Voluptuous Renaissance women, slim flappers, athletic 80s frames, “heroin chic” supermodels.
As each era welcomes a new aesthetic, fashion labels design for it. Pop culture perpetuates it.
And everyday people — particularly young women — spend huge amounts of time, energy and money working towards it.
Now, according to runway watchers, pop culture columnists and TikTok-ing teens, the tide is turning again.
Skinny jeans are out — and so, apparently, is the so-called “slim thick” aesthetic that so many women tried to emulate in the 2010s.
You might think the pressure to be thin had eased over the last decade, with a body positivity movement on the rise and celebrities like Beyoncé, Lizzo and Kim Kardashian celebrating their curves.
But Julia Coffey, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Newcastle, says women haven’t stopped worrying about body image.
“We already have much higher rates of eating disorders and anorexia than previously,” she says.
Dr Coffey says it’s not because a particular body type is in fashion. “It’s because of the demands of control and femininity in this patriarchal, oppressive diet culture.”
“Young people are truly putting in so much work to try to navigate body concerns … [with these] intensified pressures that they encounter through social media and particular apps.”
Cosmetic dangers and demands
Twenty-four-year-old Natasha knows what it’s like to feel pressure about her looks.
As a social media consultant — and Instagram enthusiast — she spends a lot of time online.
When Natasha was in high school, she recalls coming across a suburban cosmetic enhancement clinic and being floored by the promotional images of curvaceous women.
“I remember being in Year 11, just on my phone and like looking at their results and thinking, ‘Wow, I want that.'”
Natasha was seeing, and liking, the before-and-after results of people who’d had a Brazilian Butt Lift or BBL.
It’s an invasive operation, involving liposuction and the transferral of fat to one’s bottom, and it’s considered one of the world’s most dangerous cosmetic procedures due to its fatality rate.
Despite the well-publicised risks, the demand for this procedure grew during the 2010s, with many commentators — and aspiring clients, like Natasha — citing Kim Kardashian and her sisters as poster children for this extreme augmentation.
The extent to which the Kardashian-Jenners have, or haven’t, engaged in cosmetic surgery remains unclear.
But according to Julia Coffey, the Kardashians are regularly referenced in her research on young people’s selfie-editing practices.
“We don’t ask about them,” she says. “But they come up all the time, I guess because they are that real cultural marker.”
Normalising ‘bodywork’
Dr Coffey says the family has normalised “bodywork” — that is, changing your body through diet, exercise, makeup, dress and augmentation — as a feature of femininity.
The problem is that the “work” is never done.
“The more work you do, the more work you need to do,” she says. “It’s a cycle that can never end.”
Dr Coffey cites a 20-year-old she interviewed who, like Natasha, looked up to the Kardashian family’s youngest sister, Kylie Jenner.
“It led [the participant] to view her own body as really malleable, and something that not only could be perfected, but should be,” Dr Coffey explains.
“She said, ‘I started seeing myself like playdough to be moulded.'”
Dr Coffey adds that, importantly, the participant wasn’t alone in her thinking.
“Most of her peer group and her family were [also] highly invested in physical culture and beauty,” she points out.
“It was a norm that wasn’t just happening through the Kardashians, for example, but at every turn.”
When fashions come and go
Natasha’s approach shifted from appreciation to personal modification over several years.
First, she had lip filler, then a nose job overseas, and later, a revisionary rhinoplasty in Sydney to correct the first procedure, which had left her breathing “pretty much ruined”.
The experience of being “botched” didn’t put Natasha off surgeries altogether. Last year, at 23, she booked in a Brazilian Butt Lift.
While the surgery left her feeling nauseous and sore, she says the recovery period was particularly challenging. Due to the fat transfer, Natasha was unable to sit down, or lie on her back or stomach for two weeks.
“Long-term wise, I did notice that that when I would go to stretch, I felt like this ripping pain down my back,” she says. “It actually took a long time for that to go away.”
Since amplifying her curves, Natasha’s noticed a different aesthetic — both in women’s clothes and figures — appearing online.
“I saw this thing on TikTok: ‘Who is even wearing skinny jeans anymore?’
“I’m just like: ‘Me! I want to show off my BBL.’
“[With] this young gen … loose jeans are the thing. I think this whole fashion change is going to correlate with body shape [change], because women that are curvier do not suit those clothes.”
But Natasha says she’s not bothered by this apparent change in fashion.
“I don’t care, because I know wholeheartedly a woman’s body should never be considered a trend. But unfortunately, trends will always be there.”
Social media as a support network
Rokeshia Ashley vividly remembers fashion trends from a decade ago — a time when social media platforms like Instagram were in their infancy.
She had just started working in the fashion industry, and never saw women who looked like her.
This lack of representation led Dr Ashley to study body image and augmentation among black women, a topic she now researches at Florida International University.
“Over the last 10 years, social media has had a tremendous impact on how we view ourselves,” she says.
“It’s the same idealistic images, right? The curvaceous ideal, particularly for black women.
“But we have to understand that there are various types of black women’s bodies.”
Dr Ashley believes social media can offer content creators a means to tell different stories.
“We have these little sects where we can go in to find information. We have these communities where we feel safe enough to ask questions,” she says.
“The algorithms work in a way where they uphold the things that you’re interested in.
“So for women who are not interested in those idealistic [beauty] images … they’re not going to see them on social media.”
‘Not a ticket to perfection’
But there’s a flip side, of course.
Dr Coffey points out that many young women are engaged in the dominant beauty culture — which means their Instagram feeds are filled with highly-edited photos of people considered attractive in mainstream pop culture.
“I think we’re really setting up so many paradoxes of femininity,” says Dr Coffey.
“Having a very perfected physical appearance is highly valued, and yet somehow, [women are told] they’re also responsible for feeling confident and loving their body regardless.”
This paradox of femininity is something Natasha has struggled with, either side of her Brazilian Butt Lift surgery.
“Before my surgical enhancements, I was made fun of for my appearance. And then once I did all that, yes, I did get a bit more attention, but it also came with a lot of dislike,” she says.
“As soon as I’m transparent, people will be like, ‘You’re just all fake.'”
While she is happy with the results, Natasha says “surgery is not a ticket to perfection”.
“I still have loose skin, I have cellulite, I’m not symmetrical,” she says.
Natasha echoes Dr Coffey’s findings that bodywork can turn into a never-ending cycle.
“When you can just fix everything that you don’t like, that’s when it becomes a bit of an addiction.
“So, I’m aware of it, and I’m not going to let that consume me too much, but I can see why it can be a bit of a rabbit hole.”
To hear more about the ethics of the booming cosmetic enhancement industry, catch up the podcast RN Presents: Face Value. Listen for free on the ABC listen app.
This content was originally published here.
