#BodyPositive: How women reclaimed the idea of the Perfect Body

Amelia Crombleholme | 27th December 2017

It’s a frosty winter morning, and the temperature hasn’t reached above 5 degrees since July, but you wouldn’t guess it from walking through Manchester. The cold weather is normal here; complaining will bring you strange looks. In the trendy-as-hell Northern Quarter, people do what they want and wear what they like. Girls totter over the icy pavements in massive heels and tiny skirts, while boys lounge in shop doorways wearing ragged shorts and hand-dyed t-shirts. There’s no shame in what you look like.

Georgia and Holly, two students from Birmingham, are trying on clothes in Affleck’s Palace, an eclectic shopping emporium on Church Street, famous for selling “alternative” clothing.

“I think there’s definitely a more positive attitude to different body types and styles here,” says Georgia. “At home I find it hard to find clothes that fit me or look good on me. Cause I’m size 18 there was this attitude in shops I went to that “oh, you can’t wear that, you have to be normal to look good in that.” I mean, what’s normal anyway? Here they don’t care… there isn’t a normal.”

She tries on a pink corset top. When she posts it on Facebook later it will receive over 100 likes.

“We’re called a niche shop when we’re one of the most popular shops in Manchester,” says one employee. “I think the fashion magazines and others are losing their influence quite a bit. What people want and especially women want is not what the snobs in the industry think we want. The internet has really changed that, people are now going online to find inspiration and to buy clothes.”

Certainly, if you seek fashion or fitness advice online, what you find is very different to what appears in the traditional media. While “fashion bible” Vogue continually hawks drab, overpriced clothes worn by worryingly thin models, searching “#bodypositive” online will bring up women of all ages, races, shapes and sizes, wearing whatever they want. Body Positive means embracing yourself, whether you’re naturally overweight, skinny or muscular, or if your body has been changed by experiences such as childbirth or illness. Anyone can be body positive, although the movement is overwhelmingly popular among women, and especially women considered “plus-size” (size 12 or above) and female body builders.

The idea of “reclaiming” women’s bodies from the media’s sexualised and distorted representation has been a popular feminist issue since the 1960s, when the use of excessively skinny models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton became popular (compare those women with celebrities from the 40s and 50s and realise just how quickly waistlines went down). But by the 21st century, our idea of a “perfect body” – impossibly thin with improbably large breasts – had become so normalised that it felt like the battle could never be won. Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia were at an all-time high, with 20% of sufferers dying from complications, but still widely misunderstood as a mental illness.

Jodie Salt (pictured above) is the co-founder of Violet and Charlie, a Manchester-based company dedicated to empowering women by teaching them body confidence. She believes that society’s obsession with the “perfect body” had reached its peak by the mid- 2000s.

“Ten years ago up until five years ago I think that’s when it was getting at its worst, cause social media had reached its peak the way it is now but nobody had realised the kind of negative impact it was having.”

She feels that the body positive movement is a backlash against the promotion of unrealistic images of women
“20 to 25 years ago there were no mobile phones, there was no social media… most people didn’t have the internet, so there was none of this external pressure. Because of the technology now available to enhance images, to airbrush and to photoshop… it’s given girls a false impression of what a normal body looks like. Everyone’s enhancing the real image of themselves.”

As a mother of three daughters, the lack of self-esteem the media promotes to young girls is a huge concern for Jodie. One of the inspirations for Violet and Charlie was The Body Image Movement, an Australian company that aims to “end the body-hating” epidemic” and is one of many companies that has recently emerged to promote body confidence.

“It’s working hard to provide body education free to children. That’s what I’m passionate about. Children are at their most influential age, if you don’t get to young boys and girls by the age of 11 or 12, I think it could be too late.
“It’s pretty shocking. 91% of women are unhappy with at least one part of their body. (Insecurity about your appearance) doesn’t go away as you get older. You’ve got people who are self-harming, people who are taking their own lives. You’ve got to put a stop to all this.”

Almost inevitably, a backlash has started against the movement, mainly against the fact that it works against itself. Many feel that it promotes obesity, while shaming women who are naturally skinny. Others have pointed out that the movement mainly celebrates white women. Meanwhile, popular plus-size models like Ashley Graham and Robyn Lawley are still very much a minority within the fashion industry, which is still snobbish towards “body diversity”. Some dismiss women who constantly flaunt their bodies on social media as narcissists, feeding their own vanity rather than trying to help others.

So is it all just a fad? Will society have gone back to its self-absorbed, “thinner-is-better” mind-set in 10 years’ time? Jodie prefers to be optimistic. “I think there’s enough women who feel that strongly about it to make it happen. There’s a wave of women working hard on it now. It’s becoming a cultural shift… I think within the next 10 years you’ll see a big difference.”

For more details of Violet and Charlie’s funky, no sh*t, development programme for women click here: violetandcharlie.com

Affleck’s Palace is open: Wednesday 27th December – Friday 29th December 10:30am – 6:00pm; Saturday 30th December 10:00am – 6:00pm; New Years Eve 11:00am – 5:00pm. It is closed on New Year’s Day.

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