The days of extremely thin runway models setting the unattainable female beauty standard are gone. Body types like Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj are the new unattainable and the new ideal.
Big butts, flat tummy, large breasts, popping cheekbones and pouty lips, all while keeping an hourglass shape. You have to be small in the right places and big in the others.
I think that’s great.
The extremely tall and thin style is only attainable to people born with that natural physique, which are few and far between. Naturally, women will believe that the body type is attainable if they just lose weight.
If that other woman looks like that, the mentality is that the rest of us can too.
That runway-model tall and thin was seen as the end-all be-all of women’s fashion, forcing the idea that women had to be thin to be beautiful.
That’s obviously extremely problematic as women turn to eating disorders and fad diets to feel beautiful, which should never be the case.
But this new ideal? The Kim-K bod? This simply isn’t a natural body type. It doesn’t exist without surgery.
Look at Kylie Jenner. It’s a running joke on the internet how much she changed after her eighteenth birthday. Now that she’s turned from her natural body, she’s considered one of the most beautiful people in the industry. Is that any coincidence?
Rather than having one quality of “thin,” the new standard is a series of nitpicky qualities that are so drastically different.
Having a big butt and a tiny waist? Maybe if you hit the gym for a crazy amount of time and you’re super lucky. But with big lips, sharp cheekbones and all the other qualities thrown in? It’s just not naturally possible.
The “beauty” in this new beauty standard is that every body type is represented in one aspect or another.
Maybe you don’t have the flat tummy, but you have a big booty. Maybe your bum is flat, but your cheekbones are absolutely poppin’.
This new standard allows women to be proud of at least one aspect of their figure.
There’s no one quality that identifies society’s views of beauty in the current state.
Look at names like Tess Holliday and Ashley Graham. A few years ago, they would have been shrugged off, even laughed at for trying to model. Now they have found success, not despite their bodies, but because of them.
Ashley Graham’s 2016 Sports Illustrated Interview
Confidence, like insecurity, is contagious. By unapologetically loving one aspect of your body, it should spread to the aspects that society isn’t so proud of.
When we own our bodies, rather than letting society tell us that we have to be thin or undergo unnatural procedures to be beautiful, we allow ourselves to think more peacefully about ourselves. As we become more comfortable, we can achieve goals that we never even thought were possible.
Gone are the days of buying products because we feel we have to. Fuck the thought that we have to cover up our imperfections.
I will never wear something that makes me feel badly about my body. I will never be shamed into buying a new gym membership so I can have a “bikini body,” nor will I be guilted into covering up.
If designers won’t make clothes for bigger sized bodies, they’re behind in the times. This is 2016 and right now every body is in. If they don’t understand that, they don’t deserve your money. It’s just that simple.
In with the new era, where we buy things that make us feel beautiful in our own bodies, you can rock the crop top, no matter if you’re thin or not. Leggings? Cute. Winged eyeliner and rainbow highlighter? Kill it.
Every body is beautiful. This new beauty standard is starting to appreciate that, throwing together a Frankenstein’s monster of great qualities.
Though none of these naturally occur on any one body, every body has at least one of them.
Representation matters and we’re finally starting to realize that as a society.
Confidence is the most attractive quality. No matter what aspect of the new standard you do or do not have, you’re beautiful.
