Variations of these harnesses, designed by one Bliss Lau, have been draping the breasts, torsos, shoulder blades and hips of New York City women in increasing number. “I feel really powerful when I wear one,” said Risa Knight, an exuberantly tattooed stylist, calling from L.A., where she was visiting for a shoot. “It makes you feel sexy. It’s kind of bitchy.” Ms. Knight said she owns about 80 percent of Ms. Lau’s collection—which includes 16 styles of brass chains tinted antique gold or pewter and that retail from $185 to $695—and has used them on clients such as the actress Mary-Kate Olsen and the singer Regina Spektor. “I have bondage stuff—that I wear, I don’t use it—and I feel it’s cheesy,” Ms. Knight said. “Bliss’ stuff is chic and classy, that’s where the power comes from. You wear it, and, I don’t want to say the F-word, but it’s like, ‘F*ck you! I’m wearing this. And it’s hot!’”

The chains have been sold since early last year at small venues like the popular East Village boutique Funky Lala, where MIA blasts over loudspeakers and shoppers are handed a glass of Champagne upon entry. (Two chains were recently shoplifted from Eva, a store in Nolita; perhaps the perpetrator imagined the mode of acquisition would accentuate the jewelry’s bad-ass element). “You can rock this with a wife beater and jeans going to get a beer, or do it up and wear it to the Oscars,” said Lala’s owner, Angela Lowe, brandishing a simple pewter number.

One might envision Ms. Lau as a vixen designer clenching a crop betwixt her teeth, toiling away in a studio as a Helmut Newton type snaps away, but she’s actually a sunny, petite, mellow 27-year-old from Hawaii: a classic beauty of Chinese and Irish descent with long, black hair. In her fluorescent-lit basement studio in Noho recently, Ms. Lau was wearing funky, gray Chie Mihara shoes, skintight jeans and a purple blouse—accentuated, of course, with one of her golden chain creations. Until now, she has been known primarily as a handbag designer, most notably of the cult favorite the Accordion Bag. “I’ve been obsessed with leather, forever,” she said. During one late working jag, she started stitching leather scraps onto a stray brass chain. Suddenly inspired by her own lovely clavicle, she created her first harness, which highlighted the collarbone.

Valentino Vettori, co-owner of Scatola Sartoriale, a showroom that carries primarily Italian designers and Vivienne Westwood, saw it on a designer friend, Lauren Felton, called Ms. Lau, and said he wasn’t interested in her bags, but wanted her to create a collection of her jewelry. “I spent hours and hours in the middle of the night with my mannequins and chains, draping,” Ms. Lau said. “I made some really weird, crazy stuff. I was running around screaming and dancing.”

She has reluctantly begun describing the pieces as “body jewelry,” for lack of a better phrase. “It’s, like, such a cacophonous word!” Ms. Lau said. “I feel like it says piercings and nose rings, belly chains—Mariah Carey, eeew, no!” In one motion she unlocked her necklace and wrapped it around it around her hips to demonstrate its multifunctionality. “It’s really just a new conceptual way of thinking about how to wear jewelry.”

As an assistant silently measured out brass chains in the corner, Ms. Lau glided around dress forms, tables piled with bags, and leather-laden shelves, pulling out pieces from her spring collection with names like “Pony Tail Top,” “Crossmyheart,” “Bolero” and “Loop Vest.” Barely visible rivets and leather tabs strategically connect arcs of chain in Ms. Lau’s subtler designs, while a butchy slab of leather running up the spine connect heavier chains in her dramatic “Cape.” One harness, “Ornament,” has its collar and hip chains linked by vertical torso chains: one up the front, four down the back. New spring leather colors are fuchsia, white and purple. Tags illustrate the different ways to wear each chain.

“It’s inevitable that it’s going to be perceived as bondage-inspired because it’s metal and leather,” Ms. Lau said. “I did start off with a very bondage-heavy concept; it’s kind of softened a bit. Some pieces more than others.” She picked up “Sleeve,” a slab of leather that rests over the shoulders, connecting webs of chains, like a shrug. “This is pretty wild. I mean, this isn’t your average girl. But it’s fun, it’s about not taking it so seriously.”

“Some buyers say, ‘It’s a little sadomasochist,’” said Herman Solomon, Ms. Lau’s rep at Scatola. But who ever said New York women were about angora pom-poms, huh?

“You need to have a strong personality,” said Ms. Dunlop, the party guest, “to wear something like this.”

