“Fashion has begun exaggerating, or distorting, the female form like never before,” writes Vanessa Friedman in The New York Times. “What exactly is going on?” From puffed sleeves the size of balloons to extreme waist-cinching corsets to illusions of cartoonishly curvy hips, what is “in” seems to be whatever isn’t natural. With the help of advancing technology and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, people have come to regard body modification as something that can be achieved by easier means than exercise, diet or going under the knife. Renewed interest in tiny waistlines and hourglass shapes also comes amid a rise in conservative gender politics. “At the same time, as the fight over women’s bodies and who gets to control them becomes public, women are seeking more control over their own flesh,” Friedman writes. “Erasing it or reshaping it is a statement of choice and, sometimes, security.”
