by Anne de Courcy, Daily Mail

Kate: not afraid to show-off her curves - good for her!

The conversation was hardly one would have expected when Kate Winslet met Cherie Blair on Sunday night at the premiere of Miss Winslet's latest film, Iris, in which she takes the part of the novelist Iris Murdoch when young.

Ms Winslet, voluptuous in a white silk trouser suit, was explaining not the film but quite another kind of exposure - how to display one's assets to their best advantage without fear of either ridicule or fallout.

'Aren't you a bit worried that you might show too much?' Mrs Blair is said to have inquired. To which the star, her jacket open almost to her navel, explained that she used 't** tape' - adhesive body tape to give herself the confidence of complete security.

Such tape, she could have added, has now become just another item in her underwear drawer. For cleavage has always been Miss Winslet's strong suit.

Whether in a series of lowcut dresses, restrained by rich, clinging fabric into a vision of stunning figure-of-eight grandeur, or peeking out coyly beneath tumbling hair, Miss Winslet's bosom has always taken a leading role on her career path. Of course she is not the first to do so.

Indeed Kate follows a long and honourable tradition of women throughout the ages, from Charles II's favourite courtesan Nell Gwyn and the Emperor Napoleon's sister Pauline (so proud of hers she had it sculpted) to Edwardian beauties for whom a low-cut corsage was de rigueur.

Then there are her contemporaries such as Sophie Dahl and Catherine Zeta Jones, all sensible big girls who have chosen to glory in their curves rather than diet them off.

And as Miss Winslet proves in the pictures here, there's nothing more successful than knowing your style and sticking to it . . . even if it sometimes means literally.

[The gallery mentioned in this article included common pictures of Kate Winslet at the SAG's in 2001, the Golden Globes in 1998, the Oscars in 1998, her wedding to Jim, the London premiere of Iris, and the 2001 Bafta's.]

Source: The London Evening Standard (Fashion Page)