I tried the Kim Kardashian boob tape trick

Ahead of my trip to London, a close friend bought me an ill-timed birthday present: a gorgeous black velvet jumpsuit with a plunging neckline. I set out to place it in the back of my closet to join the list of risqué items off limits for women with boobs anything over a B cup. But then I reconsidered. This was the kind of outfit you’d wear while drinking a whisky sour at a club in Mayfair looking badass as hell. And that is exactly what I wanted for myself. Five minutes after that empowering thought, my new possession had been neatly packed into my suitcase.

As a stylist, I have had my fair share of experience with under-the-clothes wizardry. No flaccid silicones were going to work for a neck so deep you could almost see the navel. Nipple covers might do the trick but would not provide the support I was looking for. I was almost at my wit’s end when I applied the one rule any busty girl in my place would: What Would Kim Kardashian West Do?

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As always, she had it all figured out. The Kim Kardashian boob tape technique involves using a tape to create a makeshift bra that gives you gravity-defying cleavage. You have to lift each breast and begin taping from underneath until you build up enough heft. Start from the outside and keep working your way in until you cover the nipple. While this trick can be pulled off with sports or gaffer tape, after some preliminary research, I chose the latter. If it’s sturdy enough to be used for industrial work, it’s good enough to hold the girls.

All that anticipation and one confusing hardware store purchase later, the night of the party boobs had arrived. The plan was to catch up with a work friend over drinks at Soho House (for which I had to be dressed responsibly) before making a quick change into my siren suit and heading out for the night. So there I was, one hour and three (okay 5) glasses of wine down, in the Soho House toilet armed with a scissor and ready to deploy Kim’s now-not-so-secret weapon: gaffer tape. I started ticking items off the boob tape checklist: making sure my skin wasn’t sweaty or oily, and conducting a small arm-patch test to check if I was allergic to the glue (which, by the way, should be tried way earlier). Warning: Do not attempt this for the first time when you are a few drinks down.

Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the cubicle to face the mirror and found two, mostly perfect, perky boobs looking back at me. It had worked better than any strapless/sticky bra I’d ever tried before. Pulling off the tape at the end of the night felt like I was being tortured in a medieval dungeon, but it was a small price to pay for dancing away my birthday feeling sexy and powerful with no wardrobe malfunctions.

Once back home in Mumbai, I liberated all the outfits from my wardrobe which had remained banned since I sprouted a chest in middle school. Thanks to the mistress of reinvention, Kim Kardashian, my self-conscious awkwardness had washed away faster than mascara on a rainy day. And my newly resuscitated party wardrobe is ever grateful.