Shapes throughout history

The meaning of being ‘beautiful’ has in fact changed tremendously throughout history.  The ideal body figure has gone from a curvaceous hourglass figure to a thinner and less curvy shape.  
The 20th century has seen a huge upsurge in the importance placed by Western society on physical beauty, particularly for women. The fashion, cosmetics and plastic surgery industries have thrived during the 20th century because the population was extremely preoccupation with physical appearance. Not surprisingly, in Victorian society, it was considered a woman’s duty to make herself beautiful. In the early 20th century, it was believed that ‘self-presentation’ is enjoyable, expressive and creative.  
The first time the media played a role in portraying feminine beauty was in the 1890s, when the ‘Gibson Girl’ was first created. The Gibson Girl was a group of stories that illustrated the ideal female body of that era.  First appearing in Life Magazine in the 1890s, the “Gibson Girl” set what some argue as the first national standard for a feminine beauty ideal.  During that time, Camille Clifford was believed to be the most beautiful woman, simply because of her S-shaped figure.  The images of her epitomized the late nineteenth and early 20th century Western preoccupation with statuesque, youthful features, and ephemeral beauty. Society has always been concerned about physical appearances and body shape.  
Beauty was an essential attribute for a woman to become successful in Hollywood during the 1950’s. This period was also the beginning of the ties between the film and fashion industries, which would continue for decades to come.  
The mid and early 20th century also put a huge emphasis on body shape.  Women were considered beautiful if their bodies were curvy, and not necessarily skinny.  Three of the major film stars of the 50s, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Kim Novak, were blonde and extremely curvaceous, and were considered among the most beautiful women of their time.  In fact, beauty icon Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14, an unacceptable size in today’s social scale.
In the 1990’s model Kate Moss created a disturbing standard of extreme thinness, which continues to tremendously impact the fashion world today. The ‘grunge’ movement in rock also music popularized an unkempt, natural style, personified by Moss, in opposition to the heavily artificial looks of the 19sx80s.  
Recently, there has been a huge increase in cosmetic surgery.  Many consumers have their figure faults corrected by cosmetic surgery with implants or liposuction fat reduction.  Plastic surgery was originally developed thousands of years ago in India for treating injuries and birth defects.  Just over a century ago in 1885 surgeons began performing cosmetic surgery operations in order to make people more socially accepted.
Although standards of beauty are incredibly diverse and constantly changing, we all have an image of what we consider beautiful, one that is probably affected by the media.  We all watch MTV, and read the many magazines that put a huge emphasis on physical appearance.  We carelessly ignore, just as our ancestors have, that the meaning of beauty does not only refer to how many pounds a person is or what body shape a person is, but rather a combination of internal and external characteristics.