During the eighties, a new fitness rage was sweeping the globe. The goal was tall, tanned and thin, but slightly athletic looking, with toned bodies, smaller waists and narrower hips.
"This decadent decade demanded bodies stayed in shape. They were slim but not undernourished. Muscle tone, especially in arms and legs, was particularly important as it helped portray the energetic lifestyle image of the "working woman" of the 1980s. Aerobics was queen.
Beauty consisted around the fitness and nutrition craze in the 80s, encouraging athletically toned bodies, bodysuits, and tracksuit bottoms. Supermodel and bodybuilding became a sensation, along with leg warmers and big hair.
Still, the ideal figure was very thin. The average woman's BMI was around 25, while Cindy Crawford's was said to be 19. In fact, the BMIs of several eighties supermodels ranged from just 17 to 20.
The 1990s reinstated very thin as the ideal body type, emulated by Victoria's Secret models. The desired body was very tall and lean with a "thigh gap," small or average breasts, and narrow hips. The figure was described as "waifish" in the 90s and became increasingly toned in the 2000s.
In the 1970s, the thin-framed, long-legged look was still idolized. In this decade, we began to see an increase in eating disorders, and as a society, we gained more knowledge about them. In the 1980s, with the popularity of the Jane Fonda at-home workout videos, the athletic supermodel look became the goal.
In the 2010s, a new fitness craze spread with the assistance of widespread accessible social media, which resulted in the hourglass body type coming to the forefront. While skinniness remained, an interest in working out blossomed, serving as a healthy alternative to drugs and eating disorders.
Velour, velvet, and polyester were popular fabrics used in clothes, especially button-up and v shirts. Looser pants remained popular during this time, being fairly wide but straight, and tighter shirts were especially popular, sometimes in a cropped athletic style.
The 1960s. The Swinging 60s brought back the androgynous body type, influenced by the modelling industry with fashion icons such as Lesley Lawson (also known as Twiggy due to her slim appearance), that pushed forward the ideals of thinness, long, slim legs and an adolescent physique (8).
In the 1980s, Christie Brinkley emerged as one of the era's most iconic supermodels, synonymous with the all-American beauty aesthetic. With her radiant smile, sun-kissed blonde hair, and statuesque figure, Brinkley became a household name and face.
The 1980s are a decade that we frequently resort to whenever it relates to glitter and fashion freedom. The decade, characterized by eye-straining fabric colors and patterns, acid wash jeans, shoulder pads, massive, dramatic earrings, pearls, and big hair, had people confidently expressing themselves with their Style.
The '80s was the decade when women thought they could have it all – career, husband, and children. Most Americans were comfortable having female doctors, lawyers, mayors, and bosses, and the number of women attending college surpassed men. The decade also narrowed the wage inequality gap.
From 1959 to 1978 there was a remarkable shift towards a thinner ideal in the fashion industry: models represented in big magazines as Vogue, Ladies Home Journal and Woman's Day decreased significantly in weight.
Women with a 0.7 WHR (waist circumference that is 70% of the hip circumference) are rated more attractive by men in various cultures. Such diverse beauty icons as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and the Venus de Milo have ratios around 0.7; this is a typical ratio in Western art.
In general, the bigger and bolder, the better. It was the decade of big hair, big shoulders, and over-the-top makeup. The 1980's woman was a fresh faced "all american girl" with a wholesome figure.
Despite this, there are many different body shapes, with an hourglass shape being one of the least common, but the most desired.
The thin ideal carried over into the 1970s, but the decade saw a bigger emphasis on larger busts with Farrah Fawcett at the media forefront, representing athleticism and femininity within the boundaries of a thin, petite frame.
Research has found that the size of a woman's waist in relation to her hip, including her buttocks, is one of the areas of attractiveness in females. This ratio is an indicator of the distribution of body fat. Women with a low waist to hip ratio are considered attractive.
While someone with 2023-esque micro bangs may scream young to us, we associate photos of 80s hairstyles and big shoulder pads with being older, even if the person in the image is the same age as us. This is partly because of how we consider trendy hairstyles and fashion of that time to be outdated.
"Outrun" is a subgenre of synthwave that was later used to refer more generally to retro 1980s aesthetics such as VHS tracking artefacts, magenta neon, and gridlines. The term comes from the 1986 arcade racing game Out Run, which is known for its soundtrack that could be selected in-game and its 1980s aesthetic.
Since at least the late 1980s, face! has been short for the dismissive exclamation in your face!, issued after a comeback or sick burn. Since at least the early 2000s, face has been a slang verb for inhaling something quickly or greedily, such as food, alcohol, or drugs, e.g., He faced that burrito.
Heterosexual women tend to be attracted to men who are taller than them and who display a high degree of facial symmetry, masculine facial dimorphism, upper body strength, broad shoulders, a relatively narrow waist, and a V-shaped torso.
In the 2000s, being extremely thin was the standard being set and the fashion was designed to cater to those with thin bodies.
Karol Rosalin, 25, was hailed “a perfect 10” after an artificial intelligence model evaluated the wellbeing, health, and strength of the Sao Paulo local, while also considering aesthetic factors such as symmetry, proportion, and overall harmony.