Who thinks perfect breasts are shaped like cocktail glasses?

May 27, 2007 10:21 PM

Writer who said, "Perfect breasts should be shaped like wine glasses" (or something to that effect)?

I remember reading this in a book some time ago. I'm thinking it's either Fitzgerald or Capote. The narrator was describing a nude woman (Kate McCloud? Damn you, Google Books Snippet View!) and he mentions a particular type of drinking vessel that implies favor for round, flat breasts (more like a martini glass, perhaps?), at least as far as I can remember. I was pretty sure it was a famous description, but I can't for the life of me find it...

posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson to writing & language (17 comments total)

Perhaps related to this.
posted by oflinkey at 10:32 PM on May 27, 2007

Might you be thinking of a reference to those who maintain that the wide/open, saucer-shape champagne "coupe" glass which some contend was modeled on the breast of Marie Antoinette?
posted by ericb at 10:35 PM on May 27, 2007

Or -- as (on preview) offlinkey mentions!!!
posted by ericb at 10:36 PM on May 27, 2007

*Might you be thinking of a reference to those who maintain that the wide/open, saucer-shape champagne "coupe" glass which some contend was modeled on the breast of Marie Antoinette?*

Next round is on me! Sailor, what be your poison?
posted by ericb at 10:39 PM on May 27, 2007

I'm a bit concerned about the stems and bases. That would look just weird.
posted by flabdablet at 11:02 PM on May 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

In Darkness at Noon Rubashov comments about a woman's perfect "breasts like champagne glasses".

(I read it in college and it threw me for a loop until I discovered not all champagne glasses were long and skinny.)
posted by small_ruminant at 12:11 AM on May 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

(The Rubashov character says he got the idea from a French song.)
posted by small_ruminant at 12:15 AM on May 28, 2007

And an interesting wikipedia article that says the Folies Bergere dance troupe had a champagne glass breast test.
posted by small_ruminant at 12:18 AM on May 28, 2007

I thought the quote came from Maurice Chevalier of the "Thank God for little girls fame."
posted by jadepearl at 3:42 AM on May 28, 2007

One line that I've heard repeated is:

In France a perfect breast fills a wine glass. In New York a perfect breast would clog a toilet.
posted by koolkat at 4:15 AM on May 28, 2007

That's a horrible metaphor. Presumably, whoever said it meant "shaped like the volume within wine glasses". I'd run if I met a girl with breasts that were actually shaped like wine glasses.
posted by grumblebee at 5:39 AM on May 28, 2007

In France a perfect breast fills a wine glass. In New York Los Angeles a perfect breast would clog a toilet.
posted by dame at 7:08 AM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

small_ruminant, it's possible I got the description from Darkness at Noon, a book I read around the same time I read the others. Perhaps the memory is faulty and is gluing some other characters in there after the fact.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 7:50 AM on May 28, 2007

I'm a bit concerned about the stems and bases. That would look just weird.
Burlesque from The Jetsons.
posted by jouke at 7:52 AM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

(It's still sort of bothering me because Rubashov isn't making any explicit claims about champagne-breasts being perfect. That seems more like a character out of Fitzgerald or Capote, or even Nabokov. Speak, memory!)
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 7:57 AM on May 28, 2007

it's champagne glasses
posted by caddis at 8:19 AM on May 28, 2007

Ken Follett's Night Over Water? (Amazon|Wikipedia)

I recall one of the female characters thinking the wine glass thought in her head.
posted by mysterious1der at 8:31 AM on May 28, 2007