In 2022, Kim Kardashian arrived at the Met Gala draped in history, having slipped into Marilyn Monroe’s sheer, jewel-encrusted Happy Birthday, Mr. President dress for the Gilded Age-themed event. But beneath the archival glamour lay a more contemporary narrative: the sudden transformation of her famously curvaceous frame. In just three weeks, she had shed nearly 7.5kg to fit into the gown, later admitting that an extreme diet had been deployed to get her there. Her signature curves—once the gold standard for desirability—had softened, her frame notably more petite, her hair platinum blonde.
We were witnessing the next seismic shift in the ever-evolving, entirely arbitrary landscape of body trends. The tides had turned, and Kardashian, ever the bellwether of beauty ideals, was signalling a new era. Thin was officially back.
The Kardashians, meticulously modifying and re-modifying their bodies, have long set the blueprint for mass aesthetic shifts. For over a decade, they packaged and sold the hyper-exaggerated hourglass, from waist trainers to Brazilian butt lifts. Now, their bodies are shrinking in real-time. The world is scrambling to keep pace.
Trends don’t just shape beauty standards; they shape billion-pound industries. The body-trend industrial complex ensures no standard stays still for too long. If we were satisfied with our bodies, entire economies would collapse. So, the goalposts shift just enough to keep us chasing. One moment it’s BBLs and hip dips, the next, it’s buccal fat removal and Ozempic prescriptions, and so the ideal body always remains just out of reach. By design.
When I feel white-hot rage bubbling to the surface, I try to remind myself of Jemima Kirke’s iconic advice: “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” Yet, how can we not? When our literal physical forms are treated as trends, cycled in and out like last season’s It-bag, drowning out the societal noise becomes a herculean task.
The fact that bodies can even be trendy highlights how deeply capitalism and patriarchy have commodified women: as if our natural forms have inbuilt expiration dates. Since at least the Industrial Era, beauty ideals have constantly shifted—wasp waists in the 1800s, flapper hips in the 1920s, heroin chic in the 1990s—but some iteration of thinness has remained the default. Even when more “curvy” Kardashian-esque figures were en vogue, mainstream media still filtered, shaped, and manipulated bodies into neatly defined packages: small waists, full hips, toned thighs.
For a moment, it seemed as though the cycle might finally break. The 2010s ushered in the era of body positivity, inclusivity campaigns, and a departure from the toxic, diet-obsessed culture of the ‘90s and 2000s. There was light at the end of the tunnel. Talk of dismantling unrealistic beauty standards. Plus-size representation expanded, high-fashion campaigns featured stretch marks and cellulite. The sense—however fleeting—was that thinness was no longer the only ticket to desirability.
Alas, a society accepting of multifarious beauty ideals was simply too good to be true. I’m sure I speak for all millennial women when I say the return of Y2K was met with bone-chilling horror. The low-rise jeans, micro-minis, and baby tees of our teen years—silhouettes that all but demand thinness—are flooding the runways once again, and with them comes the body they were designed for. Vogue Business reports a “worrying return to using extremely thin models” and a plateau in inclusivity efforts across the major fashion capitals. The early 2000s aesthetic has been revived wholesale—clothes, catwalks, and crucially, the body type that defined the era. Many plus-size models quietly slimmed down to mid-size, while straight-size models became thinner still. The era’s aesthetic feels inseparable from its body politics.
Where fashion leads, plastic surgery follows. Enter the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), who have neatly labelled the latest ideal: the ballet body. Their 2023 report shows a surge in demand for liposuction and breast enhancements, fuelled by the pursuit of a lean, sculpted frame. In an interview with Washington Post, ASPS president Steven Williams put it bluntly: “There really has been almost a decade of ‘more curves are better’… and now it seems like we’re taking a bit of an abrupt turn to something a little bit more slim.”
Between 2019 and 2022, breast augmentation surgeries dropped by 18%, while breast reductions surged by 54%. Plastic surgeons are also witnessing unprecedented demand for BBL reversals, implant removals, and “naturalisation” procedures. The exaggerated curves of the 2010s are quietly undone, replaced by “subtle work”.
The ballet body has collided with the weight-loss revolution driven by anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic. Celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Elon Musk openly discuss semaglutide, while others—like Kourtney Kardashian Barker—capitalise on it through wellness brands. In Brazil, Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes recently promised widespread availability if re-elected, declaring, “Rio will be a city where there will be no more fat people. Everyone will be taking Ozempic at family clinics.”
These medications can be life-changing for people medically requiring weight loss. However, coupling a renewed idolisation of ballet bodies with medically assisted thinness creates a dangerous cocktail. Doctors already report patients suffering severe side effects after acquiring Ozempic online without proper medical need.
When it all feels too overwhelming, it bears remembering that the house always wins. You can chase body trends, carve yourself into this season’s shape, and still find yourself out of fashion when the next one rolls in. These trends don’t evolve, they’re recycled and repackaged in new and insidious ways. The same impossible standards, now in a ballet leotard. The same unattainable body, now with a prescription. You could keep up. You could shrink, sculpt, and submit—or you could opt out entirely. Decide that your body is not a silhouette, not a season’s must-have, not an aesthetic to be modified at the market’s whim.
For me, that means accepting that while my curves would’ve made me a Renaissance muse back in the day, I’m more than happy to relegate myself to the archives, eschewing Y2K revivals, especially those favoring a low-rise silhouette, and clinging defiantly to high-waisted denim for dear life, outdated, uncool millennial that I am.