Vintage weight-gain ads.
The lesson to be learned? Society may (always) have a constrained view of what’s attractive, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy into it.
Live in the body that makes you happy and healthy and forget what society tells you about how you should look.
<3
I attend a fashion university and one of the main points brought up during our history classes are these ads. As said above, ‘society’ always has an ‘ideal beauty’, but this changes through the decades. It’s thought this happens because the ‘ideal’ is always what’s the most difficult to attain, and therefore as it’s more difficult, there are fewer people who conform to it making it even more desirable.
Which is why in these ads (which I’m guessing are post-war) the idea is to gain weight because food was short, most were skinny, and it was harder to be fuller figured. Now however, food is widely and readily available to most (particularly fast food and in Western cultures) meaning it’s more ‘difficult’ to be lean and those who are are in the minority, making it the desirable.
^ that is actually really interesting!
Reblogging for the above comment^
(via sweetladygenevieve)
