In this episode of Pinkpilled, we cover The Gibson Girl, a fictitious 19th-century beauty icon who permanently informed our beauty standards.
The Gibson Girl was created and recreated by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson in the 1890s - 1910s. She may have been fictional, but she became a beauty icon in America and beyond.
Her tiny waist and s-curve posture were achieved with the help of a highly restrictive Edwardian corset that altered the anatomy of real women:
The Gibson Girl walked so the Flapper Girl could run.
And though the Gibson Girl eventually fell out of favor, we see her effect today: She was the first aspirational icon who connected consumerism to the achievement of a particular type of beauty.
The Gibson Girl was the blueprint for our beauty standards.
We still look at beauty icons as aspirational, and products as a means to an end. Think: The now-infamous Sydney Sweeney “good genes” ad for American Eagle denim.
That’s it for this mini-sode.
What do you think? Tell me in the comments; I read every single one.
Up next on Modern Hysteria, we bring back friend of the pod and therapist Grace Bithell to discuss attachment theory and disorganized attachment, the least-understood of the attachment styles.
