I must... I must... improve my bust

After years of models with little more than two nipples floating on their ribcages, catwalks are overrun with girls with fabulous frontage.

It started with Mad Men and the newly crowned queen of bazooka breasts, Christina Hendricks.

The sight of her character Joanie's impressively trussed-up curves has fired the imaginations of designers worldwide.

Marc Jacobs has had a Damascene conversion to the bosom, as has fashion bible Love, which featured big-breasted beauties on a cover. "At Louis Vuitton we weren't just packing out the bras with the usual bust enhancers — we were shoving shoulder pads in there," Love editor and style priestess Katie Grand has confessed. "It takes a lot of underpinning to look that pneumatic."

This wardrobe trickery is good news for any girl staring at an A-cup. Even Marilyn Monroe's 37-23-36 curves were boosted by a bra which worked like a suspension bridge. When one of her bras was auctioned this year, it not only had extra straps for lift but an extra pair of outer cups to make her chest look bigger. Most cunningly, it only covered the underside of her breasts, making it look like she wasn't wearing a bra.

But where does the modern girl acquire the instant wherewithal to fill out the latest fashions?

Firstly, it's important to get properly fitted for a bra. I once went from a washboard 30A to a 28D with bows and lace merely by getting myself measured in Selfridges. Rigby & Peller also provides an excellent bra-fitting service. Then, when you have a bra that actually fits you, you can start fussing about with the humble "chicken fillet" — or as it is called, more politely, in bra circles, the "cookie" — which is pushed between boob and bra for extra uplift.

"I'll tell you a trick I learned in the circus," says Rachel Kenyon, designer at bespoke Hackney emporium Buttress & Snatch. "Gaffer tape. You hoist them up from underneath. I've worked a lot with trapeze girls and that's how they do it. It comes off because there aren't any hairs. If you had a hairy chest I wouldn't recommend it."

Kenyon, who has fashioned bras for Madonna, Kate Moss, Beth Ditto, Claudia Schiffer, Helena Bonham Carter and the performance artist Immodesty Blaize, has had overwhelming demands from women looking for lingerie that doesn't just come in 34B and C — the sizes most widely available in the high street. "If you have big breasts, the choice is too small. They're stuck with the bras that are big, frumpy and boring. It should be about making women feel beautiful."

However, Kenyon draws the line at surgery. "A friend of mine tells me that his girlfriend, who has implants, gets terribly cold breasts during the winter. It's so wrong. I'm a mum — that's an area made for warmth. I'd hate my little girl to grow up and get implants.

"I recommend getting a big bra, stuffing it with falsies — and if you have a date, just squirrelling it all into your handbag at the end of the evening."

HOW TO GET BOOBS LIKE JOANIE'S
Breast enhancers come in silicone and foam, shaped like an oval, a triangle and an egg, in full and half cups, priced £6.50 to £18.99 a pair. rararoom.com

Boobcamp, a free 30-minute audio exercise regime by Triumph lingerie to tone the muscles supporting the bust. It claims that, done regularly, it helps prevent a sagging bust line. Download from audiofuel.co.uk/triumph/boobcamp.html