Guest post by Jennifer Broom - see also Rachel Charlton's column 'The Changing Shape Of The Icon'
Not happy with your figure? No problem! Just find the decade to suit you!*
*And a time machine.
Female beauty and fashion are intrinsically linked – the fashionable silhouette doesn’t only refer to the cut of clothes in a particular season, but also the cut of the woman wearing them.
Recently, the picture of feminine beauty seems to be rail thin model-types, and the celebrities who tread the red carpet in designer gown after designer gown, and grace the front cover of magazines in the place of models (all, naturally, Hervé Léger-clad).
The musicians, models and actresses who step outside this convention (think Beyoncé; Christina Hendricks; Kate Winslet; Crystal Renn) are often the most talked about, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
Beyoncé // Christina Hendricks
The ideal female beauty is publicised everywhere. In the last decade, there has been a boom in the sheer amount of available imagery, although it has been on the rise for the last 40 years. As well as newspapers, fashion magazines, adverts, billboards and gossip-filled glossies, we now also have blogs, communities and websites devoted to celebrity and fashion, as well as the online counterparts of all the above paper media. There is no escape; resistance is futile.
But the world of female beauty hasn’t always been this way! (Cue a brief history)
Pre-20s, women are trussed up in a number of undergarments in order to create a base for the fashions of the day to rest on pleasingly. You’ve seen corsets and crinolines; you know. The 20s brought about a rejection of this femininity, but real women’s bodies werenn’t ready for such a drastic change, and they merely swapped their curve-creating corsets for chest-flattening ones and continued on with the no stylish androgynous silhouettes and hairdos, a la Louise Brooks (with a BMI of 19.9). Being “fat” is seen as ‘wrong’ for the first time.
Louise Brooks, 20s model
In the 30s, the first two cupped bra was invented – yes ladies, that’s right, up until 80 years ago, we had monobosoms.
A ‘natural’ figure is preferred. ‘Cept the ‘natural’ look is actually not natural at all, and more women don corsets to achieve the look – even if they are elasticated corsets which are much more comfortable then their boned counterparts.The wall street crash affects hemlines, and as is the trend in unstable economic times, they plunge to the floor. Another trend which relates to the economy? Figure! In a boom (20s, 60s, 90s/00s) androgyny is key. In a bust (30s, 50s, and perhaps now?), masculinity and femininity are much more defined.
Big things happen during the war – even in the midst of clothes rationing and going without, women deal with such things as wearing trousers for the first time; and those working hard in field and factory become trim and toned from such rigorous exercise. Such a figure would be highly desirable now, non?
Well, cue the 50s. In which the sought after figure is all curves. Big boobs (emphasises by pointy bras) and big hips are balanced out by a tiny waist, and Marilyn Monroe is the pin-up of choice. The look is ‘over-feminine’ and a bit of a caricature, but that’s all soon to change! Because, of course, along come the 60s, in which women had more control over their lives AND their bodies than ever, but the ideal look was that of a child. Thin was the main element of attractiveness now – think Twiggy (with a BMI of 15(!), to the average 60s woman’s 24.9).
40s pin-up Betty Grable//Marilyn Monroe
Fast forward through the 70s (BMIs are at 25.3!) wherein it becomes apparent that the more unachievable the look, the more money women will spend to achieve it. This is only cemented by the trends in the next decade – where the average 80s woman’s BMI reaches 26.6; the picture of beauty is the slim, toned, fit and tanned, gym-honed, Alaïa-wearing supermodel – Cindy Crawford (with a BMI of 19) fits the bill perfectly.
Cindy Crawford//Kate Moss
Two body-based ‘role models’ for the 90s are Pamela Anderson and Kate Moss. You might think one couldn’t be further from the other, but both are very slim with no hips of which to speak; it’s just that Pamela has huge bosoms and that glowing west coast skin. This body trend had more or less continued into the new millennium, but now we have ridiculously waif-like models or hyper-toned Hollywood types, who we think of as ‘real women’ – Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz – but who couldn’t really be further from ‘real’
Clearly, throughout the 20th century, the fashionable female body has gone a lot of change, the biggest change being just how much we care. And the secret? Every time, the peak of perfection is about as far away from the majority of women’s bodies as possible. Right now, the ‘ideal body’ is unachievable by more than 95% of women no matter what they do.
But perhaps the picture of the feminitity is a-changing! Check the runways at Prada and Louis Vuitton this season, and you will see clothes more suited for the fuller figured (or at least bustier) lady. This is, after all, a time of economic unrest, and we’ve already seen plummeting hemlines. Surely the return of curves are to follow?
Rest assured, the fashionable silhouette WILL change, and will continue to do so every few years, and one day your body shape is bound to make it to the big time!
In the meantime, if it sounds to you like you should be in one of the above decades, no problem! You have a multitude of vintage styles at your fingertips - an excuse to shop? How could I refuse?!
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