It’s been half a year since Kim Kardashian informed the world, from the steps of the Met Gala, that she had lost 7.5 kg in three weeks to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Jean Louis dress.
According to some, it was a “landmark” in the history of the event, which generated dozens of headlines, declarations of admiration and, in the Kardashian way, a lot of outrage.
But the 41-year-old’s cheerful admission of weight loss also struck a chord, as writer Marielle Elizabeth noted in an article for british vogue last week, “a shift in tone … that marked the end of an era that at least intended to celebrate curvy bodies.”
Of course, a woman’s diet is not entirely to blame, representative, as They Said Lucy Cocoran, of “a cog in a much larger machine that has existed to oppress women for countless decades.”
Ever since Miu Miu’s now-infamous low-cut mini skirt walked the runway at Paris Fashion Week last October, there’s been a collective sense of dread that the return of Y2K fashion , an era marked by the rise of public shaming, also means once again defending a single body type as the gold standard: thin.
Kardashian walking up the steps of the Met, Monroe’s dress clinging to her new slimmer figure, was simply the final nail in the coffin of the body positivity movement.
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In the months since, the search terms “size 0 is back” and “size 0 is back kardashians” have gained traction on TikTok as rumors abound that both Kardashian and her sister Khloe have reversed their (alleged) lifts of Brazilian ass, a plastic. surgical procedure intended to add curves, rather than remove them.
On the back of the ready-to-wear catwalks in New York, London, Milan and Paris last week, British broadcaster and writer Pandora Sykes noted the famous sisters’ “downsizing” as “relevant ” for what some commentators called “the thinnest. [Fashion Week] season in years”.
“Normally I wouldn’t say anything about ‘an individual’ (and it’s not fair to call a woman), but their dedication to thinness at this time… when they were so central to a movement towards curvier bodies and they benefited commercially, makes Actually, this is very relevant,” Sykes wrote in a series of tweets.
While “this standard was still an unattainable ideal,” Elizabeth wrote in her piece for Vogue, “this is when we saw greater representation and celebration of larger bodies.”
“Over the last decade, my body briefly stopped being an issue… Now all of a sudden I find myself being held back,” she added, referring to the lack of body representation on the runways this season.
“I am left wondering what this setback means for the fashion industry; for fat liberators whose cries for change went beyond surface-level self-love to fight for labor rights not yet enshrined in law; and for the younger generation who are about to learn what it’s like to be fat in a time of thin worship.”
Curve model and content creator Remi Bader, who went to New York and Paris Fashion Week, was “super excited about this season,” as someone who “had never been to shows where I had invited and sat in the front row.” . Instead, the experience “was definitely a disappointment.”
“For the shows that I attended, or saw that there were one, two or three plus-size models in the shows and walking, but then you look and see [whether] they are actually selling that size to the public, and a lot of it [designers] they’re not,” he said in a TikTok.
“They’re actually making a custom piece for this model to show they’re a little ‘inclusive’, but then they don’t even sell it.
“And also what was disappointing is looking around the room and seeing that I’m invited and feeling so included because someone like me with my body is sitting in the front row, but I look around and I don’t see anyone like that . that looks like me.”
Bader wondered why fashion houses like Prada or Givenchy “with all the money in the world … are so against putting different body types in their shows?”
“Why is it 2022 and they literally can’t? And it’s not even that they can’t; it’s interesting that some of these designers were doing it in 2019 and [now] we’re almost going back in time and it’s only gotten worse and less inclusive,” he said.
“It was very disappointing for me to see that. It made me not want to be a part of it, it made me question why it was even there, and I think the conversation needs to go on, and that’s really it.” .