I found this article from a company, but I couldn’t find their name on the website; however, I thought it had some really good points and could be beneficial to review as part of my research. I found it on a website called Parametex, which sells different types of fabrics, and I thought the name was super interesting. It is recent, since it was published in April of this year, so it offers a different perspective than older research I have looked at. One of the first things I noticed and found relevant is that “fashionable” is in quotation marks, which makes me think about rules that must be broken and the paradigms and belief systems we live in, so I found it interesting to explore. The first part of the article looks at the beginnings of why the thin body started to be so representative in the fashion industry. This article is different from others I have analyzed because it points to a direct shift in the 1960s, when Twiggy entered the modeling industry. Some claim it started in the 1920s, but researchers have different views on this subject.
The article argues that one of the main things we see in fashion is thin bodies, no matter the context; this is seen across runways, magazines, and campaigns. They say this has been the standard from the start and that it shows how fashion is presented and positioned as a whole. In this article, Twiggy is considered one of the pivotal changes: she came in with her silhouette, made it a standard, and shifted the industry away from emphasizing and celebrating curves toward how clothing and fashion presented themselves. This makes me think that it stopped being so much about the body, which was the focus before, and made it more about the clothing, sort of like saying that the curves were a distraction from the clothing and the clothing needed to be the most interesting and important part of the industry; I think it made women invisible, as if they were the accessory and not the clothing. This is what is described next by saying, “the clothing is always the main focus.” It also suggests that, to do this, some people think the best way is through thin bodies; however, this is because it is “original to the design intention.” However, this makes me think about the fact that the intention is made from the beginning of the design, which is the silhouette they design, which means that if we change the process from the rule, or this is my hypothesis, then there could be more change in the fashion industry and the way that the clothing is specifically designed. This isn’t just something that happens; normally, specific fashion lines are produced in very specific sample sizes, which is considered good for speed and organization. Still, for example, if a model does not fit a dress specifically as it is imagined, then they are not right for the dress; there is never consideration that maybe the dress can change, and this is to make the process more efficient, which makes it necessary for models to be in such a small size and always be thin, or they will be taken out of the fashion industry, which tells us that this is the standard. However, this makes me ask the same question: how ethical is this industry, and do they care about the individuals they represent? Because, looking at the media and with my untrained eye, there are women in this industry that look sick from how thin they are, and I understand that there are some people that genetically look like this; however, there are some that need to think about their health and go to extreme measures to be a part of this industry.
This was made even stronger in the 1990s when models became even smaller, and this is sometimes referred to as heroin chic, and this was made to be a part of fashion identities. Even though it was an issue before, it became much more extreme in this instance. In this era, it became less about the clothing and more about the aesthetic, with models becoming part of it. They wanted models and the fashion industry to be something people aspired to, which raised their standard and led to a hierarchy where thinner was better. This is something that I can connect to the research about fearing the black body, since making women slimmer and making this the standard was a rationalization from racism; they are not on the same level playing field, to say the least, and it is very important to name, but it is a similarity that I find interesting and something to look at further. Since this body type has been so prevalent in the media, it’s important to look at how it shaped people’s perceptions of models and the fashion industry. “What we see repeatedly begins to feel normal…” This makes me think about how many people see models as just beautiful and slim, and it is because the media bombards us with that, which makes us believe it’s normal and something we should aspire to.
In this article, they discuss how, in recent years, the industry has started to include different body sizes. There is more representation across different forms of media, which is a real change; however, they argue that the default is still very thin, even in high fashion, ps and that these changes take time. However, I disagree with this take because, in the past couple of years, specifically following the Ozempic epidemic and seeing how much worse everything has gotten, we can see that they are going back to that default, and some models look even thinner than they ever had because of this new shift and the fact that this is something you can now buy; it is not accessible, but it is buyable.
In this article, they argue that the industry’s expansion is not necessarily a replacement for what already existed. Still, it is growing, and more brands offer more inclusive sizing. I believe there is still a lot of work to do in this area; however, this is this writer’s opinion. The way that they are talking about this is to get more consumers: “At this point, material becomes increasingly important. Fabric is no longer just about color or texture, but about how it adapts to different bodies. The way it drapes, moves, and shapes a silhouette becomes part of the fashion experience itself.” After this point, they say they are a company that does this and is part of this shift so that they can have more materials for everyone around them. They claim and believe the industry no longer looks at only one standard; however, I strongly disagree. More people are talking about it, which is good; however, there is still work to be done, especially now that more and more people are taking weight-loss medication. I want to make clear I am not against it when someone needs it; however, there are now people who take advantage of this and make things each time more difficult because it is even an ethical problem: should you take a medication you don’t even really need to fit a standard which has been constructed by society?
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