To the long list of things making New York City more homogenous—funky brownstones razed in preparation for high-rise condos, chain-store franchises displacing neighborhood favorites—add women’s breasts.

Have you noticed? Increasingly, the ladies of this town have been sporting remarkably similar pairs of perfect, pert globes: rounder, higher and larger than ever before. There has been an absence of breast individuality such as lace, seams, overflow, jiggle, signs of gravitational pull and, most notably, nipple.

The flawless orbs that have been parading around the city are achieved by strapping on a “lined,” “T-shirt,” or “contour” bra. These are marketing terms for what is essentially a modern padded bra. This is not the quilted number of years past, but rather a smooth, immaculate device with foam-infused breast cups. Each cup is preformed, creepily having the same shape on or off the body. These lined bras have eased out simple cotton, silk or lace bras, and comprise about 90 to 95 percent of the bras for sale in Victoria’s Secret, the Gap, or any of the mainstream department stores.

“I always try and push them, because it gives a better lift and you don’t see the nipples peeking through,” said Heather, a young lingerie saleswomen in mod makeup, a black mini-dress and furry boots who was working at Saks Fifth Avenue’s lingerie department the other day, holding a hanger with two silky but sturdy cups dangling from straps. Her colleague, Carolina, concurred: “A lot of women have problems with their”—and here her voice dropped to a whisper—“nipples showing.”

Amid the endless racks of protruding breast cups and in the Victoria’s Secret store on lower Fifth Avenue, saleswomen Chrystal Toppin explained: “These bras hide the nipples. It is a trend. A lot of women don’t want to protrude and attract the wrong kind of attention.”

For women who have never particularly noticed or cared if a little nipple shows when a cool breeze passes, or haven’t wanted to mask their natural shape, this trend has made bra-shopping a tedious, expensive affair. And many men are baffled.“It’s absurd!” exclaimed Luca, a handsome Italian mathematician who makes ample time for socializing. “Women here have their breasts on a platter, but then no nipple.” Luca theorized that women in New York City are caught in a negative-reinforcement loop. “Manufactures see that a sizable population want this kind of bra, so now there isn’t anything else to buy. Women have started to believe shop assistants when they suggest hiding the nipple is good.”

Asset Management

It’s not just the camouflage of this crucial bit of tissue that is confounding men, but the illusion of general greater endowment, perhaps unseen since the falsies of the 1950’s, that these underpinnings universally impart. “I’ve been disappointed when I’ve taken one of those bras off,” said Christian, a 45-year-old artist-photographer who declared himself “passionate” about the subject. He went on: “I’ve had to try and hide my look of surprise. It’s not a deal breaker or anything, but the shape, the size, is many times different than one might have anticipated.”

When asked if the lined bra has made the breasts of New York City lose their uniqueness, department store saleswomen chorused no. They countered that each design is cut differently, offering a different breast shape. Yet The Observer’s investigation suggests that the only “difference” amounted to the perfect mounds being pushed higher, lower, inward or outward.

What’s curious is the lack of protest by women who don’t want their breasts to look like everyone else’s. The average bra buyer is seemingly oblivious or indifferent to breast homogenization. “I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it, “ said one young woman at the Gap, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t think too many women go around analyzing breasts.”

Some women have even made the conscious choice to wear the lined bra, such as a 38-year-old petite, buxom portfolio strategist who declined to give her name as she works (oh the irony!) in a major asset management company. She unapologetically called her breasts “corporate boobs,” and likened her bras to shields. “I don’t want to walk by the guys in sales and feel vulnerable,” she said with a reluctant laugh. “I think it’s about control. You can’t control your nipples. I hated days when I’d catch a reflection of myself and see my nipples. I felt betrayed.”

Even Calvin Klein, a company known since its inception for sexy, edgy designs and advertising, has its version of the lined bra. In a sleek, lustrous showroom at Calvin Klein Underwear in the garment district, VP of design Mireille Gindrey noted that the company’s best-selling bra in the U.S. has indeed been the smooth, padded cup. “I do think it’s cultural,” said Ms. Gindrey, originally from France, sitting next to Emily Bohonos, director of marketing, who nodded in agreement. “It has to do with modesty and comfort. But you can achieve an ultra-sexy bra, even if it’s simple and smooth.”

Both of the elegantly dressed women animatedly described intriguing global marketing bra trends but grew uncomfortably silent when asked why women in New York, a city that carries a reputation for individuality, seem to be content with generic breasts.

