Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the mainstream idea of the “perfect body shape” for women has shifted almost as often as fashion trends. In some cases, the contrast of the perfect women idea between decades is shocking, and speaks volumes to public attitudes at the time – the beauty standards, basically, depended on whether or not people thought it was okay for women to have physique.
Countless diets, pills, and celebrity icons later, we’re still going wrong in 2017 by encouraging women and girls to constantly compare themselves to others, rather than loving the female body in their own right.
At the very least, however, we’ve come farther than using such beauty trends as cigarettes and Wonder Bread to slim down. Take a walk back in time with us, and marvel at the varyingly ridiculous expectations of the female figure over the years.
Camille Clifford
Camilla Antoinette Clifford was a Belgian-born stage actress and the most famous model for the “Gibson Girl” illustrations. Her towering coiffure figure defined the Gibson Girl style.
Alice Joyce
Alice Joyce was a well-respected actress of the silent film era. One film historian ranks her among the top models of 1910.
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American actress and also known for his personality.
Often nicknamed the “Platinum Blonde”, she was popular for her “Laughing Vamp” screen persona.
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE was an English-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s, and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s.
Twiggy
Dame Lesley Lawson DBE is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy.
She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenage model during the swinging sixties in London.
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was the poster girl of this decade and waspish frames were on their way out. Fawcett began her career in the 1960s appearing in commercials and guest roles on television During the 1970s.
Elle MacPherson
Eleanor Nancy Macpherson is an Australian model, businesswoman, television host and actress. She is known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Dress Issue beginning in the 1980s, leading to her nickname “The Body”, coined by Time in 1989.
Kate Moss
Then came the 1990s – and Kate Moss. The supermodel and pin-up of her time, became known as ‘the waif’ and she and fellow catwalk queens such as Jodie Kidd popularised the ‘heroin chic’ look, which was gaunt with hollow eyes.
Christina Aguilera
By the year 2000, the pearshape became even more marked, with the average waistsize having ballooned four inches in 20 years. The wasp-waisted Twenties woman would be amazed at the dimensions of today’s Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, who champion the bigger is better mantra.
Actress Jennifer Lawrence, whose body is slim, and athletic, is often held up as an ideal body type for 2014.
The wasp-waisted Twenties woman would be shocked at the dimensions in 2020 Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, who champion the bigger is better mantra.
This is how people reacted to this post:
Marquita Sanders – These ideas of beauty or based on European and Modern American culture. It’s not considering Middle East, Asia, or African. I mean, Persian and Chinese had very different ideals over time as well.
Jilly Beanz – It makes me sick that the narrorator spoke down upon the beauty standards that emphasised thin bodies and spoke highly about thicker bodies I get it that people have confidence issues if they’re overweight and you’re just trying to appeal to them, but speaking down upon thinner people is sick some people can’t gain weight and it’s their body type. And saying that the thicker people are healthy and that thin people are gross.
Sparky Marie – Pale, frail, and weak was pretty in Victorian England? Ah shit, I would’ve been gorgeous had I been alive then. I mean I wouldn’t have any rights and I’d probably of the flu, but at least I’d be gorgeous
Cherry Soda – I don’t care what my girlfriend looks like. She’s beautiful no matter what. But it makes me sad to see she’s so insecure. She’s so amazing and wonderful yet she just doesn’t see it. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her. And it me.
Kt Qt – I hate the “today you can look however you want!” cop out that a lot of these “throughout history” videos do. Like sure you can, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a popular look. Like, the body type right now is more of a Kim K body, with large and bust and a somewhat thinner waist you know
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