The #FreeTheNipple campaign – “a reaction against censorship of the female nipple” – and its detractors (Get it off your chest, G2, 7 April) may well have had a precedent in Elizabethan England. Woodcut illustrations of ballad-sheets, such as the Roxburghe Ballads, depict what purports to be a courtly fad for topless fashion, but which could equally have been a cynical sales ploy.
The French ambassador diplomatically described seeing Queen Elizabeth dressed to reveal “the whole of her bosom” (“tout sa gorge”). Campaigners against such low-cut apparel railed against “these naked paps” with “their round, roseate buds immodestly [laid] forth” in unashamedly public display. Plus ça change…
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