“Wrong attention,” Ms. Gindrey finally said quietly, adding that here, attention can be a form of aggression. “While in France, if a man gives a look, I might think, ‘Oh, I must look good today!’” she laughed.

Ms. Bohonos added that many of today’s residents of New York are interested in luxury living and “trading up,” contributing to the general feeling of conformity, including the breast. Think of it as the W hotelization of the decolletage.

Protesting the Padding

But thankfully, New York City still has corners—and cleavage—that gentrification has yet to reach.

In her basement studio-showroom on West 15th Street, surrounded by hanging lace bras and garter belts in fluorescent colors, amid the sounds of sewing machines churning away, rebel lingerie designer Deborah Marquit reflected on her philosophy of simply decorating a woman’s figure and her outright rejection of designing a padded bra.

“I love making lacy, sexy bras for a 32A chest,” Ms. Marquit said. “I see the woman say, ‘I love it. I never thought I could wear a bra like this!’ There is something about flaws—having a little cellulite, wrinkles, being a little fat, it’s way more sexy. Do I think all breasts are beautiful? Honestly, no. But you can beautify what you have.”

Ms. Marquit, 53, a native New Yorker, has been designing lingerie for 23 years, and her collections have sold at Barneys, among other high-end stores. She said that the proliferation of padded bras has to do with cheap manufacturing costs—they are almost all made in China—but suggested also that it’s a reflection of the current state of our culture.“My feeling is that these days, rather than someone like Janis Joplin being revered, idolized, it’s more about the shoe or the bag of the moment,” she said. “It’s about labels, names, branding. Everyone has their hair straightened, the perfect jeans, the right cellphone and accessories. It’s almost like New York is turning into L.A.; there is a lack of acceptance of natural self.” Though New York women do not appear to be embracing surgical implants with the same zeal as their sisters in the West … yet?

“I see a lot of women’s bodies; there was this one beautiful woman here recently, and she wanted implants,” said Ms. Marquit, dressed in all black, with unruly red hair. “I told her not to come back if she got them.”

Holly Copeland, a former Rockette who’s now a stylist, has asked her models to take their padded bras off when styling fashion shoots. “But when I’ve worked with celebrities, I always have to have one on hand,” she said. “It’s almost taboo to have any of that showing.” Moreover, she remarked, “everyone wants to have bigger boobs. Victoria’s Secret makes it easy to get big boobs without surgery.”

But on the front lines of bra sales at La Petite Coquette, the downtown lingerie shop with a loyal following, a recent, hopeful shift has been felt by the sales staff. “Women are tired of looking like everyone else,” said proprietor Rebecca Apsan in a husky voice. She was surrounded by lacy bras, panties, silken robes, and boudoir-like props.“There is a decline now,” in the padded bra, Ms. Apsan added, “because women want to be more natural. Women are doing something underneath that makes them feel feminine.”

“We’re still selling them,” conceded store manager Martina Solej, “but I find lately, women want to be sexier. It’s changing little by little.” Ms. Solej recounted a client she had earlier that day, barely able to contain her joy. A businesswoman had renounced her padded bra, literally throwing it out in the garbage. The client made huge waves in the store when, according to Ms. Solej and many of the saleswomen, she declared, “‘Screw it! Give me a lacy bra. I’m going to let them see that, yeah, I might be the only woman here, and I’m professional—and I’m wearing a lace bra!’”

Under the front door’s bright lights, three burly bouncers dwarfed a compact French man in a blue military cap, Pierre Battu, the 39-year-old expat from France and the mastermind behind French Tuesdays, a roving Francophile social club that meets every other Tuesday and has become a sort of dating buffet for New York’s single women.

Mr. Battu moved the crowd toward the door and greeted members as old friends: “ Salut!” “ Bonjour!” Lots of kisses on both cheeks—though not for three French men who arrived in jeans, not in accordance with the “business chic” dress code. Mr. Battu eventually allowed them in with a curt “But next time, you will not be let in.”

A humorless French doorman with an earpiece stood nearby with a laptop and asked for people’s ID’s, to check names against the membership list. Mr. Battu estimates that 85 percent of French Tuesdays’ 3,700 members are single, and a great majority are non-American. At the parties, over half the crowd appears to be French.

