavage having a moment?
WORDS BY KAYA MARTIN
The crack is back.
These days, there’s nothing that captures our attention quite as much as an early 2000s comeback. Case in point: flip phones, velour tracksuits, Bennifer, hot pink everything and slogan baby tees. We just can’t seem to stop rooting around through our rhinestone-studded photo albums and dredging up trends from the deep.
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Now it seems one of the most controversial styles of that glitzy decade is orbiting back around. That’s right, butt cleavage. Since another one of our collective obsessions is a juicy derrière, it was really just a matter of time before we ended up here.
What is butt cleavage?
I’m so glad you asked. According to Urban Dictionary, my very professional journalistic source, butt cleavage is “The space between the cheeks of your butt, when the cheeks are squeezed together”. Basically, it’s a little bit of booty that peeks out of your pants. Typically it’s the top part, although there are a few brave pioneers who are paving the way for under-butt cleavage as well.
Cat Quinn, the Executive Director of Trend at MAC Cosmetics, was among the first to clock the resurgence with her viral TikTok. She believes we have the low-rise trend to thank (or blame) for bringing back the crack.
@catquinn Butt cleavage, yay or nay? 🍑 #y2k #oscars #oscarsathome #y2kaesthetic #y2kfashion #lowrise #backlessdress #buttcleavage #lowerbacktattoo #haileybieber #zendaya #zoekravitz #huntershafer ♬ Toxic – Britney Spears
Gone are the days of the comfy mum jeans; now it’s all about the pieces that have us worried one misstep may reveal it all. That teenie-tiny Miu Miu mini comes to mind, as well as Julia Fox’s recent ultra-low pair of leather pants by designer Liza Keane (what are we calling that – pube cleavage?).
“Once low-rise jeans, butterfly clips, and lipgloss made their comeback, I knew butt cleavage was closely behind,” she tells me. “It’s one of the fun, sexy byproducts of low-rise jeans popularised by Y2K icons like Britney, Christina, Rihanna, Halle Berry and Paris Hilton (they had to blur out her butt cleavage on The Simple Life!).”
She explains that butt cleavage in the form of scandalising backless dresses has been a “calling card of Hollywood femme fatales” starting way back in the days of burlesque. Cat’s “personal queen” of butt cleavage is Vikki Dougan, an American model in the 1950s who was known for her lower-than-low backless dresses. Cat tells me Vikki was even banned from parties because her signature gowns drew too much attention. I guess she was just ahead of her time by 50, maybe 70 years.
Bringing it back
According to Cat, there’s ample evidence that the trend is having a comeback. “Once modern Y2K cool girls started bringing it back in recent years – see Hailey Bieber in Alexander Wang at the 2019 Met, Kim Kardashian in the 1997 Gucci thong, and Alexa Demie in Akna at the 2019 Euphoria season one premiere – it was only a matter of time before it hit mainstream. [Plus] we saw butt cleavage on the runways of Givenchy, Fenty, Jacquemus, Versace and more in recent years.”
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In her TikTok video, she mentions this year’s Oscars weekend also saw a wave of deep backless gowns, sported by the likes of Hunter Schafer and Zoe Kravitz. Last year, Savage X Fenty dropped a polarising line that bared it all – or almost all. Two pieces from the collection caused quite a stir. One was a pair of crotchless pastel purple leggings that featured lace-up detailing up the crack, and the other was an assless pair of blue tartan pyjama pants.
Despite being lingerie, which by nature tends to be pretty revealing, these garments wreaked havoc among the good people of the internet. Some thought they were cute, others were shocked and appalled.
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Cat says she got similar feedback on her video. “It’s super interesting because when I posted the video on TikTok, my younger audience absolutely loved it and told me they were already rocking it,” she says. “But when I posted it on Instagram, my millennial and Gen X followers were horrified. They lived through that phase – some still have the permanent proof on their lower backs – and don’t plan to bring it back.”
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Speaking of permanent proof, she tells me that logically tramp stamps will follow close behind. Thankfully these days we have high-quality temporary tattoo technology which means we can show off a little tribal-print heart back there for a festival without having to live with it for the rest of our lives.
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Cat predicts whale tales will be swinging around again as well. “We’ve spotted them on celebrities over the last few years and lately I’m being served tons of ads for decorative g-strings and body chains,” she tells me. “When I was in high school, we’d buy five-for-$30 bejewelled thongs at Charlotte Russe in the mall. Now they’re a lot higher-end, ranging in decorative hearts, charms, lots of zodiac signs, and more.”
So it seems the time has come to shuffle around in our older cousin’s closet, brush the dust off the lowest cut item she still has and in the tradition of generations past, disappoint our parents once more. Ready or not, we may be peeking a lot more cheek in the months to come.
For more on the butt cleavage trend, try this.
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