Trigger Warning: This article contains discussions around disordered eating and body image.
Society has seen the rise and fall of many fashion trends, but what happens when the trend becomes someone’s body type?
Before the 1900s, the fashionable body type was voluptuous and curvy. This would be achieved through various under-structures such as corsets, stays, paniers, bum pads and crinolines.
In the 1890s, the tall and slender “Gibson Girl” became the fashion.
The 1920s flapper was a catalyst of changing fashions and rising problems.
Magazines were advertising women with significantly thinner waistlines. The media influence contributed to a rise is disordered eating, which peaked during the between the 1920s and 1980s.
We saw a rise in severe anorexia beginning with Twiggy and the rise of the tall and thin models in the 1960s.
The 90s waif, originated by Kate Moss, and heroin chic became the fashion at the end of the century. Media began showing stark contrasts between body types by celebrating the thin body and criticizing the bigger, “obese” body.
In Women’s Wear Daily (2009), Moss stated that, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” was a mantra she followed.
The 2000s saw a rise in disordered eating amongst young children and teenagers with an overall fall in public body confidence.
In the last decade, the body positivity movement has ushered in a new decade of media and trends. We saw the first plus-size models, body inclusive Barbie dolls and body diverse media.
The industry is predicting “heroin chic” to come back into fashion. This may be in response to growing backlash against the artificially created curvaceous bodies of celebrities such as the Kardashians.
Social media has presented a diverse set of body types to the masses, but it has also amplified the pressure to meet a body ideal.
Body ideals are designed to be impossible to achieve, at least not without great sacrifice, so why do we keep cycling through new body standards each decade?