Inside, Pacha’s dance floor overflowed as seizure-inducing strobe lights pulsed through a fog of dry ice. Rumps bumped against groins, thighs nestled into crotches, and a three-person dance sandwich went at it. Women wore long stiletto boots and skirts stretched over taut butts. The men sported slightly grown-out hair, suits, small leather shoes and expensive watches. People on the edges of the dance floor sipped flutes of champagne and politely smiled at the three garish rent-a-trannies who made the rounds. One heard French, English, Spanish, Italian and German.

“I finally found what I was looking for: thousands of French men,” said a 35-year-old artist with big blue eyes named Liz. “French men are, in general, more relaxed. My guard is down; I don’t have to prove anything, unlike with New York men, where I feel like I have to give them my age, what I do for a living and my salary.”

French expats not involved with French Tuesdays have rolled their eyes at the mention of it, but this underground circuit seems to be something of an ego-soothing haven for single women in their late 30’s and 40’s who either want to rope in and hogtie themselves a real, live European man or just want to flirt with one.

As the throbbing bass notes to “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” by the French group Modjo pounded, ties were loosened, jackets got tossed aside, and faces turned shiny with sweat. Several members snatched up the straw cowboy hats that Mr. Battu had passed out as party favors and donned them proudly as they danced in earnest.

Pascal, a 35-year-old Parisian who’s been an investment banker in New York for seven years, was dressed in black cashmere with a chunky silver thumb ring. He busted flamenco-inspired moves on the floor.

“It’s the French paradigm that if you are older, you can still be sexy,” Pascal said later in lightly accented English. “America really is a youth-obsessed culture. Older women here might think, ‘Oh, I’m past my prime,’ but I find it interesting that they always have a great time at French Tuesdays. There are men who dress well, have manners, know how to have conversations and dance.”

Freshly bronzed from a West Indies cruise, Pascal said he was a bit taken aback by the enthusiasm from American women at French Tuesdays.

“I’m not saying I don’t like the attention, but sometimes it comes off as being really aggressive to me,” he said. Europeans, he claimed, are more relaxed about the opposite sex. “The word ‘dating’ is still a foreign concept to me,” he said. Whenever he has casually asked an American woman if she’d like to “get together,” he said, the response has been—he mimicked a nasal American accent—“You mean, like a date?”

Indeed, American women are somewhat of a mystery to Pascal.

“I argue a lot with some of my female colleagues,” he said. “I was showing pictures of my trip in the West Indies and, you know, I wear Speedos. They were so shocked. They were like, ‘Men are not supposed to wear those!’ I was like, ‘Leave me alone!’ I found myself almost being militant about it. There is a double standard with American women: They complain that American men are so boring, vanilla, not into their feminine side, but somehow if American men start making an effort in that way, the women start repressing them. Then don’t complain!”

With the sweaty sea of attractive foreign women who dance and drink away every other Tuesday, New York’s single men should be lining up. But so far, they aren’t. “We’re too Euro for American men; they can’t handle us,” shrugged Elsa, a French native with mod bangs who was wearing a stylish black turtleneck. “And men in New York work too much—they want to fit a woman into their little slot of free time. They can’t take care of us the way we like to be taken care of.”

“I don’t think I could date an American man; their knowledge about the rest of the world is limited,” said Lana, a Lebanese/Canadian beauty in tight jeans and blood-red silky top. “They only follow what happens in the U.S., as most of them have never left to begin with. It just makes it harder to have interesting conversations.” Then she started dancing on the stairway to a White Stripes song.

French Tuesdays’ headquarters is a fluorescent-lit office in the garment district. On a recent afternoon, Mr. Battu was sitting at his desk, patiently talking on the phone with a tech person about a glitch on the Web site. Strewn across the floor were U.P.S. boxes, bubble wrap, a military cap and three phone chargers. A worn white shirt, the cufflinks still on, hung on the back of the door; a knotted tie was drooped over a chair.

Mr. Battu has a degree from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP) and several years of experience at a French paper company and textile business. Now he’s crunching numbers he never quite envisioned for himself, running French Tuesdays with business partner Gilles Amsallem. “In New York, 70 percent of people 25 to 40 are single,” he said. “We were the first ones to offer something high-end for 30-to-40-year-olds, since the typical nightclub industry is based on anorexic models. We do have young people, but we also have people who are in their 70’s.”

Mr. Battu’s first party—financed out of his own pocket for 50 friends, mostly French—was at the Dream Hotel during the height of French-bashing in 2003. He threw the party primarily to boost his own ailing social life, but it has since steadily gained momentum, drawing an average of 1,500 people per party.

