Love it or hate it, clothing has often been designed around an idea of how the body should look. At the North Carolina Museum of History, The Shape of Fashion exhibits how corsets squeezed waists smaller while padded undergarments added curves wherever fashion suggested they should be.
And while styles have changed over time, the pressure to change the body to fit the clothes never completely went away.
Anyone who has loved an outfit only to feel like their body was somehow wrong for it knows how personal the pressure can become. But more people are questioning why their bodies should have to change at all, especially as different shapes become more visible throughout fashion history and popular culture.
Felina has also noticed this change through a growing focus on clothing that works with a person’s natural shape. But even with those changes, the Museum at FIT points out that most runway models have stayed thin, leaving many shoppers to question why clothing is built around one narrow idea of how a body should look.
The “perfect body” in fashion has never referred to one shape that everyone agreed was beautiful, but rather the type of body people were told they should want at a particular point in time.
Dr. Valerie Steele of the Museum at FIT has traced how different those expectations could be, from the fuller hourglass figure associated with the 1950s to the very thin frame made famous by Twiggy during the 1960s.
By the 1990s, Steele points to models such as Kate Moss as examples of how runway and media images had come to favor an even thinner body. And those models also appeared throughout magazines and advertising, giving people a very specific idea of what was considered beautiful.
Yet those ideas kept changing, leaving people to measure themselves against a version of the “perfect body” that never stayed the same for very long.
Perhaps the biggest concern in fashion is that the garments people fall in love with have not always been designed around the many ways human bodies are built.
NIST researcher Yung-Tsun Lee found that U.S. clothing sizes relied on body measurements collected during the late 1930s, even though those measurements did not represent the full range of the people buying clothes.
And when designers worked from a limited range of body measurements, people whose proportions fell outside them were often left trying to make their bodies work with the clothes.
The Museum at FIT has documented how corsets squeezed the waist into a smaller shape, while girdles later held parts of the body tighter to create the smooth shape that clothing was designed to show.
But even with that history, shapewear itself is not the problem, since many people choose it today for comfort or to get the fit they want from an outfit. The problem comes when clothing is designed with the expectation that natural differences between bodies should first be hidden or changed.
If there is one thing that has helped change the fashion industry, it is the body-positive movement and its push to show people who had spent years seeing few bodies like their own represented.
Luxiders Magazine describes the movement as a challenge to unrealistic beauty standards through greater acceptance of different body sizes and appearances. And as more people asked to see bodies like their own represented, those who had often been left out began appearing throughout fashion campaigns and media.
Many welcomed those changes, with a University of Illinois study of online comments showing that readers responded positively when a popular magazine featured plus-size models. But even as more people could see themselves included in fashion advertising, their experience with clothing went beyond who appeared in the ads.
One of the most important ideas to come from greater body acceptance is that when clothing does not fit, people do not have to assume something is wrong with their body. Cornell University researchers explain that standard clothing sizes do not account for every difference in body proportions, including torso length and waist size.
So two people who usually buy the same size can put on the same pair of pants and find that it fits each of them differently. And since the size on the tag cannot show those differences, actual measurements give shoppers a better idea of how the clothing is likely to fit.
Cornell researchers also found that people even prefer different garment and sleeve lengths, which helps explain why the same piece of clothing can feel right to one person and wrong to another.
Everyone wants to feel included, but a bigger size on the tag means very little if the clothes still pinch or gape once they are on.
Plenty of people assume the fix is simple, with curvy model Alex Michael May telling Medill Reports it can seem as easy as “just make it a bigger size.”
But UNC Greensboro apparel professor Melanie Carrico explains that clothing patterns need to be readjusted when companies extend their sizes, leaving designers to account for how the proportions change as sizes go up. And those adjustments show up the moment someone gets dressed, from where a pair of pants sits on the waist to how long it falls on the leg.
ASTM International, which develops clothing measurement standards, notes that designers also have to consider the type of fabric and how much room clothing needs for movement. And accounting for both helps the clothes move comfortably while keeping the fit the designer intended.
Of all the ways social media has changed fashion, perhaps the biggest is that shoppers can now see clothes on real bodies outside a brand's own photos. Refinery29 reported on one TikTok creator who filmed herself trying on a confusing online order, only to have thousands of people message her with the same frustration.
And shoppers clearly value that kind of information, with researcher Hyunmi Baek and her colleagues finding, in a study of 1,596 online reviews of women's dresses, that people rated reviews as more helpful when they included a try-on photo or the reviewer's body size.
Real photos also give shoppers something to compare to the advertised fit, while comments let them share when their own experience looks very different. With those experiences posted for other shoppers to see, fashion companies are no longer the only ones showing people what their clothes look like on a body.
The issue with the "ideal body" is that the pressure to look a certain way has not gone anywhere, even as more people finally see bodies like their own. Researchers who studied 25 years of fashion shows and photo shoots for PNAS found that the typical model's body barely changed, despite more plus-size models being hired.
Comparing those models with everyday women, the researchers also found that most stayed much leaner than the average American woman their age, and that difference remained about the same for more than 20 years.
Meanwhile, social media keeps piling on new ideals, with professor Pirkko Markula writing for Psychology Today about trends like the "slim-thick" body and the "Pilates princess."
None of it has eased the pressure, with one study she cites showing women who compared themselves to slim-thick photos felt worse about their weight and looks than women who saw thin or fit ones. So people now have several versions of the "ideal body" to compare themselves with, each setting another expectation for how they are supposed to look.
Given how much pressure people already carry into the fitting room, some designers are now starting with the people who will actually wear their clothes.
Designer Ester Manas told Vogue that she and her design partner test their patterns on a wide variety of bodies while the clothes are still being developed. Bringing those different body shapes into the design process from the start gives designers a chance to adjust the clothing before anyone has to adjust their body for it.
And those changes go beyond size, with Cornell apparel students finding that details like jacket length and sleeve length were some of the most important alterations when they made jackets to fit each wearer. Clothing can still create whatever silhouette a designer or wearer wants, but the person wearing it now has a bigger say in how that design takes shape.
Anyone who has spent a day tugging at a waistband knows comfort is where inclusive fashion has to start, and that is especially true for the pieces worn closest to the skin.
Bras are a good example, with fit experts explaining that the right fit should feel supportive and comfortable without digging, slipping, or needing constant adjustment throughout the day. And having that comfort available to more people also requires giving them enough choices to find what works for their body.
University of Nevada, Reno researchers found that shoppers saw retailers as more inclusive when they could choose from the same clothing styles in a wider range of sizes. But inclusion also means recognizing that getting dressed itself is different for some people.
United Cerebral Palsy points to adaptive clothing with features such as magnetic closures and designs for people who dress while seated, giving people with disabilities more options that account for how they get dressed.
Inclusive fashion should ultimately give more people the chance to choose clothes that feel comfortable and look the way they want on the body they already have.
The beauty of fashion is that there will always be new ways to dress the human body, without needing a new body to go with every style.
But fashion has not always worked that way, and designer Olivier Rousteing told Vogue that the industry once made women feel they had to hide if they did not look a certain way. And even for women who matched that look, their bodies would naturally change over time, with fit experts noting that the body rarely stays the same.
Today, designers are beginning to respond by making clothes that feel comfortable and move with the person wearing them, giving more people a way to enjoy fashion without trying to change themselves first.
There is still a lot of work left, with CaSandra Diggs of the Council of Fashion Designers of America telling Vogue that giving designers the right tools and resources will be “the key to change.” And the more the fashion industry builds on those changes, the more people get to enjoy what they wear without chasing a “perfect body” that was never meant to fit everyone.
This story was produced by Felina and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
