Will there be a return of extreme thinness in fashion and pop culture?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Just musing really. I love the nineties look that's around at the moment (have such nostalgia!) but remembering that the nineties brought us the heroin chic look, and a general trend for rather extreme thinness, and arguments in the fashion world about how thin was too thin when it came to who could do runway shows. Followed by the size zero trend in the early 2000s. There did seem to be a time when there was no such thing as 'too thin'. To my mind, models look much healthier nowadays.

Will body positivity, and a move towards talking more openly about mental illness, mean that we don't see a return of the more extreme side of nineties fashion?

Sadly yes. Probably even more highly prized next time round as extreme thinness is even more unattainable with today’s lifestyles and availability of delicious food.

Things are moving the other way now and a lot of models are overweight. People have lost sight of what a normal weight is, and view normal as too thin. For example when I am the top end of a healthy BMI that is a size 10. Often people say that my current 12-14 is normal but that is actually hugely overweight.

@OneRingToRuleThemAll

Things are moving the other way now and a lot of models are overweight. People have lost sight of what a normal weight is, and view normal as too thin. For example when I am the top end of a healthy BMI that is a size 10. Often people say that my current 12-14 is normal but that is actually hugely overweight.

Think positively - give it a year or ten minutes on this thread and you'll be regarded as fat at a size 10 by people telling us all that society has lost sight of what a normal weight is and view normal as too thin.

I don't think we will se the return of extreme thinnes. As far as I know number of fashion weeks and large events started imposing minimum bmi on models who are there few years ago.

Fat will never be desirable. Nobody sees a fat model and thinks 'i want to look like that.' Even on here, it's not as though there are multiple boards dedicated to 'how to gain loads of weight...'

People have lost sight of what a normal weight is, and view normal as too thin.

How do you define normal?

'Normal' is about what is normalised in society, and that is a huge variety of shapes and sizes, including obese people and very skinny people. Even around the world in many different societies it is quite normal to be very fat or very thin.

People have lost sight of what a normal weight is, and view normal as too thin.

The 'too thin' I was referring to in my OP were the times when the big runway shows featured women with dangerously low BMIs. Because that was the look that was favoured.

Not 'normal', not by a long chalk.

No the preferred look is the skinny size zero type of look with curves.

Fat will never be desirable. Nobody sees a fat model and thinks 'i want to look like that.'

I think this is also not true when you look at what we historically viewed as beauty, and what some other cultures currently view as their standard of beauty.

For example when I am the top end of a healthy BMI that is a size 10. Often people say that my current 12-14 is normal but that is actually hugely overweight.

I’m not sure that’s representative of most people are “hugely overweight” at a 12-14. Are you talking about American sizes? You must be really teeny tiny normally.

I don’t think the extreme thin look will come back. I hope not anyway.

@OneRingToRuleThemAll

Things are moving the other way now and a lot of models are overweight. People have lost sight of what a normal weight is, and view normal as too thin. For example when I am the top end of a healthy BMI that is a size 10. Often people say that my current 12-14 is normal but that is actually hugely overweight.

Depends on body type. You can be a size 12-14 if you’re muscular - before baby I had visible muscles and a very low fat percentage but was a size 12-14. I am still a size 12-14 but without the gym I’m now a lump of lard that weighs much less than before.

Will there be a return of extreme thinness in fashion and pop culture

Has it ever really gone away? Apart from the fashion of having a more visible bum, I can't see that the media has embraced the curvaceous woman as a mainstream ideal. If you look at couture fashion and that kind of model they are still mostly tall and skinny.

I think there will continue to be a segment of fashion aimed at the 'plus size' woman but I cannot imagine the catwalks being overrun with women larger than a size 6.

We need to see models at a range of sizes, ethnicities, ages....
We need to see cellulite, muscles, breasts of varying degrees, stretch marks, acne, people with additional needs, wrinkles, scars, and so on. Just regular people. I'd rather see models who are plus sized than this airbrushed and resized trend that's around now.

Probably because fashions constantly change.

Personally I think that look has had its day. There is more of an athletic, curvy, gym bunny look now

Yes sadly, I think it will. Fashions go in cycles of extremes as girls/ young women try not to look like their mothers 😂. So in ‘my day’ in the early 2000s, it was size 0, poker straight hair and pencil thin eye brows. Now it’s all curves, big hair and bushy eyebrows. So I think we have a few more years before size 0 is back but unfortunately I do worry that lockdown might speed it up as young people become obsessed with losing the lockdown weight.

Remember when people used to moan for having a big bum?

Now its very fashionable to have one

12-14 is not "hugely"overweight, it's possibly heavy though a 12 is unusual in a healthy middle aged woman - many women thicken up after menopause.

I agree the perception of weight has changed significantly - just look at a beach photo from 1950. But "hugely" is really pushing it.

Arg - "12 is not unusual in..."

@Borntohula

Fat will never be desirable. Nobody sees a fat model and thinks 'i want to look like that.' Even on here, it's not as though there are multiple boards dedicated to 'how to gain loads of weight...'

Sadly you're right.

I wanted to buy a pair of running leggings so went online.
One of the sites had regular size models and plus size models. The plus size models werent just a bit overweight but hugely oberweight.and I have to say I thought the leggings looked awful on them.
I wanted to buy a pair with a strupe down the side and they didn't have a normal size model and it looked distorted on the larger model so I ended up not buying.
I wonder how many sales they lose because of this.

Clothes do look better in slimmer people.

Have to say clothes look good on slum people but not so good on skwletily thin people.
They also dont look good on very large people.
Extremes don't look good on either end of the spectrum.

Generally, what's most difficult or requires money to attain is what is fashionable. Hence sun-tans not being fashionable when they were associated with labourers in the fields; then becoming fashionable when the labourers in the fields became people stuck in factories while the wealthy were jetting off to St Tropez.

Most people find it easier to gain weight than to lose it. If you are overweight it requires effort and willpower to become slim. So unless something happens to mean the majority (in the Western world) are going hungry and only the wealthy can eat enough to be fat, I cannot see thin as the ideal ever changing.

@waschubby

Remember when people used to moan for having a big bum?

Now its very fashionable to have one

A massive, wide bum that's got there just from being iverweight and inactive doesn't look good. A defined Bubble butt , thats acheived through doing tons of squats or being lucky enough to have one genetically is very fashionable.. Too many people confuse the two.

Fashions come, fashions go, my weight goes up, my weight goes down but no matter how fat the rest of me is my bum stays flat as a pancake.

Also lots of clothes have stretch these days, so most people think they are thinner than they actually are. Gone are the days of non stretch clothing.