To become a member, two existing members must sponsor the applicant, who then fills out a form with questions regarding profession, age, income and country of origin. Membership is free, and for an additional $30 per year you can obtain a white card that allows you to jump the line and bring extra guests.

Non-members are welcome at each party, provided they’re appropriately dressed and pay a cover charge of $20. There is no dress code for women, because, Mr. Battu believes, “Women, you know, can be extremely stylish wearing nuzzing.” There is currently a French Tuesdays party circuit in Miami, and this spring there will be one in Los Angeles.

On a recent evening at Duvet, the bed-centric club with horizontal lounging surfaces surrounded by sheer white curtains, the French Tuesdays crowd had just applauded a dance show of scantily clad women and bare-chested men. Jazzed by the Middle Eastern raï music, people swung their hips on the dance floor or danced barefoot on the white beds.

Three clean-cut young men in sports coats took advantage of the reduced-rate champagne at the bar. Nicholas, a 32-year-engineer from Quebec, looked around and described the atmosphere, triumphantly, as “Euro-classy.” With the disclaimer of “I’ve got a girlfriend,” Christophe, a 27-year-old Parisian investment banker who had been in New York three months, said, “There are a lot of hot American girls who make eye contact here. Not the French girls.” He pulled the corners of his mouth down and added, “By law, French girls are like this.” Olivier, a 31-year-old in the shipping business, said American women have a weakness for French men because of their good manners, openness to new things, “and, of course, because we are good lovers—great lovers.”

“If I had the thick French accent—and if I were French French instead of just French-descended—I’d get more bang for the buck,” said Stéphane, a 38-year-old lawyer with no accent, originally from Montreal. “But American women looking for French men is not really a market I work on anyway.”

A 38-year-old American woman named Theresa said she’d been a French Tuesdays regular for several years. Surrounded by French men at the bar, she called out, “I love anything French!” She was wearing a crisp white shirt and small fur jacket, with a matching fur scrunchie holding back her blond hair. She leaned over and half-whispered, “And you feel really naughty going to work Wednesday morning, because you’ve had a wild night.” She excused herself: “I have my eye on those two beautiful men right there.” Generic club music melded into old Michael Jackson.

“I don’t want to be banned from the place—I’m having a good time—but the music sucks here as bad as it does in France,” said James, a 41-year-old attorney, one of many suited-up men who reclined awkwardly on one of the cushions scattered throughout the club. “I’m here for the Asian crowd—I prefer Asia as my focus,” he added. “I was into European women, food and travel, but now I’m into Asian women, food, travel.”

The house photographer snapped his shutter while women did sultry dances pointing into his lens. A young man in a sweaty, untucked oxford shirt played the air guitar while others pogoed. A hired bald saxophone player dodged in and out of the crowd.

“I meet cute girls here,” said a 32-year-old Frenchman of the blond Pepé Le Pew variety named Cedric. He said he can spot an American woman immediately. “She’s dressy—perfect hair, perfect nails, everything is too perfect. French women are more natural, classy, smart.”

There are two categories of women in New York who like French men according to Mr. Battu. “One is just an adventurer who has fun,” he said. “The other is in her mid-30’s, has been concentrating on her career and is now facing the challenge of finding somebody. She’s trying her luck with other cultures, and that woman can get extremely disappointed. She thinks she has met the right guy—he must be very wealthy, very single—and the guy has a girlfriend or is even married in France. I know a bunch of serial French daters that do it all the time.

“Our culture is much more about—I mean, the good part is about poetry, the bad part is about bullshit,” he continued. “Here, you can play your stupid little trick: the accent, the references to the culture, the flowers, the poetry, the food—all the clichés that are actually fun. But with a Frenchwoman, it would never work. She’d say, ‘All right—you just want to get laid.’”

Mr. Battu does have a girlfriend, Russian-born and raised in America. “I love her,” he said, “but to be in a culturally mixed couple, no matter how close you are to the country, is extremely difficult. So the bad thing is that you only understand 60 percent, and the good thing is that you only understand 60 percent.”

It was a cultural gap that he also experienced with an American woman before he met his current paramour. He and the American had been dating for two weeks. One night, she invited him over for dinner. “I came with my toothbrush and briefs; I assumed I was to stay over,” he said. “We were 36, 37—come on, we’re grown-ups.” According to Mr. Battu, the woman was shocked by his presumptuousness: “Apparently, for an American man, it would be extremely rude to come over with a toothbrush and briefs.”