Fashion: Support for the Needy

Couturiers often seem to regard the bosom as an unsightly bit of female topography that must be bound and bandaged lest it get in the way of style; sometimes, like insanity in the family, the bosom even has been treated as a dark secret. But Christian Dior's Marc Bohan sent a little black dress down the runway at last summer's Paris collections that not only acknowledged the bosom but exposed it almost entirely. American buyers looked at the peep show cautiously, concluded it was a gag, not a trend. They were wrong. Women saw in the new decolletage the surest way to a man's eye and promptly began pulling the dresses off the racks. January's Paris collections took a deep breath and plunged to deep C level. The bosom is not only in; it is just about out.

But the new necklines can't go it alone, and undergarment manufacturers were heady with delight. Though the deep-cut bras put on the market last season were few and tentative, months of grappling with the problem have produced a collection of intricately structured and ingeniously conceived designs for the women who come flocking to the stores for support.

Mme. Adrienne's design ($25) dips waist-deep in both front and back; Formfit's Designer model ($9) is cut to accommodate the squared plunge; the Lady Marlene version ($11) drops only halfway, has vertical boning to shape a neat torso. Custom-made models sell for upwards of $35. For women of less ample means, Warner lines its demi-bra ($8) with contoured foam.

And for those who refuse to be harnessed at all, there is the classic movie-and-model dodge of adhesive tape (in Paris, the mannequins used Scotch tape) as well as small push-up forms that are pasted on under the bosom.